Debunking neo-liberal pro-market nonsense

I thought I'd tackle some comments left on a previous blog post so I can get more into detail. This left from Anthony:

My point is simple. How could 1 person make such outragous promises. Say in theory you make valid points. That doesnt mean you would be able to enact anything.

Obviously one would need a majority within parliament and an organised working people ready to defend themselves from any counter attack.

Capitalism is simple and it works if people are educated enough to understand the system.

Capitalism doesn't work, 35 million people dying every year isn't "working", 6 billion people being exploited by a few thousand tyrants isn't "working", never ending war between capitalists struggling for new markets isn't "working", it's a bloody disaster.

Capitalism does pay the employee thier rightful wage. The employee has the free will to turn down any job they do not feel like is worth thier time.

Workers sell their labour-power on a market; they're being forced to compete on a market, which forces their wages down. Capitalists also compete on a market; capitalists who can force wages lower have an advantage in competing with other capitalists. The workers produce all the wealth in society, yet a tiny minority profit out of it. That is theft; the wealth created by the workers is robbed under the guise of private ownership.

The reserve labour army, commonly called the unemployed also keeps wages down. Unemployment is almost a universal law under capitalism, the capitalists love it because it reduces their costs (your wages).

Owning a human being wholesale, classical slavery. Renting a human being by the hour, or by the year, or by the quota, wage slavery, is nothing less than theft and utter exploitation.

The minority of tyrants hide behind private ownership of the means of production to get away with it.

Since when did the government start caring what stressed people out? I would agree some people dont have the technical knowledge to properly invest thier pensions but to remove all peoples pensions would be folly. I suggest that you make it optional. Something people can choose. After all you want to give people as much freedom as possible right?

People that are stressed out are less productive, it damages the whole society. Having a state pension does not prevent an individual from putting money aside every month to save for a rainy day, or to top up their state pension when they retire.

1. You cant nationalize the countries total economy due to international companies operating on your soil.

Yes you can. Venezuela just nationalised the oil industry. Chile 1973, I can go on and on.

Of course to guarentee the victory of the socialist revolution and not just nationalisation it must be worldwide, and that is why socialists are internationalists, as Marx predicted capitalism created a single world market, with a single global working class.

After thousands of years of class struggle, in our epoch it is our class and our class alone throughout all of history which has the ability to end class society. It is in the era of capital that the class struggle can be simplified to its most basic element, the wage-profit battle, two grand classes directly facing each other, one which produces everything in society and one that like a vampire bat sucks the blood of the producers.

2. Buisness will not lose money they will simply pass the cost to the consumer.

An economy owned and controlled democractically by the people doesn't have to run with a surplus. There are no businesses in the sense you're using the term. The workers take back the surplus value that is stolen from them.

Reducing the work week is a novel idea. But reduced hours would mean reduced pay. Perhaps they pay you 40hrs worth. But they reduce your salary to make up the difference.

Factories under control by the workers in Venezuela recently voted to reduce the working week, with no loss of pay. Why? Because it takes up the surplus value that the former owners extracted from them. It is also necessary to give people time to participate in running the economy and politics.

Instead of new technologies being used to increase profits for the minority, new technologies increase productivity so people can make a bit more money or can spend less time at work, and more time educating themselves, doing art, developing culture, technology, science, which will push civilisation forward at a rate faster than ever seen before.

If you raise minimum wage that just means that the prices go up and you dont actually help anyone.

Take the United Kingdom. The Labour government introduced the minimum wage, before then workers could be paid anything between bugger all and £3 per hour. Nowadays the minimum wage is £5.35. It hasn't impacted employment; employment is higher now than in 1997. It hasn't impacted prices; inflation has been running at a couple of percent, below the increases in the minimum wage every year.

So it isn't even true in a market economy, let alone an economy owned and controlled by the people.

The new society that you speak of seems like one where there are little to no freedoms.

Under socialism some people (the former capitalists) no longer have the freedom to exploit the people, so they have to work like everybody else for a living. Like abolishing slavery, people no longer have the "freedom" to own slaves or the "freedom" to rent slaves by the hour.

This is a freedom that normal people cannot make use of, because they don't have the capital to exploit people. So it is no loss for the vast majority. It is a huge gain for the vast majority, who get the full value of their labour; they no longer have to work to maintain a parasitic class.

After all if the government owns everything.

Public ownership, controlled democratically by the people. You wouldn't use a political government to manage an economy. In my opinion you'd use enhanced and extremely democratic versions of trade unions.

