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Capitalismo

  
  

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8===>Q: alyn
23:36 / 06.02.03
Temping can be a funny slave. I was clearing out a store room the other day with a Korean writer and a film-maker from Connecticut. We got to shit-shooting, along with some of the permanent guys, about whether P Diddy was a good businessman (we'd all agreed he was a moron and a shit rapper). I think he's a cheap hustler whose nominal business empire is a pyramid scheme built on a swamp, likely to collapse at any moment, and that real capitalism is about personal liberation and about creating institutions. "They," of course, say that it's about bringing in the green, and I have to admit they have a point.

So I'm trying to trace these two conceptions of business and I wondered what the Big Brains at Barbelith had to say about it. But I'm in class right now and can't quite focus and now it's time to leave, so I will probably have to clarify.
 
 
agapanthus
07:05 / 07.02.03
Sorry for the moderate posts - I don't know what happened there.
I'm not familiar with P.Diddy's work, vaguely remembereing some Led Zeppelin 'Kashmir'-esque sample pervading a vid I watched once. But K-ism is the issue, huh?
I watched part of a PBS series recently which focussed on the battle of ideas between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek in the field of economics in the pre and post WWII era. Keynes saw the way out, of the Great Depression of the 1930s, as relying on government spending. Von Hayek, whose time would come with the rise of Thatcherism and the cowboy triumphalism of Ronald Reagan in the early 80s, argued that governments should get the hell out of the way of free enterprise. For von Hayek, free enterprise equated with liberalism: for governments to interfere with the grand liberation of humanity by 'subsidising' and 'propping up' uncompetitive state run businesses was akin to socialist repression.Un-freedom.
And here lies the rub. Is capitalism, at core, based on the principle of indivdual freedom (as the neo-liberal acolytes of von Haysk would argue), or is individual/community freedom distinct from capitalism? In other words, is P.Diddy to be lauded for his liberational practises, or, dismissed for producing profit without creating art? Or is the accumulation of capital the dominant measure of success?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
10:53 / 07.02.03
Thanks, agapanthus. I wasn't really thinking of anything as brass-tacks as economic policy. It seems to me that there is an "original" capitalism, as described by JS Mill and Adam Smith and so forth, the purpose of which was to enable regular people to improve their own lot and to create institutions that would have a lasting impact on society. In an environment where aristocrats were duking it out with oligarchs, they felt the professional man and the tradesman and the businessman should be allowed to seek their destinies. Pretty revolutionary.

Capitalists like Carnegie and Rockefeller, though shitheels in their own special ways, at least felt some obligation to society -- they built libraries and colleges, as well as commercial organizations that are still employing people long after their founders are dead. But it seems like, today, capitalism been boiled down to a Ponzi scheme that siphons cash out of communities and never thinks of the future.

Put it another way: Why isn't there a chain of Sean John libraries?

But is my idea here that there is, or was, an "original" capitalism, and it was all shiny and nice, accurate? Can anyone trace these two versions, the "philosophical" capitalism vs. the Social Darwinism capitalism, to particular philosophies? I mean, I don't think I invented this question, I'm just not sure where I got it from.
 
 
grant
16:54 / 07.02.03
You might be confusing "capitalism" with "philanthropism."

Meaning: I'm not sure Carnegie set out to start up universities. It's just that once he became so stinking rich he couldn't hope to ever spend it all on himself, he got interested in building a legacy rather than a personal fortune.
P. Diddy, while a remarkable financial success, ain't quite in that league, when it comes to quantitative bling-bling analyses.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
19:58 / 07.02.03
Hrmmaallright. I felt like that sort of philanthropy was written into the program, but I'll have to reexamine my references. Thanks, g!

