It's the Economy, stupid - Languishing & Lingering after the Great Recession

but ace, that "definition" has fuck all to do with the actual world.
and, from what i've been able to gather, neither your business nor those abstract entities that populate your little anecdotes are capitalist in any real sense.
this makes me laugh.

 

When market participants enter a market with their goods/services or their demand for goods/services they enter and exit those markets as equals in a capitalist system. What separates market participants is what occurs before they enter the market and after they leave. There are examples of this.

To the degree that market participants assign value to more efficient means of production that type of productions will become more prevalent. As Ford initiated the age of mass standardized production - Ferdinand Porsche embarrassed hand-made craftsmanship. Markets assigned value to both and both co-existed for close to 100 years.

What you describe is an Americanized 20th century form of capitalism. I think this was greatly influenced by American culture and consumerism. I would argue capitalism in various forms predated this and will evolve into different forms in the future. Again, at the core we see capitalism in very different ways. Perhaps it boils down to my view of your position is that it is convoluted. And your view of my position is that it is simplistic. Either way we do not start at the same place and you won't understand where I go from there and I won't understand where you go.
--- merged: May 7, 2013 at 2:53 PM ---

Anecdotal? In short-hand, money is green. Do you apply political and morality tests to your market transactions? When you make that choice, it is your personal choice, based on what? Your politics - perhaps you won't buy Rush Limbaugh's products. Your morality - perhaps you won't purchase goods produced with slave labor. In either case a capitalist market won't make independent judgments to include or exclude these products. Morality and politics are based on what you bring to the market place, and with free choice the market responds. The market does not form political and morality views.

And in my view, you can not clearly define what you expect from capitalism and therefore you can always hold the position that it fails. This makes me laugh. The dog has a flea - it is capitalism's fault. The flea dies - it is capitalism's fault. Capitalism will not inherently place a value on the dog or the flea - market participants do that and when the market is free to respond, it will reflect those values - that is what capitalism as a system is all about.

 

ace, your "definition" of capitalism is basically an accumulation of imaginary features of imaginary actors in an imaginary economic space that you find aesthetically appealing. it's of no more consequence than is the sort of cold cuts you prefer.

against my better judgment, i tried to outline something of the generally accepted features of actually existing capitalism used by historians of the category. it's far from complete, what i wrote. but capitalism is a messy category.

it's really not a matter of some facile relativism, ace.
what you typically say about "capitalism" is analytically worthless.
that's the problem with having a conversation, really.
just so you know.

 

There are 2.25 billion cups of coffee sold/consumed per day in the world. When you (in general, not specifically) buy/consume a cup of coffee what makes your market transaction unique? How does your politics, or your morality get reflected in the market? Who in the market cares about your morality or your politics? Are there any consequences in the market that result from your morality or your political views? I would argue that you (in general, not specifically) don't know anything about the politics or morality of anyone engaged in the delivery of your cup of coffee. The delivery of the cup of coffee is so complicated one person could not possible describe all the market activity involved - certainly there is the the growing of the coffee bean - but then there are all the components of processing, delivery, marketing, storage, etc, etc., of the bean. Then there are other components, like what goes into packaging, shipping, cups, sugar, formulations, etc., etc, etc. It is not possible for a single person to engage politically or from a morality point of view from all these market activities. You either choose to participate in the market (perhaps with a pretense of knowing my coffee comes from an Eco-friendly place - which I would suggest is a method of marketing to increase price) or you choose not to participate in the market. The market doesn't care about the forest, fair wages to the farmer, landfills, sugar subsidies, health benefits/risks, child labor, who makes a profit, how big that profit is, who is President, or who is at war and who is not. Assuming the market cares reflects ignorance.

Church does not equate to religion or religious based beliefs. Personally I do not belong to a named religion or church, but my morality has been formed from a judeo-christian tradition. I would argue even many atheist have had their morality formed from a judeo-christian tradition. This judeo-christian tradition is the dominant religious system in western civilization. Religious systems are separate from political systems, but when morality questions intersect with law or politics - a person brings their morality to the political debate - with awareness or not.
--- merged: May 7, 2013 at 4:32 PM ---

Many highly educated people have debated capitalism in terms of it being a political or economic system - views have fallen on both sides of the question. I stated what I think it is. From what I could decipher from your writting I assume you believe capitalism is a political system primarily.

