Dear Eva and friend:
A very good argument and one in which I find more hope and possibilities
than "the survival of the fittest" mentality of the capitalist model. I
especially liked the comments re language developing because we are
basically a cooperating species. It makes sense to me. In the realm of
personal experience, I can say that if I was to analyze my day, both
familial, working, and various relationships, the majority of my time is
spent in cooperative ventures, raising children, working with co-workers,
and even in my business dealings with the world, are much more cooperative
than competitive. It is only when the accumulation of wealth enters the
picture that a small percentage of the population becomes totally neurotic
and puts their own desires and wants above others, even to the point of
actually causing others pain, hardship, deprivation so that they can have
more jelly beans in their jar. Personally, it would seem to me a
predilection for the capitalistic model is either the result of propaganda
and cultural programming or outright mental deviance.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
Subject: competition/contradiction
I asked for a contribution in the above themes from a friend of
mine who happens to be Hungarian, married to an
English chap and a socialist, quite like me...
Be sure - there are more useful work-related information
here that in a lot of other posts!
For some reason she started in Hungarian, my english summary
follows these first paragraphs. Eva
...
Termeszetesen semmi koze az erkolcsi normaknak ehhez. Az
ellentmondas az abbol adodik, hogy a munkasosztaly termeli a javakat, de a
munkaadok csak annyit adnak vissza ebbol amennyire feltetlenul a munkasnak
szuksege van ahhoz, hogy eletben maradjon. Ez a munkaber, ami megfizeti nem
a munkat hanem a munkaerot. (Not labour but labour power!!) Hogy mennyit
fizetnek egy munkasnak az fugg sok mindentol, peldaul, hogy milyenek a
piaci viszonyok, a termelekenyseg, mennyire erosek a szakszervezetek,
milyen merteku a munkanelkuliseg stb., stb. Soha, de soha nem fugg attol,
hogy mennyi erteket termelt a munkas, mert azt soha nem kapja vissza. Ha
kapna, akkor a munkaadonak nem lenne haszna es bezarna a gyarat.
(Ofcourse there is no link with moral norms. The contradiction is
based on the working class producing the goods, but the employers
only paying back as much as the workers need to survive.
This is the wage; only pays for the worker, not for the work done.
The amount of the wage depends from the markets, from the strength of
the unions, from the level of unemployment, etc, etc, but never from
the value produced. This is never returned, as then the employer
would have no profit and would have to close the workplace.)
Egyike a legalapvetobb ellentmondasnak az, hogy ha a munkas csak egy egesz
kis hanyadat kapja vissza annak az erteknek amit megtermelt, akkor nincs
eleg penze, hogy megvegye azokat a termekeket, amit o keszitett, de a
gyartulajdonos ad el. Igy a tulajdonos nem tudja bezsebelni a hasznot, es
igy is bezarja a gyarat.
(One of the most basic contradiction is, that if the worker only gets
back a very small portion of the value he produced, than he has not
enough money to buy the necessities to live, sold by the owners of
the factories etc, so these owners cannot make the profits and have
to close down.)
Egy masik ellentmondas az, hogy az evtizedek soran ahogy a kapitalista
rendszer kezdett hanyatlani, a tendencia arra mutatott, hogy mindig tobbet
kellett befektetni ahhoz, hogy egyre kevesebbet kapjon vissza haszonkent.
"The tendency for the rate of profit to fall" Ez azert van, mert a toke
ket reszre oszlik:
(An other contradiction is that the system started to collapse,
because there is a tendency, that more and more investment was
necessary for less and less profit, thus "The tendency for the rate
of profit to fall". This happens, because: )
the means of production (e.g. tools, land etc.)
and labour. It is the interaction of these two that create
new goods and the capitalist's profit.
However, because it is only labour that creates profit, only
labour that adds surplus value, in the modern epoch when more and more has
to be spent on modernising the means of production, less and less will be
produced in terms of profit for the same amount of investment. Crudely
put: if every year you have to spend more and more on throwing away
perfectly good machinery and buy new one, because that is the only way you
can
keep ahead of your competition, and therefore you pay less and less to your
workforce, the organic composition of capital will shift in favour of the
means of production, of capital goods and away from labour. However, it is
only labour that produces the pofit, so you will rake in less and less.