(Yeah, that's supposed to be g=gangsta. Cuz I'm talking about Puffy? Right? Now where did I leave my pipe and hushpuppies?)
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
01:49 / 23.04.03
Hello, first post here. Lemme just say this. Capitalism works because it's roots are in freedom. Everything is based on incentives. What drives people? For some it's money, for some it's pleasing their god of choice, for some it's getting laid. It can all be summed up in that people want to maximize happiness, or utility, whatever that means to that person. If you want to change the world, you have to change people's motives. How you do that is to make convincing arguments and keep working smart and hard to do that. That is about all you can do. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that it is not capitalism's fault that people treat each other like dirt, it's people's fault.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:29 / 23.04.03
But capitalism is constructed on the idea of inequality, yes? Not saying that's a bad thing per se, but in order to make capitalism work you have to have people in a position to buy labour and other people in a position where they have to sell their labour, in order to gain money, which can then be exchanged for the products of the labour of others. So, in a sense, capitalism depends on a setup where people are not completely recompensed for the work they do, in order to contribute capital to the enterprises that employ them. And, of course, there is a discrepancy between the value of their labour as contributed to the business and the value of the remuneration provided to the worker.

Whether that inequality is *exploitation* is another question, of course.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
12:52 / 23.04.03
Well, it's not based on inequality, but total equality is a bullshit notion anyway. Capitalism doesn't work to the common benefit if there is no equal protection under the law, but that is not the same thing as total equality. There IS a Darwinistic undercurrent to modern capitalism, and I don't consider that a bad thing.

Quote: So, in a sense, capitalism depends on a setup where people are not completely recompensed for the work they do, in order to contribute capital to the enterprises that employ them. And, of course, there is a discrepancy between the value of their labour as contributed to the business and the value of the remuneration provided to the worker.

You must have a crappy job. The only time there is a discrepancy between the value of one's labor and the compensation they recieve is when there is an artificial wage regulation, when the employee or employer refuses to be competitive, or when the law doesn't uphold the contract between employee and employer.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:11 / 23.04.03
Hmmm. Have you read das Kapital, Piglet? I'm thinking more of that discrepancy between value of labour and remuneration.

For instance - in what may or may not be my previous job (loooong story), the value of my labour to the company was £750-1200 per day. My cost to the company was the ocst of administration, the extra cost of having me in the office, and so on, plus my wages. This came to less than the moneys I earned for the company. That's how most companies work, and also how capitalism works.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
13:30 / 23.04.03
How were you able to come up with that 750-1200 figure? Are these estimations or did you work for the accounting department?
 
 
w1rebaby
13:33 / 23.04.03
Haus: That's kind of a truism, isn't it? Otherwise they'd go out of business. The only counter-example I can think of is in situations where "added value" is difficult to calculate, and salaries are set by the people receiving them, apparently regardless of what value measurements there are; very upper management.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
13:38 / 23.04.03
The value of one's labor is determined by the market.
 
 
w1rebaby
13:43 / 23.04.03
When "the market" means "shit that happens" then that is entirely true, but a little tautologous. Otherwise, you're going to have to expand on what exactly counts as the market and what doesn't, since unions demanding higher pay and management voting each other rises don't seem intrinsically different to me.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:46 / 23.04.03
Well, that's what a day of my labour was charged at to the people who were using my services. So, reasonably exact - the variation depended on the size of the contract, the nature of the job and that sort of thing.

Fridge - it's not a truism per se, but a feature of capitalist economics - so capitalist economics relies on that "added value" to function- it's the engine that powers the machine. Not saying that's a bad thing, but it's an interesting setup - in a sense everybody is a tenant in capitalist economics, rendering tribute upwards for their possession of the means to produce.
 
 
w1rebaby
14:00 / 23.04.03
everybody is a tenant in capitalist economics, rendering tribute upwards for their possession of the means to produce

Interesting way to put it. That "upwards" seems to me to be socially-based rather than to do with economics, though.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
14:43 / 23.04.03
Well, unionization and management self-raises both artificially move the price of labor away from market equilibrium. The company must therefore make sacrifices elsewhere in order to stay competitive. That is a choice the company has to make. That does not mean this cannot belong in a capitalistic society. Bad business decisions are not "anti-capitalist". Government propping up bad business decisions IS.
 
 
w1rebaby
16:00 / 23.04.03
Okay, I'll try a different example. As far as I understand it, individual bargaining is an intrinsic part of The Market. I have the ability to withdraw my labour as a negotiation tool with my employer.

