Re: [Marxism] Dueling Powers and Capitalist Property in theUnitedStates by Matt Russo

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Joaquin Bustelo wrote:
> 
> Anthony Boynton wrote: "I think houses that are bought and sold in markets
> like any other commodity are clearly a form of capital."
> 
> Yeah, that's what the ruling class has been preaching for decades, and I
> guess some "Marxists" have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The
> "ownership" society and all that.
> 
> Boynton's blog post argues that people buy houses expecting to profit.
> 
> "Every person who buys a home in the United States, or at least every person
> who bought one in the past, expected to gain a portion of the surplus value
> generated throughout the society. The belief that real estate prices
> inevitably and inexorably rise is deeply held in all layers of society in
> the United States. And, over the long run, it has been historically true."
> 
> It is not true that people automatically assumed they could make a killing
> by buying a house. "Desirable" neighborhoods are in a constant state of
> flux, as developers and local banks (the latter until the last decade or
> two, when local banking was gradually abandoned) manipulated local
> governments to create ground rent differentials.

You give away too much to Boynton's absurdities in this paragraph. It
would not make houses capital even if it were true that "that people
automatically assumed they could make a killing  by buying a house."
Merely buying and selling, even if done _only_ for purposes of gain, has
nothing whatever to do with capital or capitalism.

The lack of understanding by most marxists of what makes capitalism
capitalism is truly pathetic, and is a constant barrier to clear
strategic thinking.  My eyesight is ruined and I can no loger read
printed texts for myself. But awarness of this deficiency in our
understanding has led me to be currently paying $18 an hour to a grad
student to read to me _Time, Labor, and Social Domination_, by Moishe
Postone. It sounds promising. I have some reason to believe that
Postone's own political grasp is deficient, but be that as it may,  he
seems to offer a better road to understanding our enemy than do the
vulgar and moralistic understandings of capitalism commonly expressed on
this list.

Private property plus markets plus exploitation plus oppression DO NOT
ADD UP TO CAPITALISM. Capitalism is an absolutely unique social order,
differing qualitatively from all other exploitatative and/or comercial
systems. I hope I have enough years left, given my problems with vision,
to begin to understand what this means.

Carrol


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