someone said: > Seriously though, the alternative theory would be that capitalism and > all its power relations are an emergent property arising spontaneously > from the interaction of autonomous agents. In other words, capitalism > is a stable attractor. There may be a few conscious actors here and > there, but there is no overall master-plan.
CB: > Yea, that's sort of an "Invisible Hand" theory: all the autonomous > agents pursuing their self-interests results in a self-regulating > system, "the Market". > > On the other "hand", things like Palmer Raids, Â McCarthyism and Cold > War propaganda, i.e. enforcement of anti -anti-capitalist political > ideology, common sense and "culture" are some of the direct evidence > of "intelligent design" impacting mass consciousness. The bourgeois > system didn't just allow a free competition of ideas in the political > "market place". ... There is some "invisible hand" logic in the real world of capitalism's operation. That is, there are often unintended consequences arising from purposeful actions. While agreeing with part of Smith's theory of markets (i.e., that competition drove prices to their minimum), Marx pointed to a kind of reverse Invisible Hand theory: in the GRUNDRISSE, he argued that while each capitalist wanted to push his own employees' wages to the minimum (for profitability's sake), each also preferred that all the other capitalists keep wages high, to create a market for his output. Competition prevented the solution to that contradiction. A similar logic is behind the most reasonable stories behind the falling rate of profit theory. In all of CAPITAL, however, there was also a benefit to the capitalist class arising from competition: the production of commodities (products for sale) and the competition among their sellers produced the fetishism of commodities (or the "illusions created by competition" in volume 3). This meant that it was much more difficult for working people to see the class nature of capitalism (its exploitation, domination, and alienation of them) than, say, under feudalism, where politics and economics were merged and exploitation had to be enforced by the direct application of force. That is, capitalism involves a major basis for its own legitimation. (Of course, there are other bases for its legitimation, such as the divide-and-rule that is institutional racism. The failure of the old USSR to provide a true (non-class) alternative to capitalism also helped here.) The concentration of workers into factories and other large workplaces and into cities created a counter-tendency which helped create the basis for mass opposition to the system and fertile fields for anti-capitalist visions. That's why the Palmer Raids and the like were needed. But the system wouldn't do very well if such expedients were needed every day. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