How does this differ intrinsically from collective bargaining, except that the mass withdrawal of labour will have a stronger effect as a threat? If every member of a union decided individually to go on strike, how would that be different?
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
16:40 / 23.04.03
I suppose, but you will have individuals who will have differing levels of productivity now earning the same amount. Granted, most large companies have wage rates for the different levels of employment, even if some are pulling more weight than others. But usually, if it's a halfway decent company, the ones going the extra mile will eventually get a raise and/or be promoted. But hey, companies have a choice whether or not to meet the union requests. There are always some unempoyed folks out there who are glad to take the jobs the union workers are striking on.
 
 
Perfect Tommy
18:19 / 23.04.03
Half-baked idea: Let the value of a worker to a company be V, and the cost of a worker (in wages, office space, etc.) be C.

V - C is the value of "how lucky you are to be working, and transforming your skills into food and rent and so forth." If this is a reasonable number (by what standard? dunno yet, presumably depends), then the worker isn't being exploited.

Reason I suggest this is that if a worker's primary skill set is something other than agriculture, ze needs some kind of employer to turn these skills into food. I'd call V - C the opportunity cost if that didn't already mean something totally different...
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
18:35 / 23.04.03
V - C would be revenue. A worker's value to the company is BASED on what they earn for the company, it is not EQUAL to what they earn for the company. So previous posters are right. That does not equal PROFIT, though, because the company could be making blunders elsewhere, or could have set their prices below their cost.
 
 
pomegranate
18:42 / 23.04.03
i'd like to go back to the difference between rockefeller and mr. diddy if i may. what i'd like to ponder is not about philanthropy, as grant said, but something else: i think there's a difference between making shirts and records, and creating companies that will give lots and lots of people jobs. i *guess* puffy makes shirts that are sold by people in malls all over, and for that matter sewn by people too, but it just doesn't seem the same. it seems that now people often think capitalism is just making a lot of money, but, for example, i don't think a wealthy basketball player is inherently a capitalist.
i think i'll speak on this further once i've completed my class at the university of chicago: quantitative bling-bling analyses (that was so funny, grant.)
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
20:54 / 23.04.03
Mantis, they're definitely capitalists, but they aren't necessarily businessmen. They appear to be "taking control of the means of production" and they appear to be accumulating power "by any means necessary," but I wonder how much value they're creating for themselves, their customers, their employees. I keep trying to think of them in terms of the old industrialists, where their product is cultural (Rockafella's velour sweatpants) rather than industrial (vs. Rockefeller's brick factories), but I'm not sure the cultural products have any value -- in fact, I think they become increasingly toxic. What's the point of Eminem putting out yet another line of designer tracksuits, except for him to siphon more money out of the street while still "keepin' it real" or whatever the kids are saying these days. Shouldn't these guys stop acting like lumber barons? Or am I just too old and too white?
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
01:41 / 24.04.03
Q, the value these "stars" bring in is pretty hefty, economically. Of course, the value they bring to our culture is highly debatable, and I'm with you, old whitey.
 
 
sumo
16:05 / 24.04.03
"The value of one's labor is determined by the market."

Yes, but it's determined by the labour market governing one's particular skill, rather than the consumer market for the final product. Which is why it's unlikely that you'd find someone able to, say, repair a Porsche assembly line robot actually driving a Porsche.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
16:11 / 24.04.03
Well, of course. Are you saying that is bad?
 
 
sumo
16:23 / 24.04.03
I was merely responding to your balking at the idea that capitalism is premised on inequality, specifically the discrepancy between the value of labour and the recompense for that labour.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
16:48 / 24.04.03
Originally it may be balking, but now I see it was a misunderstanding.
 
