[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:Yes, it actually does. That were those nice gentleman that raised productivity enormously, created hundreds of thousands of jobs, slashed prices by 80- 90% and were slandered so successfully that nobody seems to care for the facts anymore.
Like the fact that many workers ended up OWING MONEY to the munificent corporations which employed them? The fact that many companies were frequently months behind in paying wages? The fact that during the late 1800s there was a depression approximately every 5 to 7 years?
I guess the fact that Rockefeller (for instance) ended up being the richest human in history was just a nice side effect, eh? Ah, libertarianism.
the heritage foundation has studies that clearly show that in those countries with the least government intervention per capita income is highest.
AAHHAHAHAHA! Yes, I’m sure the Heritage Foundation does have those numbers. Haha!
Forcibly holding down consumption?
That’s right, unless you care to dispute the mountains of reports we have about ruthless wage cuts. Unless you wish to find some other cause for the rapid accumulation of capital, other than foregone consumption.
You are aware that 200 years ago people had one pair of shoes and that was it?
And yet there were fewer economic rebellions. Hmmm…
Capitalism per almost per definition is mass production and requires a mass market. If you look at the discussions of the 18th and 19th century they were in awe that the prices of so many goods had become inelastic, i.e. they had become so dirt cheap that price fluctuations did no longer matter, even for the average worker.
They were “dirt cheap,” yet workers still couldn’t afford them? Interesting.
Capitalism does not forcibly keep production down it goes out of its way to make people consume.
Except this is at odds with the desire to pay low wages. It is at odds with records of countless recessions/depressions induced by overproduction. I should give you credit: you have hit upon one of the most fundamental contradictions in capitalism, the tension between the desire for higher profits and the need for increased consumption to sustain production.
Capitalism tends to allocate resources quitze efficiently, and that function is not all about capital accumulation.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. We could talk for days about your bullet point.
Teh second point is pure Marxism and is directly contradicted by 200 years of economic theory.
Since when is contradiction by 200 years of theory or history a strike against a proposition for you? Incidentally, that it is contradicted by liberal economic theory, past being meaningless, actually convinces me further of its truth.
You assume that capitalist just arbitrarily fix wages, when in fact they need to compete for the best workers and wages always follow productivity.
They need to compete? What for? There are always unemployed. What for? Further improvements in production make work less and less skilled.
Exactly because they are selfish they must pay competitive wages or otherwise their capital is not used productively and then you are not much of a capitalist.
It is a rare instance when there such a shortage of labor that capitalists are forced to be competitive (though this does apply less in more skilled positions).
That is obviously complete nonsense.
I suppose millionaires and billionaires are just thousands and thousands of times more productive than the workers they employ? Otherwise, in the absence of this superhuman productivity, the conclusion that they appropriate the produce of others’ labor is inescapable. The inequality in productivity that would be necessary to justify the economic inequality we see among workers simply does not exist.
A slaveholder does not ask nicely, nor does he pay you, he just takes what he wants.
That is SOOOO 17th century. They’re much more sophisticated today.
[/quote]
Well that wasnt anything really the respond to just a few things:
There are always unemployed?
So what? Marxs days are over, workers do not toil away on steam driven primitive machines.
They operate highly sophisticated machinery, and you do not want to cut the wages of someone that operates hundreds of thousands worth of capital. You do not get someone who can work the machinery at a loading dock at a moments notice and if he stands up and leaves you lose millions each day.
The idea that “the unemployed” could simply take on any job that takes years of training is blatantly absurd.
No, there are only so many people willing and capable of doing certain jobs and you better compete as a capitalist.
Second, no, even the average worker could not only afford bread,salt, tea and sugar, he actually did not give a shit about prices any more.
Just decades earlier there had been riots when the price of bread rose, now it just was not that important anymore.
They took it for granted, just like you do with all the abundance that surrounds you.