[Monti]

The usual answer coming from the Left is well-known: Marx has showed that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas in society. So we need not be surprised that the left parties are unable to institute by election a government that fundamentally alters the balance of power between classes.

It is a bit short and easy. Is it realistic to think that this mechanism remains efficient for more than a century and in the whole world? Are the people so stupid that for so long they cannot understand?

According to me, the answer is wholly different. The people will mandate the Left to reform society when they think that it is more credible than the Right. That has never yet happened. Because the credibility of the Left has never been enough convincing. Both social-democrats and radicals are powerless in front of the difficulty to establish justice.

It is much more difficult to govern society at the advantage of the poor than of the rich. To succeed reforms that increase social justice (equality), you must be very very very wise. So wise has a left party never been. The people feel it and logically vote mostly for the Centre or the Right. I think it is wisdom.

You could object: Mitterrand had won the elections of 1981 in France. True. But the Mitterrand story is the one of a fiasco. The victory was only apparent. France was not less capitalist after 14 years of Mitterrand presidency than at the beginning.

Must we conclude that it is impossible to reform fundamentally society towards justice? No, it is not. But the Left must change its behaviour, its program, its strategy and its ideology. It is the price for becoming credible. Particularly, it must give up on Marxism. Do you think that voters of this century will give the power to people who are wondering “what is the meaning of the dictatorship of the proletariat?

[Rich]

Well first off, the number one reason our system is so robust is that it is not capitalist, or to put it another way it has become much less capitalist over time. The current system, where a small class controls a substantial percentage of the capital stock is at least 5000 years old. In some of the earliest states, the biggest capitalists were worshipped as Gods, very far from today where the 1% are constantly derided and insulted.

The second reason is that the current system inherited much from even earlier systems. Hunter Gatherers were less communist than imagined. Trade and the market also goes way back possibly even predating homo sapiens.

[Wellsy]

Well first off, the number one reason our system is so robust is that it is not capitalist, or to put it another way it has become much less capitalist over time. The current system, where a small class controls a substantial percentage of the capital stock is at least 5000 years old. In some of the earliest states, the biggest capitalists were worshipped as Gods, very far from today where the 1% are constantly derided and insulted.

The second reason is that the current system inherited much from even earlier systems. Hunter Gatherers were less communist than imagined. Trade and the market also goes way back possibly even predating homo sapiens.

This seems a bit to simplistic
Do you doubt there were not haters back in the day? And that there aren’t those who almost worship the more public figures among the wealth today. How many still venerate Musk for example, and other CEO figures as an ideal example of achievement and competence in their wealth? Many people are upset but there is more propaganda that even amidst the system people still essentially support the existence of capitalist production in the same way people have long hated cops but now we have copaganda shows and even the most critical still defend reforms and money going towards police for impoverished and dysfunctional communities.

Also trade and markets predating capitalist production doesn’t mark any insight into essential qualities of capitalism as trade and such have often been a peripheral to societies rather than the dominant mode of interaction of people. More common between relative strangers than within communities.l that had other ways of organizing the movement of goods. Not that some societies didn’t have a predominance of trade but one local group becoming dependent on trade due to lack of local resources needs a further point as to its expansion beyond such a group still and how it dominates local life also.

And rather something that is accidental in past society becomes universal and essential later on. That is it wasn’t dominant but commodities predating capitalist production is a necessary condition before it can become more generalized and dominant in society and reshape other institutions/ways of life. Otherwise history would appear magical with something appearing all at once. While markets are essential to capitalism, it doesn’t essentially define what is specific to the reproduction of capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/geoff4.htm#Pill10

Here are innumerable confusions. First, capital is equated with ‘efficient machinery’ and the ‘application of science to industry’. Capital is simply, for Joan Robinson as for all political economists, ‘stored up labour’. On this view, as Marx long ago indicated, the first capital was the first stone picked up by the first savage. Second – and this is a reflection of the first error – capital and land are lumped together. A social relation is joined up with the basic prerequisite for the production of wealth in all societies. Third, the point about the productivity of capital is completely misunderstood. We have already tried to explain the sense in which Marx saw labour as the ‘creator’ of value. Abstract labour creates value: that is a definite social form of labour produces and reproduces definite social relations of production. But this does not mean that the ‘objective factors of production’ are to be denied any form of ‘productivity’. On the contrary, to the extent that these factors raise the level of production they are certainly productive, but productive of use-values (a category which Joan Robinson continually confuses with value).