 
_pin
19:32 / 24.04.03
sumo:
"The value of one's labor is determined by the market."

Yes, but it's determined by the labour market governing one's particular skill, rather than the consumer market for the final product. Which is why it's unlikely that you'd find someone able to, say, repair a Porsche assembly line robot actually driving a Porsche.

Capitalist Piglet:
Well, of course. Are you saying that is bad?

Are you saing that is good?

I wish to address the assumption free markets = free people, apparently based on the shared adverbial "free". Take the UK housing market: currently, prices are rapidly soaring absolutly everywhere because the government is not intervening to a dramtic effect in this market to create cheaper houseing alternatives, thus meaning supply/demand dynamics are squeezeing people out. LOTS of people out. Rich people are, indeed, getting very "free". They're making money by selling their houses, and landlords are getting super "free" by chargeing higher rents for their newly marvleous properties.

But are their tenants getting freeer? No, they're just paying more for their roof. Are the ocal young looking to move ito a house near their family and their job going to be "freeer" just ebcause they can't afford to and are now "free" to live miles away and commute into their picturesque little town where they grew up and want to stay because the metropolitan upper middle class want to have second homes there?

So that would be the free getting freeer while other people get less free. Capitalism seems to be, at it's heart, about self-interest. If people know and accept this self interest, then it's all good. Most people know they earn more for their company then they will see on the last Friday of the month, in their free water dispenser and so forth, and most people know that their local geengrocer can not buy a new carrot with the money he got for the one he just sold you, but a new pair of socks for his kid. Don't want to give his kid a new pair of socks? No carrot for you!

But while that does indeed make everyone a bit more free, how does supermarkets demanding a free packet of potatoes with every purchase make farmers more free? It strickes me that, what with all our lovely advances in modern farming, we have essentially collectivised that industry, paying artifically low prices for goods, coupled with ensuring profitability only comes from enermous, industrialised farms at the expenseof small, local enterprises that would, ultimatly, employ more people. Free from government constraints, the free market has created socalist-style repression.

Please correct infactualities and beat me for expressing this badly in accordance with the rules.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
20:02 / 24.04.03
Pin, forgive me if I don't understand everything about your post since I don't know all that much about UK economics. But, I'll give it a shot. I DON'T think Free Market = Free People. You DO have to have a society where people are protected from force, but that does not mean you can do whatever you want with no repercussions whatsoever. All actions have consequences and all choices have opportunity cost. But as long as that ability to CHOOSE is protected (within the bounds of a commonly accepted law), you are FREE. Regarding the housing situation you described, you are FREE to choose to live in a box, you are FREE to spend all your money on housing, you are FREE to have roomates, you are FREE to go find a job in the housing industry so you may reap some of these benefits. Yes, all these things come with some sort of opportunity cost, but that is the law of nature! Your illustration of how you'd like the farming industry to be (small farmers who would employ more people) is wasteful. When the technology is there and you don't use it, that is waste. What would be the point of there being more people with farm jobs if the cost of food went up as a result? It's called inflation.
 
 
Leap
20:03 / 24.04.03
A free market will only support freedom if it is self-restrained by seeking to "meet needs" rather than "accumulate profit". When it is driven by the accumulation of luxury/profit it tends to spiral into monopolies.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
20:16 / 24.04.03
Most monopolies are created by the government, actually (ie, utility companies, etc.). And with monopoly-like companies (like Wal-Mart and Microsoft), there is still a threat of competition (because the market is ever-changing), so they still must remain competitive, thus providing equilibrium levels of goods/prices.
 
 
cusm
20:20 / 24.04.03
I wish to address the assumption free markets = free people

This is a point I tend to wonder about. It seems there is an inherent irony to the "freedom" of capitalism. In a Free Market, one has the opportunity to escape the class based oppression of an aristocracy through entrepreneurship and initiave. The common man can now raise his station and succeed. But the structure created is one again of an aristocracy of corporate executives, with the majority of "opportunity" the ability to sell your labor. We've escaped a working class / ruling class system only to recreate it as a working class / business class form of labor based corporate feudalism.

