[Rich]

Just as technological changes made modern capitalism possible, technology will in time eliminate its hold on the world.

What technological changes made modern capitalism possible and how does modern Capitalism differ from unmodern Capitalism?

What follows on may be good or bad, but it won't be capitalism as we understand it.

And exactly how do you understand it? According to the British Socialist Workers Party the Soviet union was Capitalist from 1929. Maybe their understanding differs from yours? What use is a term that seems to have widely differing interpretations even amongst Marxists?

Ultimately it's socialism or barbarism, as it's always been.

Yeah but that's what you Marxists said in the first world war. That's what you said in the great depression, that's waht you said after the second world war. Sure one day we may barbarism, or even total human anhilation, stopped clocks and all that, but the fact is although we've had plenty of regressive barbarism since Marx came on the scene, we've had plenty from the Marxists, when they've had the opportunity to run the show.

[Noelnada]

The only unresolvable crisis I perceive is the loss of the ability to control the means of production.

I don't know why lately i have been convinced that a Universal Income could help achieve that, coupled with light decentralized energy supplies, light industrial production and with work market deregulation and appropriate market regulations.

I don't think it would even require a bloody revolution to happen, just some grassroot transpectrum political movement.

[quetzalcoatl]

What technological changes made modern capitalism possible and how does modern Capitalism differ from unmodern Capitalism?

This is pretty basic, no?

Why is a feudal lord not a capitalist? Several reasons, but one of the most important is that his wealth is based mostly on land rent. He can place only so many serfs on so many plots of land. If he wishes to accumulate more wealth, he must do so by accumulation of more land (warfare) or pillaging the accumulated wealth of neighbors (more warfare). There is no easy way, given the available technology, to leverage his land into greater wealth.

The traders started the ball rolling, once sailing ship and weapon technology made regular trade routes much more profitable. So profitable that the first LLCs were started to fund them. But trading is basically limited to small high-value portable goods, like spices or slaves. The holds of sailing ships were small and they were regularly lost at sea. Land trade was limited by the necessity of employing numerous guards to fend off brigands.

It was the technology of the industrial revolution that enabled a capitalist to leverage the labor of hundreds and even thousands of laborers. An explosion of new wealth, innovation, and elevated prosperity made the development of a new middle class possible.

This process reached its peak in the mid-twentieth century. As new innovations became more costly and markets saturated, the quest for capital accumulation transferred to financial markets. Finance, which had been an adjunct to trade and manufacturing, became the absolute center of modern capitalism. It is so much easier to "innovate" virtual financial products than new goods limited by intractable physical restraints. This process was accelerated by digital technology.

In the manufacturing industries, innovation was spurred first by offshoring labor (innovation is defined as the process of eliminating jobs). Labor offshoring was made possible by the technology of large and reliable ships powered by internal-combustion tech. Offshoring is only a temporary fix. Once you have Bangladeshi children making your clothes, there's nowhere left to go.

The second major innovation of the post-manufacturing economy was digital automation. This (as Bill Gates acknowledged) was a piggy-back onto technology developed by central governments.

The end goal of automation technology is the reduction of labor costs to zero. This process is universal, and affects all areas of the economy, not just manufacturing. The defining characteristic of emerging industries today is their non-reliance on labor.

The same impersonal economic forces that spurred the development of a middle class, are now destroying it. Goods are cheap, but so are jobs (for most people).

I'm sure you can use your own powers of analysis to recognize the inevitable direction all this is leading.

And exactly how do you understand it? According to the British Socialist Workers Party the Soviet union was Capitalist from 1929. Maybe their understanding differs from yours? What use is a term that seems to have widely differing interpretations even amongst Marxists?

It is what it is. I don't care a whit what you call it, or what imaginary definitions you lay down. The definition of capitalism is what capitalism actually is, the ultimate WYSIWYG. If you can make one universal statement about capitalism, it might be its viral mutability and corrosive destruction of the existing order.

[Potemkin]

And exactly how do you understand it? According to the British Socialist Workers Party the Soviet union was Capitalist from 1929. Maybe their understanding differs from yours? What use is a term that seems to have widely differing interpretations even amongst Marxists?

The SWP are a bunch of middle-class British Trotskyites. If I were you, I wouldn't place too much credence on what they have to say about anything. As for what capitalism itself is, I think the most basic definition is twofold: that it is the private ownership of the means of production, combined with the investment of capital for profit. Everything else follows on from those two factors.

[KlassWar]

The SWP are the very worst breed of Trotskyite, and unsurprisingly they've got their analysis ass-backwards. The USSR didn't become capitalist in 1929 in any way whatsoever: The '20s era Soviet Union was a state-capitalist Worker's State. The construction of socialism proper started in 1929, and the Soviets were a socialist country by 1936. It then remained a socialist country until the Kosygin 'counter-reformation' in the early Brezhnev era, which reverted the Soviet Union right back to state capitalism.

Stalin had serious faults: He was a brutal schemer that escated fractional strife to pathologically murderous levels, and the resulting blood-feuds have plagued the communist movement to this day. His management of the Comintern was shambolic in every way. He was disturbingly willing to make shameful compromises with social conservatives, and worse yet he was cynical enough to try and justify them ideologically, a grievous error that entrenched them for a long time.

Mao put it brilliantly: "There's contradictions between the people and contradictions between the people and its enemies: Stalin had trouble telling them apart."

