Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force
mHtt@lemmy.ca 4 days agoyes capitalism ALSO requires oversight and competition, not just ownership of the means of production. otherwise its mob rule. We have neither, ergo it’s not capitalism.
ive read plenty of books and not all are reliable.
Urist@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
This is an idealist understanding of what capitalism ought to be, not what it is. This different view is the reason for the contention between us. Most leftists will see capitalism for what it is, not the pipe dream sold to the masses to justify the explotation of them.
In marxist terms, the lack of oversight and competition is an inherent trait, a contradiction, within capitalism. The solutions anyone can present are remedies that do not solve the underlying issue at play, which is the property relations with regard to labour.
mHtt@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
What strikes me is the presence of corporate bailout and subsidies with tax dollars. How can this be said to be capitalism?
True Capitalism would allow these obsolete systems to fail and new ones would replace them.
I do not believe the current system is Capitalistic, not since at least 2008, maybe sooner if you include military intervention as a subsidy. Looking @ you united fruit co.
Urist@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
What you refer to as true capitalism, I am arguing is an idealist view. Idealist in this sense means not part of nor representing material reality. Marxist will claim the ideal form to not only not be present right now, but impossible to achieve due to the mechanics of capitalism itself.
We look at the process of capital accumulation through extraction of surplus labour power as self reinforcing. That means also that the contradictions within the system will reinforce unil reaching a break point.
As an example one could look at how capital consolidation leads to monopolies, how workers are impoverished to the point of not being able to buy the product of their own labour, or how the development of productionary forces lead to the developers, i.e. labourers, manufacture their own replacements.
These are the internal byproducts of capitalist mode of production itself. I have not even touched on the external contradictions happening through imperialism.
To make an analogy: If anyone were to claim that a drug was not actually medicine because it had negative side effects, we might both agree they were wrong. In my view, in the case of your idealist and my materialist view of capitalism, we disagree on the cause and effect in a similar manner.