This is why you deny capitalism as existing because you haven’t a concept which distinguishes it from what is shares with historical characteristics, it is just a complex addition to our modes of production in the past.
It sees o ly technical material productions and transfer of goods and misses the specific social relations that govern the the organization of material production and thus become ahistorical.



The strength of commodification is the fracturing of the social fabric which people must resist. The political landscape is very different from gathering up factory workers. New conditions, new problems, needs to adapt.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/SP-talk.htm

Here a little dialectics is necessary. Class consciousness means a social class, sharing common conditions of life, and a social movement organised around a demand for justice and a vision of the future. But these two entities are never actually identical. Class consciousness is the unity of two opposites which are never absolutely identical.
The working class that Kautsky envisaged becoming more and more homogeneous and gradually swelling to include the entire population is not going to come about. Class consciousness is very weak, and quite honestly I don’t see the social basis for it turning the corner, at least not in countries like Australia. Just as in the earliest days of communism, communists will probably belong to small groups, ‘secret societies’.
But secondly, while proletarian class consciousness is very fragmented and weak, capitalism has become absolutely ubiquitous, it covers the entire globe and penetrates even the most private and the most communal of relations. As a result, the potential for an anti-capitalist formation, based on the social conditions of all of us suffering under capitalism, is really there. But when I say ‘formation’ I mean that it cannot be a ‘movement’ like the social movements of the past. I'm sorry, but I think the social conditions for such movements, which gave the communists the opportunity to contest for leadership of the people, have gone.
This is not a bad thing. It just means that the social conditions for socialist revolution and for socialism itself are coming about in a somewhat different way than we envisaged. The Manifesto envisaged:
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” [Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2]
The communist ideal has always been connected with the modern wage labourer insofar as he or she thinks in and for his or her class. The task of Marxists today is to figure out how to translate that vision into forms of social consciousness which make sense in today’s world, in a form which embraces the irreducible diversity of modern society. The writings of Karl Marx and the experience of millions who have fought the good fight over the past 150 years remain a priceless resource, ... so long as we are prepared to find new solutions to new problems.

[Rancid]

I think this one is actually easy to answer.

Capitalism is a an emergent property of human interaction. It is not a system that was conceived and implemented with a specific intent. Thus, by default, it will be more robust as it is simply a natural consequence of how humans behave in a world where resources are limited. Capitalism was discovered, not invented. Communism, was invented, not discovered. This by default, makes something like communism far more difficult to implement, as it goes against the natural inclinations of human behavior and requires intent and design to implement.

I agree with the point @Rich has made. Since we've discovered this mechanism of interaction we call capitalism. We've decided to try and place some sort of management around it because the natural cycles of capitalism can cause disaster occasionally. To prevent this, we attempt to place controls over capitalism, much like we place controls on river systems with dams to try and reduce natural disasters.

I think we need to view capitalism almost has a force of nature. For this reason, like the weather, the rivers, the mountains; capitalism is a naturally robust.

[Potemkin]

I think this one is actually easy to answer.

Capitalism is a an emergent property of human interaction. It is not a system that was conceived and implemented with a specific intent. Thus, by default, it will be more robust as it is simply a natural consequence of how humans behave in a world where resources are limited. Capitalism was discovered, not invented. Communism, was invented, not discovered. This by default, makes something like communism far more difficult to implement, as it goes against the natural inclinations of human behavior and requires intent and design to implement.

I agree with the point @Rich has made. Since we've discovered this mechanism of interaction we call capitalism. We've decided to try and place some sort of management around it because the natural cycles of capitalism can cause disaster occasionally. To prevent this, we attempt to place controls over capitalism, much like we place controls on river systems with dams to try and reduce natural disasters.