9 comments

Comment from: Anthony [Visitor]
Fantastic response: Lets review

1. You agree that you currently can't enact the plan set forth.
2. 35 million people dying every year. Thats a big number. It is sad for any loss of life. I wonder of the people of the 35 million. How many live in capitalist countries. Are you referring to the 3rd world countries? Are you attributing all the world deaths to capitalism? By your own comments there are socialist countries and did the mortaility rate go down?
3. Competition is a good thing. It means that you need to better yourself. But as I stated before capitalism has a built in wage increaser. It is the employee who can opt to not take a job. Or the employee can choose to leave a job. It is cheaper for an employeer to keep an employee and pay them more than to allow a trained employee to walk out the door. When the need for a certain trade increases the price goes up. The work force is supply and demand. In the US the unemployment rate is about 4-5% which means you dont have a whole lot of competition for jobs. But there are tons of jobs out there. So the wage goes up in the attempt to try and entise workers. Construction is a good example.
4. I'm fine with the state pension I was just wondering if you where attempting to force people to do something.
5. I wonder about your Venezuela example. It is true they nationalized the petrolium industry. But Citgo functions worldwide. And even though it makes up 80% of the governments revenue has it really changed the country. You would figure these radical changes might help them but when you read their statistics you are left lacking:
Infant Mortality 21.54 to every 1000. Child malnutrition is 17%. In the Amacuro Delta it is 30%. 32% without addequet sanitation. 5,000,000 without drinking water. 37% poverty rate. It ranks poorest of all South American Nations. (And its Socialist). The list goes on and on.
5. Your right if everyone owned everything there would not be a need for a surplus. But that is not the state at which we live.
6. As stated before. Venezuela is a extremely poor country. Did reducing the work week do anything to alleviate that?
7. I love how you try to make a worker employee relationship seem like slavery. It is not you are free to go when you choose. You are free to work when and where you choose. And if the education system is working properly you will have the same opportunity to succeed if you choose.
8. Fahrenheit 451. The temperature in which freedom burns.
11th May 2007 @ 14:20
Comment from: Paul Smith [Member] · http://www.dasmirnov.net/
1. I acknowledge it requires a revolution.
2. Those deaths are all in capitalist countries. There are no socialist countries (its not even in countries than call themselves "socialist"), socialism as it takes place in the epoch after capitalism requires socialism to be global as capitalism is global today. 3rd world countries are capitalist countries. In fact a lot of 3rd world countries are more capitalist than the imperialist powers.

3. Competition on a market place lowers your wages, how can this be a "good" thing for the worker? It is only good for the capitalists who extract more surplus value.

5. Figures addressed here. They also nationalised Chevron, Exxon Mobil and BP. Not just Citgo which they have owned for years.

5b. See point one, it will require the socialist revolution.

6. Reducing the working week by 4 hours in some factories under control of the workers improved people living conditions, unless you don't consider people spending more time with their families an improvement? What are you some kind of capitalist? You can't profit out of them spending time with their families so its a bad thing? Right.

7. You're free assuming you can afford not to miss paying your rent or mortgage to work for another capitalist, assuming that capitalist has a requirement for your labour-power, which most of the time they don't. The relationship is identical, going to work for another capitalist only changes the capitalist you're working for. Education won't affect the demand for labour-power in a global market. McDonalds' will still need staff if everybody has a degree or not, it also won't change the number of high-skill jobs in the global market, all you're doing is moving high-skill jobs and low-skill jobs around to different geographical areas in the market. Education should be about improving one's knowledge, not readying you for high-rates of surplus extraction and making money out of you, like under capitalist society.
11th May 2007 @ 16:21
Comment from: Anthony [Visitor]
1. I agree with you
2. I would like to see the figures for 35,000,000 deaths that are directly caused by capitalism. (I'm assuming your meaning starvation)? I dont know tell me so I can figure it. According to the CIA the birth rate is 20.09 to every 1000 and death rate is 8.37 to every 1000.
3. Competition is good because it makes you better yourself. If you want a high paying job you must become more educated... more skilled... have more experience.
4. I'll sit tight for your response
5. we can close this one. Your right it is possible if there was a revolution. but its not the state that we live in.
6. No there is nothing wrong with spending time with your family. But we are talking about a work week of 40 hrs. Do you honestly think that 4 hrs a week is going to change the social makeup of a family?
7. I agree that places like mcdonalds will still need workers. But they will pay them more because the need will increse. Even without the government intervention. Where I live due to the small amount of people willing to work fast food the starting wage is $9 and hr. The minimum wage is $5.15. Education is about knowledge. And utilizing that knowledge in a succesful buisness or job persuit. Education as I said before is about giving people the best possible opportunity to succeed.
11th May 2007 @ 17:25
Comment from: Paul Smith [Member] · http://www.dasmirnov.net/
2. I was wrong the figure isn't 35 million. It's 36 million, counting only hunger and preventable disease from Jean Ziegler, United Nations, April 2001.

3. What you say is true for an individual, but it won't change the situation. Let's take society as it is today and give everybody a degree in any field they wish. Nothing changes, the percentage of high-skill jobs won't increase. All an individual is doing by getting trained for a high-skill job is under-cutting the wages of somebody who already has one, or boosts surplus value for the capitalist (or both) as he attempts to "compete" for the position.

