[Marxism] Is Obama a Capitalist? Who is a capitalist anyway?

["Anthony Boynton" <anthony.boynton@xxxxxxxxx>]

*Is Obama a Capitalist? Who is a capitalist anyway?*

* *

Chiding Walter, for what I took were his sarcastic comments about Obama,
Louis Proyect (with a Y for socialism's sake, not a j) touched on a key
topic. The comment which interested me was Lou's (equally sarcastic) advice
to Walter, "If you need a refresher course on what a "capitalist" is, I
suggest you read V. 1 of Capital, especially the first 2 or 3 chapters."



The topic which I think is interesting is,



"Is Obama a Capitalist? Who is a capitalist anyway?"



(If anyone is interested, The exchange between Louis and Walter can be found
below, followed by the table of contents to Volume One of Capital.)



I think that Marx did not spend a lot of time defining what a capitalist was
in his book Capital. However, if you read through Capital and other things
Marx wrote, you can easily come up with a simple definition of a capitalist:
a person who has money to invest, and invests it to make more money. This is
the idea of



M-C-M



in terms of the people who have, and invest, the money.



By this definition, anyone who has some surplus cash and places a bet, has
taken the first step towards becoming a capitalist.



Marx focused on the industrial capitalists, who directly employ labor. This
is where you can see the real social relation of capitalism clearly in
focus. Capitalists buys labor power, labor power produces the value
necessary to reproduce labor power (which turns out to be the exchange value
of labor power)...and keeps on producing a surplus. The capitalist, as the
legitimate owner of the surplus product, sells it and makes a profit.
(Depending on the market)



M-C-M



But in the 21st century, capitalists don't always, or even usually directly
invest in industrial production.



People who have money to invest, and who want it to turn a profit, look for
investments which will maximize profits, or which will maximize the security
of their capital, or most often they try to mix the two. They buy real
estate, shares of stock, bonds, or park the money in CDs.



Most 21st century capitalists do not go off and open a factory to make
blacking, silk, linen, or coats (examples found in the first couple of
chapters of Capital).



In the 21st century, financial institutions – banks, insurance companies,
hedge funds, financial markets – centralize the capital of many millions of
capitalists and allot it to different investments according to what you
might call the laws of the financial markets. (Marx did not really ever
investigate those laws, partly because he died before he finished his work,
but mostly because modern finance capital did not yet exist during his
lifetime.)



So, is Obama a capitalist?



I would bet on it, although I have not looked at his campaign disclosures.
Has he invested money in capital, with the idea of getting more money back
at the end of the cycle? If he has, then he is a capitalist.



But, wait just a gall darn second. What about the worker who has a 401K?
Does that make him a capitalist too?



In my view, 21st century capitalism breaks down into three major classes:
big capitalists, small working capitalists, and wage workers. At the
dividing line between big capitalists and small working capitalists, and
between small working capitalists and wage workers, there are large gray
areas where the social classes overlap.



Obama, before he was elected, inhabited the gray area between the big
capitalists and the small working capitalists. By the time he leaves office
(assuming he makes it out alive) he will have made the transition to being a
fully paid up member of the big capitalist class.



A lot of Marxists like to use a very fuzzy definition of what a capitalist
is, because it allows them to ignore the role of the gigantic petty
bourgeoisie in capitalist society and politics.



They replace the idea of "capitalist class" with the idea of "ruling class",
using definitions like those of the sociologist William Domhoff (
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/).



The US capitalist class AS A WHOLE rules the United States. Within it there
is a constant struggle for power between different powerful, and not fully
stable, alliances of  groups.



Two mechanisms decide which alliance will lead, one is the electoral system.
The other is the interlinked financial markets.



Obama is the man who fronts for one of those ruling class alliances. It is a
lot different than the one which was just booted out.



The old one was based on oil, Texas, right wing Protestant churches, rural
white working capitalists and workers, and the Republican Party electoral
machine.. The new one is based on manufacturing industry, services tied to
the national market, Chicago, liberal Protestant churches, urban black and
Latino working capitalists and workers, trade unions, and the Democratic
Party electoral machine.



The key dominant, but mostly silent, partner in both alliances, is finance
capital.



Obama's reaction to the factory occupation in Chicago reflects precisely the
coalition which he fronts.



A key factor determining which capitalist alliance leads US capitalism, is
the ability to lead the petty bourgeoisie and the politically active sector
of the working class. One reason the Republican Party is out, is that it
lost the ability to lead the masses. And, conversely, one reason the
Democrats are back, is that they are better able to lead the masses in these
troubled times.



How long will that last?



When Obama and the Democrats are no longer are to lead the masses, then
there will either be a shift back to the Republicans, or a crisis within the
two party system. Hopefully the latter, and hopefully sooner rather than
later.



Anthony



*****

Lou and Walter



Walter wrote,



"This is false! It can't be true! Obama cannot support the workers
because Obama is a capitalist who cannot support the workers!"



Lou replied,



"Walter, please stop writing such nonsense on Marxmail. If you need a

refresher course on what a "capitalist" is, I suggest you read V. 1

of Capital, especially the first 2 or 3 chapters. A capitalist by and

large does not run for high office, with the rare exception of

somebody like Nelson Rockefeller."



*****

Capital Volume One



Prefaces and Afterwords



Part I: Commodities and Money



Ch. 1: Commodities

Ch. 2: Exchange

Ch. 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities



Part II: The Transformation of Money in Capital



Ch. 4: The General Formula for Capital

Ch. 5: Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital

Ch. 6: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power



Part III: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value



Ch. 7: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value

Ch. 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital

Ch. 9: The Rate of Surplus-Value

Ch. 10: The Working-Day

Ch. 11: Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value



Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value



Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value

Ch. 13: Co-operation

Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture

Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry



Part V: The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value



Ch. 16: Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Ch. 17: Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in
Surplus-Value

Ch. 18: Various Formula for the Rate of Surplus-Value



Part VI: Wages



Ch. 19: The Transformation of the Value (and Respective Price) of
Labour-Power into Wages

Ch. 20: Time-Wages

Ch. 21: Piece-Wages

Ch. 22: National Differences of Wages



Part VII: The Accumulation of Capital



Ch. 23: Simple Reproduction

Ch. 24: Conversion of Surplus-Value into Capital

Ch. 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation



Part VIII: Primitive Accumulation



Ch. 26: The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

Ch. 27: Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land

Ch. 28: Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated, from the End of the
15th Century. Forcing down of Wages by Acts of Parliament

Ch. 29: Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer

Ch. 30: Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. Creation of the
Home-Market for Industrial Capital

Ch. 31: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist

Ch. 32: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation

Ch. 33: The Modern Theory of Colonisation
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