Even in the context of defining "system" there is worth. Just as I would not ascribe political or morality characteristics to a rain forest eco-system, I would not ascribe those characteristics to capitalism. You will. So, at its core, you can not form any analysis based on my view and I would suggest what you say is analytically worthless - as I have been illustrating with the dog/flea symbolism. Basically I have been saying your views are nonsense - if you did not pick up on that. You can not tell me what your expectation of capitalism is, but you continually provide disconnected examples of how it has failed. don't you realize what is missing from your presentation?

 

jesus christ, ace. i've indicated something of how people who actually deal with the history of actually existing capitalism organize the category (there's alot more that could be said)...but because it's too complicated for you, you act as though i didn't do it.

this is how you roll. all the time. it's really tiresome.

it's not primarily a political system. the better way of thinking about it is, still, as a mode of production in that most aspects of social and political life have come to be patterned by its types of organization and requirements (in terms of system reproduction, for example). to the extent that things like education are shaped by these requirements (and the dominant political ideology--which in the united states is largely reactionary---but, fortunately for all of us, it's not coherently imposed enough to do the sort of damage that it could---were conservative ideology, for example, thoroughly imposed, the system as a whole would collapse. it's like that with forms of capitalist ideology, really. they presuppose what they categorically exclude. but that's another story) it is also a political form to the extent that political actors route claims with respect to it.

and it has had several discrete forms--for example, after world war 2 it was close to functional in the united states given the role played by strong unions and collective bargaining in driving regular wage increases for working people across the board. this enabled a radical transformation in consumer banking and consumer debt. the story goes this fordist mode ran into limits on accumulation of capital across the 1970s, which enabled the push by the neo-liberal set---you know, the cretins attracted to thatcherism/reaganism. of course, this blinkered, idiotic worldview presided over a thorough-going undermining of the entire logic of steadily rising wages as the key to credit expansion as the key to mass consumption while retaining the debt structure, and in the process instituted a lovely system of debt peonage, while at the same time globalizing capitalism transformed labor into a variable cost. by unleashing the pathological side of capitalist accumulation--by unhinging accumulation to the need to reproduce the labor force within the metropole--globalizing capitalist production became this lunatic game of supply-chain management linking subcontractors that either find a docile, cheap workforce in repressive contexts or they're replaced by another that does.

all the while, conservative assholes talked about capitalist floating all boats.
more often than not, these were the same people whose socio-economic status was getting fucked by the same developments.
and of course because capitalism is necessarily awesome and cannot be examined critically, the sense that these people were getting fucked by the system they worship had to get explained on other grounds.
whence the contemporary american neo-fascist right.

 

You discussed an Americanized version of 20th century capitalism. My response was, o.k. - but...there is more, there is what came before there is what will come afterward. If you only want to discuss a narrow view of 20th century Americanized capitalism say so.

Again, our views differ. I suggest capitalism is broader than what you describe as a mode of production. Production is a component, but more importantly capitalism involves all aspects of market exchange and activity. I would argue any economic system would have a broader definition inclusive of all aspects of market exchange and activity. I think the key separator involves how the systems are set up to respond to market exchanges and activity. In this context, I am more from the "neo-classical" school of thought as opposed to the il-defined "neo-liberal" school of thought. I am assuming you don;t think you are either - but you won't say what school of thought your views are based on - other than saying capitalism is wrong, neo-liberalism is wrong, neo-classicalism is wrong, the dog is wrong, the flea is wrong, I am wrong, Reagan is wrong, whenever you want to pass blame - that is wrong.

