How is this not capitalism?
It may not be free market capitalism since an increasingly small bunch of rich people at the top have way too much power over everything, but that’s just what happens when the game of Monopoly nears its inevitable end.
For any reasonable measure, capitalism died at the 20th century. The thing around right now is a completely different organization than what existed from the 17th to the 19th one.
Just for a start, making a lot of stuff won’t make you rich. If you just get capital, invest in some random production, and go to market, you’ll almost certainly fail.
But also, the state hands capital down everywhere; freedom of initiative is severely restricted everywhere; most of what we call “capital” isn’t past produced value. The last one hints at calling the current system “rentism”.
“Rentism” is just the end state of that same game of Monopoly. Some own everything and everyone else just goes around spending what little they have on rent. The game didn’t change name just because some people already won and it wasn’t us. We sell our labour to the capitalists to buy the necessities of life from them, while they enjoy the surplus value generated by our labour. That’s straight up the marxist definitions of working class and capitalist.
Just for a start, making a lot of stuff won’t make you rich. If you just get capital, invest in some random production, and go to market, you’ll almost certainly fail.
I fail to see how this isn’t a feature of capitalism. Just “making a lot of stuff” never worked even in the haydays of capitalism. You need a valid business case and customers etc…
But also, the state hands capital down everywhere
That’s the money you get every time you pass the starting square. It exists solely to keep the system functioning without the need for dramatic reform. If the tenants have no money to pay with, the landlords don’t get their profits.
freedom of initiative is severely restricted everywhere
That’s because the capitalists (people who own the means of production) have no intention to share their positions of power with the plebeians. Doing so would be against their rational self-interest. The state is a tool among many they use to perpetuate the status quo. Lobbyists and campaign funding are the most direct examples of this, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
most of what we call “capital” isn’t past produced value
Anything that can be traded for money counts as capital when even money itself can be used to manipulate the markets to generate even more money. Yeah it may well be some NFT or other such scam, but scamming is just a profitable business among others. To stick with the allegory about tenants and landlords: Owning a house is a profitable endeavour that generates passive income. The money generator box has some person inside who may at times complain about a kitchen appliance not working, but most of the time the thing just keeps generating capital for you despite the annoying whining noise coming from within. You may then invest this capital, for example in purchasing additional money generator boxes.
You’re wrong in your analysis. The system hasn’t qualitatively changed. It’s still a system with an owning class and a working class. The difference is that capital now, as you say, mostly revalorizes in the financial sector instead of in the industrial sector. But capitalism is called capitalism, not industrialism.
Lenin already talked about this in his 1916 treatise “Imperialism: the highest form of capitalism”. He describes the process of concentration of capital that took place over the 19th and especially the beginnings of the 20th century, the consolidation of trusts and cartels, and the financialization of the economy. You’re describing nothing new, he calls this phase of capitalism “imperialism”. But it is a phase of capitalism, the social relations haven’t been changed, workers still have to sell their labor force as a commodity, goods and services are exchanged in the free market, and the owners of capital, be it financial or industrial, rake the surplus value from the workers.
For all of feudalism, serfs (majority of the population) worked the fields not for a wage on a free contract (i.e. commodity labor), but bounded legally to the land by the local aristocrat. That’s why it wasn’t capitalism.
Hum… I’ve jumped over that part on your comment. And yeah, freedom for laborers was indeed a defining feature of capitalism. I’m not sure that puts the OP fighting against that system in a good light.
Anyway, comoditized labor is nearly dead, and the 20th century created that entire labor market oligopsony thing. “You’ll never work on this city again!” was something so feared that it entered plenty of movies. Work today just does not work by the same rules as it did at the 19th century.
freedom for laborers was indeed a defining feature of capitalism. I’m not sure that puts the OP fighting against that system in a good light
“Not sure fighting against feudalism and saying that in antiquity there was slavery instead puts the fight in a good light”
Anyway, comoditized labor is nearly dead
Do you know what you’re talking about? How is commodity-labor nearly dead? What percentage of people engage in free contracts in which they exchange their labor for a wage? I’d say the vast majority.
the 20th century created that entire labor market oligopsony thing. “You’ll never work on this city again!” was something so feared that it entered plenty of movies.