I think we need to view capitalism almost has a force of nature. For this reason, like the weather, the rivers, the mountains; capitalism is a naturally robust.

Communism, in the sense of the “primitive communism” of the human hunter-gatherer stage of development, is more ‘natural’ than capitalism. After all, the human race lived in communist societies for hundreds of thousands of years (millions of years, if you count our hominid ancestors), whereas capitalism has existed only for the past 500 years or less. And class inequality has existed only for the past 10,000 years or so.

[Pants-of-dog]

In one word: colonialism.

Capitalism was invented shortly after colonialism started, and would probably not have lasted without the enormous influx of resources that also happened at that time. And then there were several centuries of colonialism, capitalism, and modern racism all working together to support each other, and here we are.

[Rancid]

Communism, in the sense of the “primitive communism” of the human hunter-gatherer stage of development, is more ‘natural’ than capitalism. After all, the human race lived in communist societies for hundreds of thousands of years (millions of years, if you count our hominid ancestors), whereas capitalism has existed only for the past 500 years or less. And class inequality has existed only for the past 10,000 years or so.

ok ok ok ok ok...

So maybe here's another question when it comes to natural communism versus natural capitalism.

Which is capable of scaling and still remain more robust? That is the difference between 5000 years ago and today. Human interactions are scaled due to technology.

[Tainari88]

@Rancid Where was European socialism first started and why? It was a reaction to the class system in France. The Age of Enlightenment influenced the radicalism of the US Constitution and the founding of a Republic. An independent one at that.

The French have their slogan there. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Freedom (Liberty), Equality, and Brotherhood. The French Revolutionary goals. The first Conspiracy of Equals was the modern version of Communism. That would be Noel Babeuf. Gracchus. It was a reaction to the French nobility that was seen as alienated from the ordinary people in France's circumstances. The Guillotine and all that. Off with their heads. Napoleon Bonaparte exploited that mass movement and busted a move. He was a French nationalist fascist in behavior that took a page out of an old Roman-style Emperor's book. In fact, the French tried to install themselves in Mexico as Emperor of Mexico.

The first socialists did not want a nobility, or an emperor, and the old monarchical system in France did not become the new modern France. France abolished eventually Kings and Queens. They are the French Republic and remain so to this day. The Statue of Liberty has a copy in France. They gifted it to the Americans. Who wanted a free Republic?

The first conspiracy of equals was started during the French Revolution. The Age of Enlightenment. Rancid what do you think of it? It was a return to the Classical democratic values of Ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, and this time an abolishment of slavery. Since Rome had slaves. It rejected the previous emphasis on theocracies, the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches (in Germany, England, etc.), and an emphasis on humanism. Part of that is making humans the center of how you structure society. If you are a socialist you meet their needs by how well each person has the ability to get their needs met. It was the first step in creating equality in a human society.

Here is the root of that concept:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme. The principle refers to free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services.

That means that a worker who works for a living and also contributes to their society has a right to get their needs met. Not be exploited, paid nothing or next to nothing like a slave or an indentured servant had as a life, and no real access to regular meals, safe housing, and other basics.

Socialism in its early stages is about workers getting their needs met. By working and their own abilities. In the past societies, you could work your entire life and drop dead in a workhouse with nothing of having any of your needs met. Not for yourself, your children, or your family. Just exploited living in stark poverty until you were met by death and disease. Thrown in a pauper's grave and forgotten.

Socialism states, that a working individual has needs and abilities you work and have an ability? You shall get the promise of getting your needs met. The state promises that.

It is the beginning of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité the French creed of the French Revolution.

England and Spain still to this day have monarchies. Neither nation abolished their monarchies. Neither were the believers in democratic Republics.

It is a start.

[Tainari88]

@Rancid you can start with that guy and then keep going.

@Potemkin if you want to write about early communally based societies.

Many old ancient societies Rancid lived with pooled resources. Especially nomadic ones who did not live off the land and agriculture yet.

It is very interesting.

He was a working dude (Francois Noel Babeuf or Gracchus) who came out of the fires of the French Revolution. He was a revolutionary socialist. The reality is France was the first nation to break from class based nobility systems with merchant capitalism already underway.

