@theropologist Do you want a free press that's not owned outright by oligarchs and their toadies?

Then we need to build it ourselves and use software like Mastodon to promote that work. Because the oligarchs have built a media cartel and we ain't in it.

@ParanoidFactoid @theropologist this is why I love @igd_news & @UnicornRiot

But I am curious what some of the benefits you see capitalism having are (@theropologist)

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

1.

I promised to respond to this question. But it's going to take a thread. So here we go.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

2.

You asked, 'what benefits do I see of capitalism?'

To respond, I'd like to first untangle base definitions. Because we are far removed from the origins of Enlightenment liberalism, which is the foundation of capitalism as an ideological force.

To do that though, rather than compare the differences between capitalism, socialism, and marxism, let's instead ask: what are the similarities?

(uh oh) lol

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

3.

Today, the differences seem maximal. That is, capitalism is on one end of an economic spectrum and marxism on the other.

(let's assume, marxism is to the left and capitalism is to the right on this theoretical scale)

This view - maximal difference - is incompatible with early views on economics and society back in the 18th-19th century.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

4.

Let's use Labor Theory of Value as an example. This is typically ascribed to Marx. But actually, it was originally delineated by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations. Then David Ricardo expanded on that. Both of these, some eighty years before Marx.

Which means - and this should not surprise - Marx was well read in the economic literature of that time and used their ideas to further his own.

(like a scholar would)

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

5.

What Marx did to Smith and Ricardo's work was to shift to focus on the profiteering by owners to that of loss by workers.

Smith and Ricardo liked profit. Marx, not so much. But Marx took from Smith and Ricardo the idea Labor Theory of Value and then inverted its presumption (or focus). But the theory is the same.

It's also important to understand the difference between Marx-Engles Marxism vs Leninist State Marxism.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

6.

Marx & Engles were much more aligned with today's anarchist movement than they would be with centralized state communism. Because they viewed the state as a tyrannical instrument of centralized and disconnected power.

Honestly, much like how libertarians and anarchists view the state today.

Marx wanted wanted a kind of federated and decentralized society, with workers owning industrial facilities run as nonprofit COOPs.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

7.

But this is in direct contradiction to Leninist thought, which then led to Stalinism and Maoism (the vestiges of which we still see in today's China).

So, with this context, let's ask, what does Left and Right actually mean in relation to Marx-Engles' vision vs Lenin/Stalin/Mao? And how does that comport to the modern vision of these ideologies?

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

8.

So we know the terms Left and Right come from the French Revolution. That is, during the conflict (but while King Louis XVI still sat on the throne), those who argued for the interests of peasants would sit to the left at the Estates Generale (Parliament). Those who supported the Church, sat in the middle. And those who supported the King, sat to the RIGHT!

The right has at its foundation a support of centralized monarchy. (Edmund Burke)

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

9.

And the Left supported average downtrodden people who'd been fucked over by the monarchy and their abuse of state power.

OK?

So, how do we align capitalism, communism, and socialism to this vision of Left vs Right?

Marx-Engles would be to the left! (they didn't like centralized government) But state communism is to the right (because it's centralized government).

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

10.

Whereas capitalism (as practiced in the 18th-19th century) is actually to the left, because it decentralized economies and financial power away from the monarchy and ceded it to average people.

Socialism is a curious matter. Because EVERYONE has stolen that term for themselves.

Marx, Lenin, Hitler, even capitalists! They all stole the word Socialism as a kind of fake alternative to communism.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

11.

But, let's critique capitalism now.

Adam Smith understood that in a liberal society, capital would accumulate into fewer and fewer hands until those last few who remained owners would essentially become royalty themselves. And as a result, workers would be reduced to wage slavery.

He wrote about that in Wealth of Nations. See Book 1, chapter 8.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

12.

There, he argued that capitalists (the ownership class, who back then were called Masters), would drive the populace to a point of desperation and lead to the collapse of the state. (which he opposed)

His solution to that was "trade unions", which today we'd call a labor union.

Adam Smith argued that labor unions were a necessary countervailing force to capitalism, otherwise mercantile kings would form (and steal the official throne).