6. As socialism transforms into communism the working week would vanish, employment would resemble nothing like it does under capitalism. Under socialism productivity increases would go into boosting wages and reducing the working week, not bloating a capitalist's pockets.
11th May 2007 @ 20:22
Comment from: James [Visitor]
There are no Capitalist countries either....just mixed economies dominated by stagnant State bureaucracy.Capitalism is free markets(free people)with the State only acting to protect the individual rights to life ,liberty, property and pursuit of happiness of every individual person.35 million people did not die in Capitalist countries...but well over 180 million did in Socialist murder holes from the USSR to Cuba last century.Socialism is a debunked system that leads to mass death and impoverishment.
13th May 2007 @ 01:00
Comment from: Paul Smith [Member] · http://www.dasmirnov.net/
180 million!!! Hahaha good one, that's greater than the population of Russia and Cuba put together, don't be so stupid.

36 million people die *every year* due to capitalism, in capitalist countries. In the last minute 24 children died from preventable diseases. Fact, if you disagree go and moan at the United Nations. Seriously, where do you learn economics and politics? The Ladybird Pop-up Book of Politics?

The state letting the market run around and do things is why we've got 65000 homeless families in London, up from 40000 a decade ago. The market needs to be thrown in the bin, the landlords need to be kicked up the ass and the local government needs to build houses. The market will only cause a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Hell just look at America, the average wage has dropped 5%, yet wages for CEOs have increased 500% in the last 20 years. In Britain the rich are three times richer than they were a decade ago, yet the people aren't any better off.
13th May 2007 @ 01:21
Comment from: Anthony [Visitor]
Although I dont dispute the fact that millions of people die every year due to things that are preventable I also understand it is the responsibility of the local government to help combat these things. For instance how many millions are spent on aid that never reach the people due to corrupt governments.

I also agree that a government should take a more active roll in helping the homeless. But I dont believe building tons of "free" housing is the answer as the houses will have to be paid for. And who would pay for them? You and I of course. But rather I believe they should try to get these people into trades so they can make a decent living and earn a home. (Living in an appartment isnt very bad). As for your stats I'll just say (because I'm to lazy to look anything up) you are correct. Here are a couple things to look at. First how many homeless are really homeless? This is an interesting question because here in the US there are many "homeless" people who are not really homeless because they actually live with a relative but seek government aid. Also how many people are homeless due to thier own choices? Finally how much larger is the population from 10 yrs ago? Did the per capita raise significantly?

I dont know where you get your average american wage has dropped % because even looking at production workers in the last 10 yrs thier wages have gone up from $12.35 to $17.16.

In fact check the forbes article out
http://www.forbes.com/economy/2006/10/16/demographics-income-population-biz_cx_tvr_1017median.html.

It talks about many of the ideas you are putting forth and speaks about some of the hidden facts.

Now onto the whole communists killed 180 million people. Well I would not attest the 180 million to communists any more than I would the 36 to capitalists. But I believe he was talking about. Communist democide.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF

Anyway dont know if I agree with all the stats but I would understand thats where he is getting his information from.

21st May 2007 @ 13:58
Comment from: Paul Smith [Member] · http://www.dasmirnov.net/
Nobody said anything about free housing, just affordable housing, which means no private owners renting them out for extortionate prices. Although free housing is perfectly achievable, in the USSR students who finished university with high grades were given an apartment and they were given first choice as well. In the UK a house only costs perhaps 1/10th of its retail value to actually build, nationalising housing were wipe out large amounts of that surplus almost overnight.

You need to factor in cost of living increases. Which has on average lowered wages 5%. Manufacturing workers generally suffer less as they have better union coverage.

Well Stalinists killing whoever is irrelevant to this conversation, I'm talking about socialism. The numbers are still off by orders of magnitude. Even the most insane bourgeois put the total figure at 100 million for the same countries, and that's been widely debunked and shown to be probably at least 100% larger than in reality and in a lot of those cases its hardly the Stalinists doing the killing, its rich farmers burning everything to starve people to death that are doing it.

Even if we believe those numbers, captialism manages to kill 20 times as many, despite only having 4 times the population.
21st May 2007 @ 15:51
Comment from: Anthony [Visitor]
As I said. I don't believe it was socialism or communism that killed those people it was the people who were in power. Just as I don't believe it is capitalism that starves those people you are talking about.

In the US we have the fair housing act. Which basically makes it against the law to charge ridiculous amounts for housing. We also have section 8 housing and government aid to people who cannot afford proper housing. All these factor in when looking to get a place to live. Wow your housing is pretty good for 1/10 I bet its actually a lot more. Probably 1/20. But that is for a contractor to build your house. There is nothing stopping you from building it yourself. My grandfather's house was built by his own hands. At the time it cost him $2000. Out here where I live most people still build it themselves. They will rent any heavy equipment needed (usually for the pad and the grading) and then frame and do all the rest themselves. It does reduce the cost by a truck load.
21st May 2007 @ 16:43

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