Tristan Ewings “regarding the 'tendency of the rate of profit to fall': I think this is hard-wired into the logic of capitalism”

I think the evidence of history says you are talking through your bum.

What you fail to accept is one of the fundamental differences between centrally planned socialist/ communist systems and a capitalist system.

The moribund bureaucracy which causes economic stagnation in socialist systems does not exist in the capitalist system,

Where the timeline between seeing a need and responding to it, is eternal in the “socialist/communist central planning model”, the advantage of the capitalist model is to respond in anticipation to the need and thus delivers value added products whilst the socialists are still debating the agenda for the planning meeting.

“Marx is still 'spot on' in identifying the tendency towards monopoly in a 'pure' capitalist market.”

So what? The state-runs-it-all system is a absolute monopoly which has all the relative drawbacks of any other monopoly only more so because, when the state owns all, no one is able to legislate against them.

And the practical implementation of Marxism is evidenced in history. The working and every other class “consumer” was left with excuses, empty shop shelves and bread queues, which were the hallmark of Poland, Russia and all the other “workers utopias”.

“And 'commodity fetishism' remains in the sense that many consumers fail to indentify the labour from which consumables come”

What you seen to forget is

the consumer is the labour from which consumables come.

You lefties are always talking up these 150 year old failed theories as if they had been written yesterday.

"Marx" is irrelevant to the present world.

Why capitalism works and socialism does not is simple.

Whilst you socialists are talking about the theories, the capitalist is out there making things happen.

The capitalist is improving peoples lives by responding, in a practical way, to peoples wants and needs.

Socialist / communists just wallow in some self-righteous masturbatory exercise of deciding what a “social justice” justification is for mandating the homeless be forced into the private homes of the owner occupier.

Dear Passy:

I could always do to revise my Marx - but I have read the book you mention, actually... It was one of the first books I read on Marx - when I was a teenager a very long time ago...

That said, though - I agree that Marx allowed for free will - 'people make their own history, but not as they choose... But this is also contradictory - for Marx saw class struggle as THE driving force behind history...something to the effect of "all history is the history of class struggles"...played out a materialistic and historical dialectic...

But such things aside: what of ethnicity, ideology, religion etc? It is too easy to see things in the Marxian sense of ideology, false consciousness etc...

What you say about "the proletariat winning the battle of democracy", though, is a critical facet of Marx's analysis...Some feel that Lenin substituted the Party for the working class...and hence his criticism of socialists, such as Kautsky, who criticised him on the issue of democracy... But one thing here: You make a good point:that Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is not "totalitarianism" but rather the exercise of democratic rule by the proletariat... This should go even further though - and also recognise liberal rights...

After all - is not human liberty just as important as democracy?

more later - thanks. :-)

Passy: just another couple of points... You suppose that any attempt to win capital share for the working class would fail because of capital strike...History shows, however, that there are many instances of workers achieving collective capital share...either in pension funds, or (briefly) in Sweden with 'wage earner funds'..., and through support for social expenditure-provided partly for through corporate taxation...

Admittedly in Sweden there was massive retaliation against the 'Meidner wage earner funds'...but a more modest variant on this may imaginably provide a 'foot in the door' presuming a long struggle by 'the Left', organised labour etc...

If sustained democratic struggle could not deliver we never would have seen the rise of the social wage/welfare state in the first place.

The trick, though, is to respond to 'the fiscal crisis of the state' that Habermas talked about...mobilising workers and citizens to maintain and/or reclaim gains that are under threat by the neo-liberal variant of capitalism...Difficulty arises, though, attempting this while working within the logic of capitalism, and expropriating collective capital share to compensate for a shrinking wage share of the economy...Also problematic is the right of individuals to invest their money as they choose...While the wealthy ought be subject to a raft of progressive taxes, under these circumstances the best we can achieve is a 'mixed democratic economy'...(more of this later if the thread's still going...)

In other countries, also, there are much more progressive pension funds... Finally, there are other options - such as supporting co-operative enterprise through tax breaks, support and discount loans...

nb: the task ought not be underestimated - we are talking about years and even decades building a response to neo-liberalism...Building a'counter-hegemonic historic bloc'.. Wars of movement(see Gramsci) typically occur in vaccuums,leading to the destruction of liberal-democratic consenus, and the onset of desperate tactics,violence,terror... Far better a democratic 'war of position'..through liberal and democratic channels...

*"Marx" is irrelevant to the present world.*

Exactly. Today there is something like 1.2 trillion$
in super fund invesments, owned by Australian workers.

Thats enough to buy the ASX. Look up the share register
of Australian banks, miners etc, the top 20 are nearly
all Super funds. The more money these companies make,
the better off and richer, workers become. The "them"
and "us" story is just about gone, as if these companies
don't make money, workers will be the biggest losers,
given that they largely own these companies.

Inflation is not a result of the CPI. The CPI is an indicator of inflation - a bad one at that because of many elements are not included in the calculation.
To STOP inflation all the government needs to do is to stop printing money (including electronic money).
But then they would not be able to spend at the rate that they are now doing and that would upset the voters.

Tristan

I've regarded Adorno and Habermas as obscurantist dilettantes, but Gramsci is different.

I don't think you can use Gramsci's arguments to support the slow reform of capital argument. He was a revolutionary. I am also not sure that his thesis is correct. I'd have to think some more about it but it seems to me there are sharp periods of class struggle (eg May 68 in France, or 53 in East Germany, 56 in Poland, 68 in Czechoslovakia, 80 in Poland) which were not the result of long slow battles but rather sudden upsurges in struggle catching all sides by surprise. Maybe the slow 68 in Italy over the period 66 to 70?

I might have to go back and re-read him. It's been sometime.