I know that this is a very difficult concept to grasp, but if you look
around that is what is happening to British Industry. They have not
invested and they are being left behind. But if you look at Japan, which
has invested heavily, they are still in crisis, because they were tied to
the US dollar and their major market was in the Tigers which collapsed, but
the other reason is that the rate of profit has been falling precisely
because the organic composition of capital in Japan was shifted a long way
towards capital goods and the means of production.
Talking of the Far East, you know we always said that the fundamental cause
of capitalist crisis, the ultimate inherent contradiction is that because
the capitalists produce for profit, not for need, there will always be
crises of overproduction. When the goods are sitting there, and even if
they are badly needed, the populus cannot afford to buy them and therefore
there will be wholescale destruction of the productive forces, until it
picks up again etc.,etc. and the concomitant human misery that goes with
all that. Well, if you look at the Far East tdoay, the real underlying
reason for all their problems is overproduction. They all went for the
quick
buck and overreached themselves. I know that the crisis as such is masked
by all the rhetoric about currency crises and so on, but it is a classic
case of overproduction as Marx described in Das Kapital and a score of
other places.
Now to answer the second question of how can there be successful production
without competition? Of course under capitalism there cannot be. The
Meriden co-operative in the Midlands and scores of other co-ops prove it
that you cannot have a socialist island in a capitalist sea. That is only
possible under socialism. I am assuming that your debater is saying that
people would just laze around and do nothing if they didn't have to
compete, or is he saying that the capitalists would not invest if it wasn't
for competition? I am not quite clear what you mean here. However, I
would answer the age old (and extremely boring) argument of competition
against co-operation first with some anthropology. It is now generally
accepted that once we came out of the trees, stood up on the savannah and
started congregating in groups it was labour (i.e. co-operation) that made
us human. Language, which is the sole prerogative of humans came about
through living in a society where you neeeded to co-operate in order to
produce the necessaries of life and to survive. Homo sapiens is basically
co-operative, because without co-operation we would still be animals. It
is only when the surplus created by increased productivity was beginning to
be expropriated by a layer that eventually became the rules and then formed
the ruling class (i.e. class society) that individualism, private property,
womens oppressions, exploitation of the many by the few came and the ruling
ideology of society started to be based on competition. Partly competition
by the rulers to do each other over in the hunt for more profit, and partly
by the have-nots to outdo each other for the meagre resources in order to
survive. Humans existed for 3 million years, human society for a few
10,000's of years, but class society only for a fairly short while. It is
inherent in humans to co-operate at every stage and it is total bunkum to
say that their initial instinct is to outdo each other. Every baby is born
to please, to learn and to discover the world. It is only when the world
around them start affecting them with its crises, parents tired,
overworked, proverty etc. that inidividulaism in the form of "me first"
comes into it.
Now under a socialist plan of production there would be no need to compete
with anyone. People would elect their representative to all the bodies
that decide on what to produce, for how much, how much of it and because
these people would be subject to instant recall and would only receive the
average wage of the people they represent, they would be likely to do what
the people who sent them there want. Initially, I think there would be
somel trial and error in this process, but most people know a hell of a lot
about their industry, their field of production, service or whatever, so if
you had a system in which they felt that their knowledge is appreicated
and listened to they would contribute their utmost and the plan would
likely to be very effective. It would also be very flixible and subject to
change with minimal fuss, should it deemed to be necessary. I am positive
that it is only the fact that you work 60/70 hours a week and you are dog
tired, that your ideas would only be nicked by the boss, if you came up
with them which creates the impression nowadays that workers are thick and
lazy and have no ideas.
If your correspondent comes up with the: Oh yes, but people will always
want more than their neighbour! You can alwyas quote Ray Apps's famous
example about the wheelie bin full of bread by the bustop. If you had a
society where you had no shareholders to pay and you freed the creativity
of all people, you would end up with harmonius production which would
produce enough for all. Then if you put a large bin full of bread at the
bus stop every morning, the first morning everybody would take dozens,
because it is free, but after a few weeks, when they can be sure of the
bread being there every morning they would only take what they needed.
What is the point of hoarding bread going mouldy in your cupboards when you
can have a fresh loaf every morning?
Will all this do? Or do you need any other points? Having said that, I
still can't see what is the point of arguing with hopeless morons on the
Internet, you could spend your time much more profitably by starting to
read the Marxist classics again and then get involved in the movement.
Talking of which, do you want a copy of the paper of the Canadian group?
Alex is the Editor and the first issue has just come out. Each issue is
£1.40 including postage, or £15 for subscribing to the first 12 issues.
Love
Julianna
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
