That’s the same logic as saying there’s never going to be a cure for cancer because research has been done for decades.
As Capitalism gets older, it trends towards monopolization, increasingly complex production methods take increasing amounts of investment to compete, killing the ability of smaller competitors to exist. The Rate of Profit shrinks the less human labor is involved with production, which is only temporarily countered by consolidation, even further monopolization! Wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, Capitalism reaches a moribund stage.
What is undeniable is that this disparity is increasing further and further, and monopolization is increasing further and further. The revolutionary potential of the Proletariat is held at bay through further exploitation of the Global South, which appears to be weakening over time.
While nobody can name a date, I find it even harder to believe that someone could meaningfully believe that the trends I listed are going to reverse themselves and have Capitalism last forever.
What do you think Marxism is? When you say “workers controlling the Means of Production,” what specific vision are you talking about, where majority publicly owned and planned economies are not Socialist?
Well for one thing, such countries don’t have billionaires and and a stock exchange with private corporations like in Vietnam, China and, I am guessing if I looked, in the other countries you listed too.
If a handful of people or just one person owns a bunch of factories, a few individuals control the means of production. And do it to gain capital.
Someone remind me what an economy is called when there’s an elite group of wealthy people who get rich off of their capital gains…
Well for one thing, such countries don’t have billionaires and and a stock exchange with private corporations like in Vietnam, China and, I am guessing if I looked, in the other countries you listed too.
Marx never once said that Communism could be established through fiat, by decree instead of degree. Engels, in writing The Principles of Communism, makes it quite clear why this cannot be:
Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?
No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
Marx describes the process of private industry forming monopolist syndicates ripe for public planning in Manifesto of the Communist Party:
The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.
Socialist states with minority private sectors are fully in line with Marxist analysis. As these private sectors monopolize and develop the productive forces through competition, they make themselves ripe for public planning. A good essay on the subject is Why Public Property? if you have need for further detail.
If a handful of people or just one person owns a bunch of factories, a few individuals control the means of production. And do it to gain capital.
Yes. In the private sectors of Socialist States, this indeed happens.
Someone remind me what an economy is called when there’s an elite group of wealthy people who get rich off of their capital gains…
Depends on the overall composition of the economy, and what class is in control. Cuba has 77% of the economy in the public sector, for example. Hardly sounds Capitalist to me. The PRC had 50% in 2012, and roughly a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Public sector has only grown since then, and state power over the Private Sector has only increased with time.
Is your argument that an economy that is not fully socialized cannot be considered Socialist? I think, for similar reasons that you wouldn’t call the US Socialist for having the USPS, that that’s a silly argument. Is your argument that not having a fully socialized economy is against Marxism? I think the quotations have helped hammer that Marxism is about progression to socialization, rather than forcing socialization without the necessary infrastructure. Is your argument that Marxism isn’t Socialism? That’s a hard sell as well.
That’s the same logic as saying there’s never going to be a cure for cancer because research has been done for decades.
As Capitalism gets older, it trends towards monopolization, increasingly complex production methods take increasing amounts of investment to compete, killing the ability of smaller competitors to exist. The Rate of Profit shrinks the less human labor is involved with production, which is only temporarily countered by consolidation, even further monopolization! Wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, Capitalism reaches a moribund stage.
What is undeniable is that this disparity is increasing further and further, and monopolization is increasing further and further. The revolutionary potential of the Proletariat is held at bay through further exploitation of the Global South, which appears to be weakening over time.
While nobody can name a date, I find it even harder to believe that someone could meaningfully believe that the trends I listed are going to reverse themselves and have Capitalism last forever.
Except lots of cancers now have cures, and there are vaccines for others, so no it isn’t.
Yes, and there have been successful Socialist revolutions, you’re only weakening your point.
Do you believe the remaining cancers will never be cured because they currently aren’t?
Successful ones? Which country is currently a socialist one? Where do the workers control the means of production?
The PRC, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and a few others are currently Socialist and run along Marxist lines.
The workers do not control the means of production in any of those nations. You’re just lying now.
What do you think Marxism is? When you say “workers controlling the Means of Production,” what specific vision are you talking about, where majority publicly owned and planned economies are not Socialist?
Well for one thing, such countries don’t have billionaires and and a stock exchange with private corporations like in Vietnam, China and, I am guessing if I looked, in the other countries you listed too.
If a handful of people or just one person owns a bunch of factories, a few individuals control the means of production. And do it to gain capital.
Someone remind me what an economy is called when there’s an elite group of wealthy people who get rich off of their capital gains…
Marx never once said that Communism could be established through fiat, by decree instead of degree. Engels, in writing The Principles of Communism, makes it quite clear why this cannot be:
Marx describes the process of private industry forming monopolist syndicates ripe for public planning in Manifesto of the Communist Party:
Socialist states with minority private sectors are fully in line with Marxist analysis. As these private sectors monopolize and develop the productive forces through competition, they make themselves ripe for public planning. A good essay on the subject is Why Public Property? if you have need for further detail.
Yes. In the private sectors of Socialist States, this indeed happens.
Depends on the overall composition of the economy, and what class is in control. Cuba has 77% of the economy in the public sector, for example. Hardly sounds Capitalist to me. The PRC had 50% in 2012, and roughly a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Public sector has only grown since then, and state power over the Private Sector has only increased with time.
Is your argument that an economy that is not fully socialized cannot be considered Socialist? I think, for similar reasons that you wouldn’t call the US Socialist for having the USPS, that that’s a silly argument. Is your argument that not having a fully socialized economy is against Marxism? I think the quotations have helped hammer that Marxism is about progression to socialization, rather than forcing socialization without the necessary infrastructure. Is your argument that Marxism isn’t Socialism? That’s a hard sell as well.