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Capitalism is much maligned when it shoulf be finance capitalism that is the true culprit.
"Thus this great capital, this technical capital, this capital which attains huge proportions, not only has nothing to do, as I said, with property in the elementary human sense of the word, but is hostile to it. That is why on many occasions, when I see how employers and workmen, for instance, reach the stage of violent conflict, even to the point of killing one another in the streets, even to the point of falling victims to outrages that express a savage hatred past all repair, I think to myself that neither side is aware that they are protagonists in an economic struggle, certainly, but one in which nine times out of ten both lots of them are on the same side. The other side, opposed to both employers and workmen, is the power of capitalism"
Not surprisingly, it is finance that sets workmen against the owners of the means of production.Also, as it produces on an enormous scale, it must promote a high level of consumption AND a high level of credit.
"This Karl Marx long since augured the social collapse of capitalism which I am discussing with you now."
"Craftsmen displaced from their positions, craftsmen who have been the owners of their own means of production and who naturally have had to sell this as it is now useless to them, as also small manufacturers and small traders, continue to get economically crushed by this huge, colossal, irresistible advance of big capital, and end by becoming incorporated in the proletaries, and proletarianized. Marx describes this in remarkably dramatic terms and he says that these men, after selling their products, selling the means they had of manufacturing their products, and selling their houses, have now nothing left to sell, and they then realise that they themselves can be a form of merchandise, their very labour can he a form of merchandise, and they rush to the marketto hire themselves out in temporary slavery. This phenomenon, then, the proletarianization of vast masses, and their conglomeration round city factories, is another symptom of the social bankruptcy of capitalism."
Check!!! small business and small enterprise is continually destroyed by the big boys who can afford to operate at a loss in a few areas so that they can bankrupt their small competitor. Yep, surplus men. Chart Of The Day: The Relentless 65-Year Decline In The Labor Force Participation Of Men | David Stockman's Contra Corner
"For instance: periodic crises have been a phenomenon produced by large
-scale industry, and produced by exactly the same cause I mentioned before, when I dealt with the accumulation of capital. The irrecoverable expenditure of the original installation is dead-weight expenditure which can in no case be reduced as the market shrinks. Overproduction, the overproduction on a violent scale of which I
spoke before, ends by saturating the markets. Then underconsumption is produced, and the market absorbs less than the factories are delivering to it. If the structure of the former small-scale economic system had been preserved, production would decline in proportion to demand by means of a diminution in the intake of raw materials and labour; but as this cannot be done in the case of large-scale industry, since it has this vast fixed capital, large-scale industry is ruined; that is to say, technically large-scale industry has to face periods of worse crisis than small "
Many corporations are now borrowing money to pay stock dividends. Business 101; you can shrink your labor and raw materials but, it is very difficult to shrink your debt load.
"as soon as the periods of crisis arrive it has recourse to public assistance, and so we have seen how the most powerful concerns have resorted to the benevolence of the State, either to gain tariff protection or to obtain financial support. In other words, to quote a writer hostile to the capitalist system, the capitalism which is so haughty and so refractory in the matter of a possible socialisation of its profits, is the first to beg, when things are going badly, for the socialisation of its losses."
Yep, the corporate taxes are at an all-time low if you take everything into account ( socializing the profits ) Bailouts are at an all-time high ( socializing the losses ).
"Thus this great capital, this technical capital, this capital which attains huge proportions, not only has nothing to do, as I said, with property in the elementary human sense of the word, but is hostile to it. That is why on many occasions, when I see how employers and workmen, for instance, reach the stage of violent conflict, even to the point of killing one another in the streets, even to the point of falling victims to outrages that express a savage hatred past all repair, I think to myself that neither side is aware that they are protagonists in an economic struggle, certainly, but one in which nine times out of ten both lots of them are on the same side. The other side, opposed to both employers and workmen, is the power of capitalism"
Not surprisingly, it is finance that sets workmen against the owners of the means of production.Also, as it produces on an enormous scale, it must promote a high level of consumption AND a high level of credit.
"This Karl Marx long since augured the social collapse of capitalism which I am discussing with you now."
"Craftsmen displaced from their positions, craftsmen who have been the owners of their own means of production and who naturally have had to sell this as it is now useless to them, as also small manufacturers and small traders, continue to get economically crushed by this huge, colossal, irresistible advance of big capital, and end by becoming incorporated in the proletaries, and proletarianized. Marx describes this in remarkably dramatic terms and he says that these men, after selling their products, selling the means they had of manufacturing their products, and selling their houses, have now nothing left to sell, and they then realise that they themselves can be a form of merchandise, their very labour can he a form of merchandise, and they rush to the marketto hire themselves out in temporary slavery. This phenomenon, then, the proletarianization of vast masses, and their conglomeration round city factories, is another symptom of the social bankruptcy of capitalism."
Check!!! small business and small enterprise is continually destroyed by the big boys who can afford to operate at a loss in a few areas so that they can bankrupt their small competitor. Yep, surplus men. Chart Of The Day: The Relentless 65-Year Decline In The Labor Force Participation Of Men | David Stockman's Contra Corner
"For instance: periodic crises have been a phenomenon produced by large
-scale industry, and produced by exactly the same cause I mentioned before, when I dealt with the accumulation of capital. The irrecoverable expenditure of the original installation is dead-weight expenditure which can in no case be reduced as the market shrinks. Overproduction, the overproduction on a violent scale of which I
spoke before, ends by saturating the markets. Then underconsumption is produced, and the market absorbs less than the factories are delivering to it. If the structure of the former small-scale economic system had been preserved, production would decline in proportion to demand by means of a diminution in the intake of raw materials and labour; but as this cannot be done in the case of large-scale industry, since it has this vast fixed capital, large-scale industry is ruined; that is to say, technically large-scale industry has to face periods of worse crisis than small "
Many corporations are now borrowing money to pay stock dividends. Business 101; you can shrink your labor and raw materials but, it is very difficult to shrink your debt load.
"as soon as the periods of crisis arrive it has recourse to public assistance, and so we have seen how the most powerful concerns have resorted to the benevolence of the State, either to gain tariff protection or to obtain financial support. In other words, to quote a writer hostile to the capitalist system, the capitalism which is so haughty and so refractory in the matter of a possible socialisation of its profits, is the first to beg, when things are going badly, for the socialisation of its losses."
Yep, the corporate taxes are at an all-time low if you take everything into account ( socializing the profits ) Bailouts are at an all-time high ( socializing the losses ).
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