Ok? That’s not a defining feature of capitalism, ofc some things change but that’s not even reflected in any Marxist literature I’ve read. Why do you insist we’re in something fundamentally different? I feel like you haven’t read on the topic
How is this not capitalism? It may not be free market capitalism since an increasingly small bunch of rich people at the top have way too much power over everything, but that’s just what happens when the game of Monopoly nears its inevitable end.
For any reasonable measure, capitalism died at the 20th century. The thing around right now is a completely different organization than what existed from the 17th to the 19th one.
Just for a start, making a lot of stuff won’t make you rich. If you just get capital, invest in some random production, and go to market, you’ll almost certainly fail.
But also, the state hands capital down everywhere; freedom of initiative is severely restricted everywhere; most of what we call “capital” isn’t past produced value. The last one hints at calling the current system “rentism”.
“Rentism” is just the end state of that same game of Monopoly. Some own everything and everyone else just goes around spending what little they have on rent. The game didn’t change name just because some people already won and it wasn’t us. We sell our labour to the capitalists to buy the necessities of life from them, while they enjoy the surplus value generated by our labour. That’s straight up the marxist definitions of working class and capitalist.
I fail to see how this isn’t a feature of capitalism. Just “making a lot of stuff” never worked even in the haydays of capitalism. You need a valid business case and customers etc…
That’s the money you get every time you pass the starting square. It exists solely to keep the system functioning without the need for dramatic reform. If the tenants have no money to pay with, the landlords don’t get their profits.
That’s because the capitalists (people who own the means of production) have no intention to share their positions of power with the plebeians. Doing so would be against their rational self-interest. The state is a tool among many they use to perpetuate the status quo. Lobbyists and campaign funding are the most direct examples of this, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
Anything that can be traded for money counts as capital when even money itself can be used to manipulate the markets to generate even more money. Yeah it may well be some NFT or other such scam, but scamming is just a profitable business among others. To stick with the allegory about tenants and landlords: Owning a house is a profitable endeavour that generates passive income. The money generator box has some person inside who may at times complain about a kitchen appliance not working, but most of the time the thing just keeps generating capital for you despite the annoying whining noise coming from within. You may then invest this capital, for example in purchasing additional money generator boxes.
You’re wrong in your analysis. The system hasn’t qualitatively changed. It’s still a system with an owning class and a working class. The difference is that capital now, as you say, mostly revalorizes in the financial sector instead of in the industrial sector. But capitalism is called capitalism, not industrialism.
Lenin already talked about this in his 1916 treatise “Imperialism: the highest form of capitalism”. He describes the process of concentration of capital that took place over the 19th and especially the beginnings of the 20th century, the consolidation of trusts and cartels, and the financialization of the economy. You’re describing nothing new, he calls this phase of capitalism “imperialism”. But it is a phase of capitalism, the social relations haven’t been changed, workers still have to sell their labor force as a commodity, goods and services are exchanged in the free market, and the owners of capital, be it financial or industrial, rake the surplus value from the workers.
Hum… So, capitalism is what? 5000 years old?
I specifically made a mention to free markets, and to workers selling their labor as a commodity, in my comment.
So… About 5000 years? (I guess more, I don’t know much about Ancient history.)
For all of feudalism, serfs (majority of the population) worked the fields not for a wage on a free contract (i.e. commodity labor), but bounded legally to the land by the local aristocrat. That’s why it wasn’t capitalism.
Hum… I’ve jumped over that part on your comment. And yeah, freedom for laborers was indeed a defining feature of capitalism. I’m not sure that puts the OP fighting against that system in a good light.
Anyway, comoditized labor is nearly dead, and the 20th century created that entire labor market oligopsony thing. “You’ll never work on this city again!” was something so feared that it entered plenty of movies. Work today just does not work by the same rules as it did at the 19th century.
“Not sure fighting against feudalism and saying that in antiquity there was slavery instead puts the fight in a good light”
Do you know what you’re talking about? How is commodity-labor nearly dead? What percentage of people engage in free contracts in which they exchange their labor for a wage? I’d say the vast majority.
Ok? That’s not a defining feature of capitalism, ofc some things change but that’s not even reflected in any Marxist literature I’ve read. Why do you insist we’re in something fundamentally different? I feel like you haven’t read on the topic