Re: [Marxism] Surplus Capital

[Octob1917@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 11/13/2004 10:55:06 AM Pacific Standard Time,
andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx writes:
This is the kind of lousy leftist sloganism
I am not really interested in. Production of what? Don't you want all people
in the world to haveclean drinking water, enough to eat, a decent job,
decent housing, protection from disease, chance of an education, adequate
means of transport, and so on? If you think capitalism is irrational, and
parts of it are, you have to provide some alternatives. You have to
explainhow a more rational system could emerge, from a system that is
irrational. What I am trying to do is inquire into what "overproduction,
inflation, unemployment and recession" really mean nowadays. You just talk
slogansand empty phrases.J.

Reply:

Well, based on your response, I suppose I should begin by apologising for
being a socialist and daring to spout socialist - as you call it - slogans on a
discussion list which goes by the name marxmail.

Jurriaan first poses the question, in typical utopian fashion: Don't I want
all people in the world to have clean drinking water, chance of an education,
adequate means of transport, and so on?

As if, under a capitalist system which, as I've stated, and which as three
centuries or thereabouts of empirical evidence reveals, is at bottom irrational,
these things might or could suddenly materialise.

Of course I want people to have these things. That isn't the point. The
point, my friend, is how they are going to attain them

One thing is certain: they will not attain these things under an economic
system which is predicated on short term profits and the distribution of the
necessities of life according to the ability to pay.

Assuming that if all money tied up in debt securities is invested in
production there would follow a world of almost full employment and bliss is the
equivalent of stating that assuming my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle.

Full employment is anathema in a free market economy, as you and probably
everyone subscribed to this list knows. As to alternatives, eh...socialism 
maybe?
Eh...a planned economic system designed to meet people's needs?

I just don't understand the point of pointing out the obvious. It isn't a
question of investing in production, whilst leaving intact the profit motive
involved in production under a capitalist system.

Rather it is a question of investing in that which meets peoples needs and
working to replace the existing system of human greed with one of human
solidarity (or at least trying to).

Finally, this habit of slandering a hundred years of socialist thought and
theory by some of the world's great thinkers as leftist sloganism speaks to your
fundamental distaste for socialism as a viable alternative to the status quo.
If that is the case, then perhaps you could outline your own idea for an
alternative. Seriously, I would be interested to hear it.

Respectfully


Joe
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