[Marxism] Fwd: Conspiracy and the "Logic" of Capitalism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
> diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,
> or in some contrivance to raise prices."
> (Adam Smith)
>
> Even Adam Smith recognized that the core survival imperatives and
> interests of capitalists under capitalism would often--or perhaps
> inexorably--lead to varied conspiracies against the public (two or more
> acting in concert to knowingly and calculatingly subvert, get around or
> just plain break the same bourgeois law to which others are held) commonly
> referred to as "nothing personal, just business..."
>
> Instead of running from the meaningless epithet "conspiracy theorist",
> used to summarily dismiss rather than deal with given facts, pseudo-facts
> and given arguments--often by those involved in the very conspiracies they
> are summarily dismissing as non-existent--the left should take on and
> expose real conspiracies that really exist (using the classic techniques
> for exposing and breaking up real world conspiracies: surveillance,
> infiltration, pressure from the outside to force revealing mistakes and
> chaos on the inside, rolling-over or turning insiders and connecting the
> dots) and, of course, not sign on to more ridiculous--if not emotionally
> gratifying--"conspiracy theories" that can only impeach the credibility of
> the messengers as well as the overall message: that there are indeed
> capitalist-class-interest-based conspiracies in the real world all the
> time. In a certain sense, capitalism is one gigantic conspiracy (involving
> holding the masses to laws the capitalists routinely break or declare
> themselves exempt from) composed of many sub and interrelated constituent
> conspiracies.
>
> The core and interrelated capitalist imperatives--e.g. MAXIMIZATION OF
> PRODUCTIVITY (max output/input or min input/output), EFFECTIVE
> COMPETITION, REALIZATION OF MAXIMUM POSSIBLE TOTAL PROFITS and
> ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL--give rise to derivative imperatives which give
> rise to all sorts of primary and derivative conspiracies. Effective
> competition is a necessary but not sufficient condition of realization of
> maximum possible total profits, which is a necessary but not sufficient
> condition of accumulation of capital, which is a necessary but not
> sufficient condition of maximization of productivity, which is a necessary
> but not sufficient condition of effective competition... Further the
> imperative to maximize productivity and to reduce total costs of producing
> given output for example, gives rise to derivative imperatives such as
> union busting, outsourcing, imperial conquest of sources of cheap
> labor/natural resources which give rise to various conspiracies (as
> conspiracy is properly defined in language and bourgeois law) to break the
> very bourgeois laws to which non-insiders and non-capitalists are
> routinely held and held accountable.
>
> This approach, admittedly a bit teleological in its overall approach,
> focuses on the "logic" of the overall system of capitalism rather than on
> individuals--and their own personal proclivities--and the unfolding
> vicissitudes, machinations and trajectories that flow from the core
> imperatives, structures, power relations and institutions flowing
> from/with the core--amd defining--logic of capitalism and the machinations
> of the capitalists.
>
> Jim Craven

Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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