02-21-2021, 03:38 PM
(02-21-2021, 02:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-20-2021, 04:38 PM)Einzige Wrote:(02-20-2021, 10:49 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-20-2021, 05:16 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(02-20-2021, 05:01 AM)Einzige Wrote: The Democrats aren't eager to do shit except to continue to extend the rule of Capital - not "the rich" but Capital, which is a system ordering and governing all human capacity on Earth today.
Is it telling that most people don't see the division of wealth as one of the crisis problems? The economy is, and the division of wealth is part of it, but the key problem Marx saw is not considered that important now and the tool he saw as solving it is not seen as necessary. The most severe problems faced by the culture are addressed in the crisis, and capitol is not among them.
I can see the division of wealth as being addressed in a future awakening or crisis, though likely through non violent means. It is just that with the productivity increase, there isn't that much focus on it.
Thomas Picketty in his seminal tome Capital in the 21st Century showed how powerful this tool really is. Given adequate opportunity, the predator class can engineer gains that exceed the rate of economic growth, and maintain it over long periods. Eventually, they will own everything. That's the power of that tool. We're well on our way to that end, so taming the predator class will be a must almost immediately. Can we bear a system that allows a single individual to accumulate $75Billion in a single year? Others are in the wings, watching and waiting for their chance too. Bezos set the standard. Elon Musk is right there on his tail... and there are others, some hidden from view, who want to be in the new uber-class. It will make Feudalism seem tame and quaint by comparison.
Unfortunately, Piketty doesn't actually understand capitalism and his proposed solution (a global wealth tax) won't actually fix anything. It's more social Democratic deck chair rearranging.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2...its-worse/
What radicals like Einzige forget is that his remedies, if they ever come, will come centuries from now. Otherwise, deck chair rearranging is the best we can hope for in this Titanic society. And such titanic civilizations rise and fall, but that takes time too. Those who say that the USA or Western Capitalism is about to fall have a short term view. I expect this will take at least 300 years. And even then, what follows will depend on the level of evolution that what we now know as human beings have reached. Human transformation, as was offered by the human potential, counter-culture and new age movements, is a necessary part of that evolution. Our flaws as people are not easily exorcized just by people rising up to overthrow something.
Karl Marx underestimated the ability of capitalists to adapt to reality. Capitalism is not a suicide cult that demands that it get everything only to have its proponents doom themselves to the brutal assessment of a proletarian revolution. I am not saying that Marxism implies the extermination of capitalists, but it is the only ideology that has done that.
Capitalists can have their heads on straight, and even in Marx' time, conditions were usually improving for workers. Competition for workers implies that wages can rise, and with that living conditions for the proletariat can improve. Capitalists who made big money of technological innovations from petroleum refining to phonographs needed customers, and new products do not sell where and when people live on the brink of starvation.
For their survival as a class faring better than the proletariat, capitalists must ensure that workers have a stake in the system. Without such a stake they become goldbricks and fall for any demagogue who calls for an end to their abuse.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.