But he was NOT the gravedigger of Soviet socialism: Far from it, Stalin and his supporters actually frog-marched the country kicking and screaming through its construction. Proof's in the pudding: Stalin's Red Army withstood and vanquished the all-out assault of the Fascist murder machine, and by the time he kicked the bucket world communism had went from a single state capitalist country to a massive bloc of socialist countries, with a clear conventional superiority with the West and able to supply every communist insurgency known to mankind with heaps of money and materiel.

[Political Interest]

Maybe you should specify more of what you believe to be the best of each side. You should also read some Alain de Benoist or other thinkers who don't neatly fall into the right left spectrum.

Alain de Benoist has some very good ideas and I am interested in what what little of his material I can find in English. I do not agree with his desire to resurrect European paganism but he makes many good observations on a variety of topics, nonetheless. And to make it very clear, he is not a fascist in any way shape or form.

Positives of the right wing: Traditionalism, respect for heritage and folk culture, a desire to preserve faith, love of the nation (or community).

Positives of the left wing: Communitarian socialism, provision of social needs for the whole society, anti-imperialism, anti-racism

I should also point out that many third positionists and fascists aren't racist, there are many other forms of nationalism. For example ethnic and/or racial nationalism would be a doomed proposition in the US. A type of cultural nationalism could be highly viable though.

The problem is that the legacy of fascism has become associated with racism. We cannot really modify fascism. It has become tarnished and so it is not a viable ideology. There are many parts of fascism that are also undesirable. National Socialism is completely abhorrent for obvious reasons.

See, that's the problem with eliminating the left/right divisions. It overwhelmingly favors the right wing, because their goals are geared towards preservation of the ruling class. Any tempering of the goal of eliminating the ruling class, ultimately the goal of left-wing ideology, leads that person to now advocate a position wherein they are preserving the ruling class. This is unacceptable to many of the left-wing. Thus the problem is that a capitulation of the left-wing betrays their goals, and a capitulation of the right-wing achieves their goals.

But I do not want to eliminate the left or right wing, but rather combine the best of them and discard the worst.

So no, you're not asking both sides to compromise a little bit. You're asking the right-wing to give up their insane stated goals while they achieve their actual goal of the preservation of the ruling class and hierarchical structure, and you're asking the left-wing to betray every principle for which they stand. I'm sorry, I don't stand just for collectivism. If so, I would find redeeming qualities in the fascist movement because they too stand for collectivism. The fact is that to actually be a left-winger you have to advocate revolutionary ideas that will change the fabric of society. If capitulating to the right-wing for stability sounds acceptable to a left-winger, they fundamentally misunderstand what being a left-winger is.

You think this way because you are a Marxist. For me there is no actual need for class struggle.

[Rich]

What technological changes made modern capitalism possible and how does modern Capitalism differ from unmodern Capitalism?

This is pretty basic, no?

Why is a feudal lord not a capitalist? Several reasons, but one of the most important is that his wealth is based mostly on land rent. He can place only so many serfs

In Britain Serfdom had almost completely gone by 1400. Scandinavia never had serfdom, does that mean that Scandinavia was always Capitalist?

It was the technology of the industrial revolution that enabled a capitalist to leverage the labor of hundreds and even thousands of laborers.

No this was possible since Ancient times.

An explosion of new wealth, innovation, and elevated prosperity made the development of a new middle class possible.

One of the fundamentals of Marxism was that the Middle Class should disappear leaving only Bourgeois and Proletarians. No one denies there was an industrial revolution, its the conflation of that technological revolution with a revolution in Marxist categorised social relations?

This process reached its peak in the mid-twentieth century. As new innovations became more costly and markets saturated, the quest for capital accumulation transferred to financial markets. Finance, which had been an adjunct to trade and manufacturing, became the absolute center of modern capitalism. It is so much easier to "innovate" virtual financial products than new goods limited by intractable physical restraints. This process was accelerated by digital technology.

You're conflating the recent expansion of new financial products and the classical early twentieth century Marxist fixation on finance capital. The first world war was not driven by finance capital. The recent financial crisis was a product of rising house prices and the shortage of residential land in the advanced economies. Bankers are a convenient scape goat. Short of developing a warp drive to get other solar systems, the usable land is a limited and irreplaceable resource.

The end goal of automation technology is the reduction of labor costs to zero. This process is universal, and affects all areas of the economy, not just manufacturing. The defining characteristic of emerging industries today is their non-reliance on labor.

Entrepreneurs also seek to drive Capital costs towards zero, for example just in time production. Apple makes far more profit than Intel because it is far less Capital intensive. the irony is if the rate of profit fell to zero as Marx predicted then Capitalists would be forced to become workers or use up their Capital. Note its quite feasible for the real rate of return on capital to be negative if people put a premium on consuming later rather earlier. This is very possible with an ageing population. It is housing costs that are driving ever greater inequality in Britain not some jiggery pokery by the banks.

[Fasces]

You sound like a non-racist fascist, PI.

It seems all end up there eventually.

[quetzalcoatl]

You sound like a non-racist fascist, PI.

It seems all end up there eventually.

They need to get rid of the occultism bit, as well. It smacks a little too much of Brownshirts in the barracks banging each other and praying to shrines - icky and laughable at the same time.

And do they accept a materialist analysis of history of history or not? I've seen the self-identified fascists in the forum on both sides of this, so I don't know if it's de rigueur or optional.

[Potemkin]

And do they accept a materialist analysis of history of history or not? I've seen the self-identified fascists in the forum on both sides of this, so I don't know if it's de rigueur or optional.

The only self-identified fascist on PoFo I've seen adopting a materialist analysis of history is Rei, and she only seems to do that on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Every other day of the week, she's a batshit insane occultist.