Separate US politics from the issue. In the 20th century US politician used the mantra of capitalism as a form of patriotism and a means to wage "war" (war in various forms) against the evils of other political and economic systems and even to wage war against the ability of labor to organize and collective bargain. I am not disagreeing with your description, only your conclusions. There was also issues involving the morality of equal rights based on race, ethnicity, and sex - in the 20th century while free market forces wanted to be neutral on these issues, the political environment resisted. You would suggest this is a capitalism problem, it was not. It was a political problem, with politicians using the cover of capitalism.
--- merged: May 7, 2013 at 5:42 PM ---

Again, I would argue this is empty. I would suggest it is a marketing technique to raise prices on "certified" products and increase profits. Either way the market does not care if you place a value on this or if you raise your prices - and I am not suggesting the "certification" is fraudulent. What I am suggesting is that given the market and a fungible product like coffee, any "certification" is trivial.

The above illustrates my fundamental problem with roach. Failure? Fair? You have to give a standard, some objective definition first of what do you base success or failure on. What is fair? Who else agrees with these definitions, if anyone else? By definition of free market participation, transactions are "fair" assuming no fraud/deceit/force/etc and an efficient flow of information - these are some real weak points in capitalism and points to a needed role of government in my view. If I can participate in a market and engage in fraud/deceit/force/etc. or restrict valuable information I can exploit others in the market.

What I would do is make sure the farmer was educated and becomes a "sophisticated" market participant on par with other "sophisticated" market participants. In some cases this may involve farmers forming collectives, associations, unions to equalize their participation in the market. An individual farmer can not compete on an equal footing with a large corporate entity, like Wal-mart as an example. But as a collective they could. Capitalism would not object to this, the market would respond accordingly and exploitation would be minimized or even reversed in favor of the Farmers. However, I would not expect Wal-mart to advocate for the Farmers. Farmers need to advocate for themselves. From a political point of view perhaps their government should advocate for their people to work to make sure their people are not being exploited in the market. Failing could point to failings in the political system. If local politician are bribed or fail to advocate for their people - Iwould not say that is a failure of the economic system of capitalism.

 

Where is the morality in cutting programs to provide food assistance to the poor or provide a temporary safety net to working class families facing financial hardship in order to cut taxes for the rich?

Where is the morality in union busting and denying or restricting the rights of workers to bargain collectively and/or have a collective voice in the workplace?

Where is the morality in putting corporate profits above workplace safety and/or the air we breath and the water we drink?

Where is the morality in a military industrial complex that exceeds the rest of the world combined?

Where is the morality in fracking and strip mining as opposed to investing in clean, renewable energy?

 

Nietzsche’s Marginal Children: On Friedrich Hayek | The Nation

this is a little long, but is well-written and gives a useful historical overview of the bizarre-o world of austrian school markety-market people...the american right (confusingly separated into "libertarians" on the right and "neo-liberals" amongst the democrats---but push by that, in this case)...interesting reading.

 

We are all Austrians now

 

jobs are created by a demand for a service. if there is no demand there is no reason to create a 'job'. they aren't created by companies. the jobs are just a byproduct of demand for a product. anything else is just artificial garbage. you can pump dollars into something to create jobs and make widgets, but it's just busy work if there's no force driving it and sustaining it.

warm and fuzzy is right. i won't hire someone for a month or two just to slap them in the face a month later by firing them because things aren't stable enough for long term employment. it's not fun to fire someone, so likewise the hiring process is a painstaking decision. do i have enough work to support this new employee for an extended period? i sit face to face with an employee before i hire. when i do hire them, they tell me about their family and life. do you think it's as simple as 'nervous self serving management'? this shit stands me straight up at 3am in the morning thinking about it. this person has a family to support and i have to let them go. it's not fun.

i sent a hard worker home today 8 hours away. he couldn't get his prescription filled in the state we were working in. it cost me over $500 to send him down here, he worked for 4 hours and told me this just to have him drive back home in my truck on my dime. i have to let him go (this wasn't the first strike against him, but it was a pretty bad one). it will cost me a couple hundred or more to send another guy down, plus the lost time of not having a guy on the project. people think owning a company is just a walk in the park where you go around raping employees and vacation all the time.

 

Do you think austerity budgets at the state and federal levels stimulate the economy or help create a demand for services?

Particularly as these austerity budgets put a greater financial burden on working class families and further reduce the disposable income of many already living from paycheck to paycheck.