tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post2115636709801142247..comments2024-03-28T20:47:48.468-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: A REPLY TO STEPHEN DARLINGRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-27700596451882360982015-04-11T18:52:52.027-04:002015-04-11T18:52:52.027-04:00Prof.
"Many wrong answers have been advanced...Prof.<br /><br />"Many wrong answers have been advanced by those seeking to justify the ways of capitalism. I shall be happy to rehearse them another time."<br /><br />Actually, I am very interested on this subject, as you may have noticed from my own blog. Your views on this would be greatly appreciated.Magpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-23773173930975504312015-04-03T23:16:22.165-04:002015-04-03T23:16:22.165-04:00"Look, suppose come the revolution [as we use..."Look, suppose come the revolution [as we used to say when I was a boy] we shoot all the capitalists [just kidding.] What is left is factories, tools, raw materials, skills, computer networks, etc etc etc, also money and other financial instruments, which will not simply evaporate".<br /><br />So that non-Marxist readers can catch their breaths: think of the Rapture!<br /><br />Or of a mass migration to meet John Galt.Magpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-67132165127871866182015-04-03T22:08:54.938-04:002015-04-03T22:08:54.938-04:00Dear Robert,
Thanks for your splendid and extensi...Dear Robert,<br /><br />Thanks for your splendid and extensive reply. The last chapter of Marx's Capital, Vol. 1, amply explains through the tale of 'Mr. Peel' how capitalists need 'free' workers under capitalism but workers don't need them in order to reproduce themselves. Thanks for the links, Chris.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Stephenstephendarlinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11978504026681997333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-82476053797673850972015-04-02T13:46:10.404-04:002015-04-02T13:46:10.404-04:00This is good. Your post helps to clarify where the...This is good. Your post helps to clarify where the agreements and disagreements rest. I accede all your points except <br />“What is left is … money and other financial instruments”. <br /><br />Maybe you’ll call me sectarian or religious for this – and I’m not sure that’s fair – but I still think money and financial instruments are measuring some kind of value. We seem to disagree on what that value is determined by (I still accept SNLT), but I am not of the mindset that those two things will be picked up and utilized in the post capitalists society. <br /><br />If the flow of capital is M-C(LP/MP)…P…C’-M’, it’s those insidious surplus values we want to rid to do away with exploitation and other factors. And part of that requires getting rid of M. Why can’t the circuit of social production just be P…C…P of some kind? <br /><br />If we reform society to be a P…C…P society, then couldn’t we say capital is gone? And couldn’t I then press my question to you again: why do we need capital? Why are we picking up wages and financial instruments? <br /><br />I prefer the Critique of the Gotha Program, where it’s made clear that we need to kill the law of value, and remove the wage form of social compensation. Otherwise we leave too much room for capital, and capitalists, return.<br />Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81953591884133726842015-04-02T13:39:20.550-04:002015-04-02T13:39:20.550-04:00Look, suppose come the revolution [as we used to s...Look, suppose come the revolution [as we used to say when I was a boy] we shoot all the capitalists [just kidding.] What is left is factories, tools, raw materials, skills, computer networks, etc etc etc, also money and other financial instruments, which will not simply evaporate. So now we need to decide which productive activities to keep engaging in and which, if any, to cease, and also how to reallocate resources -- for example, reallocating building materials to build fewer McMansions and more well-designed dwellings for workers. Now, if you wish then to stop calling all these resources "capital" that is fine, but we will need them resources, and we will need to craft new ways of allocating them and making decisions about allocating them regardless of what you call them. If Marx is correct [Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy] as I think he is, these new ways will have to "grow in the womb of the old" before such a revolution is possible. No?Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-69452015781648053072015-04-02T12:46:10.052-04:002015-04-02T12:46:10.052-04:00Let me apologize profusely if I upset you. That...Let me apologize profusely if I upset you. That's never my intention, but I lack some of the basic virtues of social interaction.<br /><br />But I do think that even from a Krugman point of view, capital can't just be some excess thing sitting around for later use. So I do think the question remains, if we can ask:<br />Why do we need capitalists?<br />We can also ask why do we need capital?<br /><br />And another variation of this question is:<br />If we accede that will get rid of capitalists, how could we even have capital? Isn't the former a necessary condition for the latter?<br /><br />I wasn't trying to make this a sectarian issue (until the second to last sentence I wrote), I was trying to make a point about the necessary relationship between capitalists and capital, and how we can't get rid of one and keep the other.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-75369319381122663092015-04-02T12:40:06.644-04:002015-04-02T12:40:06.644-04:00Chris, Chris, get a grip. I am criticizing Paul K...Chris, Chris, get a grip. I am criticizing Paul Krugman, so I am using terms as he uses them. If it makes you any happier, you can call this dialectical. You are writing not like a student of society but like a sectarian of some religion who is enraptured by his holy terminology. If you refuse to use language in a way that is comprehensible to those against whom you are arguing, then you end up talking to yourself and your little band of the faithful. I have no interest in doing that. You want to quote Marx to Paul Krugman? He scarcely knows who Marx is.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5926801282029384932015-04-02T11:02:03.700-04:002015-04-02T11:02:03.700-04:00This is the most startling thing I've heard yo...This is the most startling thing I've heard you say (and I've been reading your work since approximately 2007):<br /><br />"We need capital. Without it, we would still be running naked across the savannah picking up nuts and berries and scavenging for the leavings of predators. We need tools and machines and skills and techniques, we need seed for the fields and raw materials for the factories. We need to consume less than we produce so that some of what we can produce is available for the next round of production. All of this is capital. We need capital."<br /><br />Let me concede these obvious points. We need labor. We need ingenuity. We need to allow people to develop themselves and technology, and we need to interact with technology as laborers, producers, and consumers. And I grant your question: why do we need capitalists? (we don’t!).<br />But why do we need capital!? Your own example shows we don’t need it, unless there’s some form of hostility towards previous forms of human cooperation that existed in the savannah? Of course that’s not the only scenario where non-capital societies have flourished. Even a Feudal society doesn’t have ‘capital’. So why do we need capital? More importantly, without capitalists, how could we even have capital? Capital is – as Marx rightly points out – value in motion, capable of further valorization, and our form of value is predicated upon a particular social relation: capitalists owning the means of production, and workers selling labor power. If we remove one of those necessary conditions (capitalists), how and why should/would we still have capital?<br /><br />If you want to retain capital, then you must accept that you want to retain ALL the nasty baggage that comes with it. Alienation. Continued crises. Reification. Objectifying people. Treating each other as means to an end. Being calculative instead of empathetic. Allowing ample room for stark inequality. Etc.<br /><br />But if you define capital as just making things for later, that strikes me as a wholly inadequate definition, and in that case NO SOCIETY has ever existed without capital. But if EVERY form of production is basically capital contingent, than capital as an explanatory phenomenon in unique economic systems is essentially useless. And in that case you might as well throw out all three volumes of Das Kapital.<br /><br />I’m perplexed. So perplexed.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.com