The irony of it all it, the capitalist system does include the freedom to progress, but this freedom becomes in practice the freedom to oppress in turn once you escape your own oppressors. The scale is wider and the possibility of class advancement greater, but the effect of the overall system is little changed from feudalism.

I have little doubt that fully unregulated business will in time corrupt to such a stagnation and seperation of class, as it is only human nature to do so. Examples of this to some degree can be seen in the experiment of Hong Kong, and the miserable state of Brazil. Which leads to the also ironic practice of instituting socalist limitations on free enterprise, to the effect of aiding the overall effect of capitalim.

Capitalism in its pure form is profit driven, and hence ultimately immoral (as it is often called "evil" by its opponents). So, it becomes the government's position to act as the force of morality upon a system that is inherently prone to abuse. In this sense, capitalism by being profit driven to the point of exploitation is "evil" in the sense of lacking morality, though kept from too rampant abuse of the people by government has certainly accomplished more than anything else we as a species have tried.
 
 
Capitalist Piglet
20:45 / 24.04.03
Capitalism is "immmoral" by what standard? Capitalism doesn't HAVE a moral value. It is simply a description of what happens when you have certain parameters in place. It doesn't become "evil" until evil people do evil things with it. I will be the first to admit that Capitalism (as with any system in theory) "only works in a vacuum". But it is the only system to date that has propelled the standard of living to the level we enjoy today. Also, under true capitalism, there is NOT the freedom to "oppress", not in the true sense of the word. Under "perfect" capitalism, you have a justice system that protects people from force. With capitalism you may find yourself in situations where you don't like your "opportunity costs" and it may feel like you aren't free, but if it is set up right, you ARE free to choose something else to better your situation.
 
 
Lurid Archive
21:35 / 24.04.03
Actually, I'd probably say that capitalism is amoral. Then again, you could say that, unless regulated to a fairly high degree, the inequalities it encorages are immoral. Also, the emphasis on only the things that it values is seen as immoral by some, like environmentalists. Others too, see the lack of acknowledgement of social factors like discrimination and abuse of power as immoral - especially as this is at the heart of talk about equilibrium and efficiency.

As for capitalism being successful...this isn't necessarily that good an argument. I mean, there are other factors to consider. And we are back to morality again.

Also, while some would say that alternatives to capitalism haven't really been tried - I'd tend to agree with that - I have seen it argued that, for instance, communism was pretty successful economically given the conditions of most countries which tried it. And that was one of the reasons it was so important to undermine. Not that communism is my preferred system.

Finally, the "oppurtunity costs" can be seen as inherently unjust if they are a barrier to services like health, education and law.
 
 
_pin
21:38 / 24.04.03
Capitalist Piglet, the point of a farming model that I describe is that it would be nice, fluffy, warm, community-friendly, A Good Thing To Do and not be at all about Socalist-control and freedom-limitation, which is a Bad Thing. Who cares if it is wasteful, if it enriches society?

Ultimately, it could well be that this model is the best alternative of a super shitty lot, but if it is, then it must surely be bank-rolled by government subsidies otherwise farmers will simply go bankrupt, die, and we'll have no agriculture in the country at all. Where will that leave us?

And yes, you're right, poor people are free to not live in places of high houseing costs. They are free to leave their communities and not contribute to the local economy, leaveing these places to fall apart for all but three weeks in the summer. But where will they move? They are "free" to live in a box because they have no choice. Yeh, they're so fucking free there I can't believe they can't just fly.
 
  

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