Napoleon Bonaparte again took advantage of the Revolutionary instability to grab power for himself. He also wanted to have France expand. They invaded or planned to invade Russia, Mexico, reinstated slavery in the French Caribbean and African French colonies.

I really dislike Napoleon. But he was ambitious for sure. Short man with big cojones and ambitions. The Usurper, and other little epithets in history he was called.

[Rancid]

@Rancid you can start with that guy and then keep going.

@Potemkin if you want to write about early communally based societies.

Many old ancient societies Rancid lived with pooled resources. Especially nomadic ones who did not live off the land and agriculture yet.

It is very interesting.

He was a working dude (Francois Noel Babeuf or Gracchus) who came out of the fires of the French Revolution. He was a revolutionary socialist. The reality is France was the first nation to break from class based nobility systems with merchant capitalism already underway.

Napoleon Bonaparte again took advantage of the Revolutionary instability to grab power for himself. He also wanted to have France expand. They invaded or planned to invade Russia, Mexico, reinstated slavery in the French Caribbean and African French colonies.

I really dislike Napoleon. But he was ambitious for sure. Short man with big cojones and ambitions. The Usurper, and other little epithets in history he was called.

I'm curious if anyone discusses scale like I mentioned earlier though. What scales easier? Capitalistic behaviors or Communistic behaviors?

FOr better or worse, it seems capitalism had an easier time scaling up with population and technology. Capitalism in fact, fueled/accelerated it's own scaling.

[B0ycey]

Is the capitalist system robust? Can think of a few bubbles in the past that says otherwise. How many "fixes" can the system go before it breaks? My take is capitalism will remain until the poor revolts as the wealth divide gets wider. I don't know if that is the working class (proletariat) or poor nations revolting again the Western world order. But I do think how capitalism works will one day be its downfall because when things collapse, there seem to be ever larger financial burdens to nations who already have huge borrowing with a populous of personal debt mountains and bank of toxic assets and bad loans.

[Tainari88]

I'm curious if anyone discusses scale like I mentioned earlier though. What scales easier? Capitalistic behaviors or Communistic behaviors?

FOr better or worse, it seems capitalism had an easier time scaling up with population and technology. Capitalism in fact, fueled/accelerated it's own scaling.

What has kept capitalism going is really socialistic program reforms. How long will the masses remain calm when they do not have unemployment insurance, food allotments, controlled rents, social security, medicare, free taxpayer based public educations and etc. All socialist programs.

Raw capitalism is boom or bust and very unstable without things like UBI.

The reality is unless you stabilize countries and give their citizens a stable economic plan? You will have problems. Capitalism is not a panacea. It needs to start being phased out and replaced with pooling the surplus labor that is going to be generated by AI, robots and efficiency tools to free up regular workers and human societies to become self sustaining without being caught what @B0ycey mentioned with horrible national debts that force austerity measures that get a lot of discontent going in those nations.

[Rancid]

What has kept capitalism going is really socialistic program reforms. How long will the masses remain calm when they do not have unemployment insurance, food allotments, controlled rents, social security, medicare, free taxpayer based public educations and etc. All socialist programs.

Raw capitalism is boom or bust and very unstable without things like UBI.

The reality is unless you stabilize countries and give their citizens a stable economic plan? You will have problems. Capitalism is not a panacea. It needs to start being phased out and replaced with pooling the surplus labor that is going to be generated by AI, robots and efficiency tools to free up regular workers and human societies to become self sustaining without being caught what @B0ycey mentioned with horrible national debts that force austerity measures that get a lot of discontent going in those nations.

Disagree, capitalism can survive without socialist reforms. The socialist reforms are there to just try and help make it's negative effects less. Like controlling a river (capitalism) with a dam (socialist reforms). IF the dam is removed, the river will endure. What will not endure are people, lots of death and chaos. Capitalism is just fine without socialist reforms. It doesn't give a shit about people, like a river that floods.

[B0ycey]

Capitalism is just fine without socialist reforms. It doesn't give a shit about people, like a river that floods.