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

13.

But he wasn't particularly happy about the monarchy either (though he had to be a toady there, as being too outspoken may well have gotten him jailed).

If you read his book, Theory of Moral Sentiments, you will find a harsh critique of the aristocracy. Those Marxists here who've read Veblen and his book, Theory of the Leisure Class, will immediately recognize similar arguments (made a hundred and fiftyish years prior).

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

14.

OOOOOOKKKKKKK.... let's draw some comparisons.

State Communism is more like Royalty than it is like French republicanism (traditional leftism). That's going to be a hard one to swallow for many people here.

But think about it. Leninism came from the overthrow of the Czars. They had a huge country to suddenly govern. And fucking civil war to boot. What else could they have done but recreate Czarist Russia with a Marxist face?

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

15.

Mao just copied it. He and Stalin actually liked each other. They had a good personal relationship. And Mao invited in a great number of advisors and engineers from the Soviet Union to help industrialize China. They especially needed STEEL. So Russia help them build foundries.

That collapsed when Stalin died. Mao and Khrushchev did not get along and Mao kicked out all the Soviet advisors after Stalin's death.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

16.

Mao's Great Leap Forward was an attempt to resolve the loss of Soviet advisors. But you'll note, he used the ideas of Lysenko in agriculture, with famine and other devastating consequences the result.

This brings up how ideology - like a mind virus - strips us of the intellectual tools needed to untangle when ideas stray from physical reality.

Lysenko is a perfect example of state communism going crazy.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

17.

So let's contrast that with today's capitalist oligarchs.

Remember I said Smith argued that indefinite accumulation of capital would lead to a new royalty class. Well what the fuck do we think these assholes are trying to do? Whether that's Putin, or Xi Jing Ping, or Kim Jong Un, etc.

Remember how Trump aspired to be like them? And if you look at his Manhattan flat in Trump tower, what does it look like?

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

18.

What does that remind you of? Well, here's Napoleon's flat, recreated in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

19.

All that ostentatious gold leaf and aspirational super-wealth. Just like a king.

And of course, we see images of Trump AS KING.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

20.

OK, so the Laissez Faire capitalism of today (and the guilded age of the late 19th early 20th century), are expressions of the desire for oligarchs to king themselves and become the state.

Kings ARE THE STATE in an absolute monarchy. Today, there are few absolute monarchies left. But one of them is.... SAUDI ARABIA. Which the Trump administration and Jared Kuchner famously befriended with a $2 Billion dollar reward from MBS as a result.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

21.

Smith envisioned the potential consequences of Laissez Faire capitalism back in the 18th century. Marx saw those consequences first hand, and wrote in opposition to it.

This makes Laissez Faire capitalism more in line with the Right (on the old French Assemblee Generale) than decentralized economics (and society) of liberalism, as envisioned by Smith, Ricardo. And society wise, Voltaire, Locke, Rousseau, etc.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

22.

Here's the thing, even in the most repressive period of Soviet or Maoist communism, people had actual paper money. People owned private belongings (Stalin didn't care if you owned a toothbrush). But the state owned all deeded property and all industrial facilities. They set state mandates for production (the economic councils). blah blah blah.

I encourage you to compare that to so-called private monopolies and business cartels.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

23.

What difference does it make if the state owns everything versus one dude? In both cases, you have centralization run amok and economics that fund a patronage class versus doing or creating useful things with money.

Conservatives would like you to believe the monopolies and centralized power they seek is utterly different from state communism.

It's the same fucking thing.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

24.

But it's totally different from decentralized communism and decentralized capitalism. The only question here is whether you accept private owners setting policy and taking profit versus worker ownership with a collective setting policy.

And BTW: those collectives created surplus value too (profit). But they either gave it out as dividends to the workers (as owners) or reinvested to expand production.

@currentbias @theropologist @igd_news @UnicornRiot

25.

I think the only socialist country which ever really implemented that kind of traditional Marxism was Yugoslavia. Maybe Chile under Allende.

I'll let readers judge whether those experiments were viable. I do think the CIA instigating a coup and killing Allende was a terrible mistake. But that's a different thread.