Capitalism is a social construct. It's existence is determined by people maintaining its existence. I wonder, if a solar flare wiped away our digital footprint and the financial system completely collapsed, would Capitalism still be in place? I don't think it will. People would demand something much fairer.

[Potemkin]

ok ok ok ok ok...

So maybe here's another question when it comes to natural communism versus natural capitalism.

Which is capable of scaling and still remain more robust? That is the difference between 5000 years ago and today. Human interactions are scaled due to technology.

Because capitalism is a machine for expanding the forces of production. What you mean by ‘scaling’ is just the expansion of the forces of production, and this is not driven by technology - technology is a result and not the cause of this process - but by capitalist competition and exploitation. The surplus value created by exploited human labour power is reinvested - and must be reinvested - in the further expansion of the means of production, or else the capitalist will fail to compete and go bankrupt. Capitalism is predicated on endless growth, infinite expansion on a finite planet. We see the results of this all around us, both good and bad.

[annatar1914]

Because capitalism is a machine for expanding the forces of production. What you mean by ‘scaling’ is just the expansion of the forces of production, and this is not driven by technology - technology is a result and not the cause of this process - but by capitalist competition and exploitation. The surplus value created by exploited human labour power is reinvested - and must be reinvested - in the further expansion of the means of production, or else the capitalist will fail to compete and go bankrupt. Capitalism is predicated on endless growth, infinite expansion on a finite planet. We see the results of this all around us, both good and bad.

@Potemkin ,

There's that Faustian infinity again. Capitalism is one of it's main products and it probably could not have been created by any other culture than the Western one.

[Monti]

Reading the reactions/ answers lets me understand that the title of my rticle is a little confusing. In fact, it is elliptic, aiming at simplicity. The fundamental question is not about capitalism as a system but about the characteristics of modern capitalism, especially the degree of inequality prevailing today.
It is obvious that many persons in the low levels of the pyramid of income vote for parties defending a form of pyramid not favourable to them. Left parties seem unable to convince them that they can give them a better life.
I am personally convinced that a better life IS possible. Then, the question arises: why this unability? It is a vast and complex question. There are certainly many reasons. The sense of my article is to show that a big part of the responsability hangs on the left parties themselve.

[Wellsy]

While not entirely relevant to the shift right today, this adds some historical context to the structure of what are often at most centre left parties.

Entire series is an interesting overview and introduction for the 20th century . An interesting point is how leftist parties adapted to the decline of unions by shifting right to appeal to a broader voter base while more leftist voters were trapped in having to vote for them as the most left party available.

[Rancid]

Because capitalism is a machine for expanding the forces of production. What you mean by ‘scaling’ is just the expansion of the forces of production, and this is not driven by technology - technology is a result and not the cause of this process - but by capitalist competition and exploitation. The surplus value created by exploited human labour power is reinvested - and must be reinvested - in the further expansion of the means of production, or else the capitalist will fail to compete and go bankrupt. Capitalism is predicated on endless growth, infinite expansion on a finite planet. We see the results of this all around us, both good and bad.

Agree.

BUT!!! When capitalism is done eating everything. It will raise again from the ashes to start eating again. So long as there are at least 2 humans in existence. Can't stop, won't stop. Capitalism grinds all day.

Capitalism is a social construct. It's existence is determined by people maintaining its existence. I wonder, if a solar flare wiped away our digital footprint and the financial system completely collapsed, would Capitalism still be in place? I don't think it will. People would demand something much fairer.

It's a social construct like math is to physics. The absence of our understanding of math doesn't mean physics isn't real. In your scenario, I think capitalism will raise once again. So long as there are humans, there will be capitalism in some form. This is what I mean by capitalism is "natural".

[Wellsy]

That makes capitalism seem too natural and internal to humans rather than a product of a specific arrangement of conditions which developed enough to he reproduce itself and generalize across much of society. Many things can be embryonic in form and find a self causing relationship in human activity, although whether they become dominant is one of struggle and not a historical inevitability.
Markets and commodities existed for a long tome before capitalism began developing.