> > I asked: >>is it democracy on the work-place level?
> >
> > Zbigniew answers:>there is less democracy at workplace,
> because the people are afraid to lose their jobs.<
I replied:
>> That's capitalism! (see Marx's concept of the reserve army
of labor.)<<
Zbigniew replies:
>I cannot agree. That's just one of the capitalism's features (the one less beloved by the people ;).<
Yes, it's one of capitalism's features, and a pretty important one, since capitalism uses unemployment to motivate people to work instead of using corporal punishment and the like. Low unemployment can coexist with capitalism, though: under fascism, police force can substitute for unemployment, while under social democracy, people can be motivated to work for the national interest with corporatist cooperation between management and labor unions (while "guest workers" are brought in to fill the gaps). What defines capitalism is not really unemployment, but the class system, i.e., existence of proletarianization, in which the vast majority lack the bonds of feudalism or slavery and also lack direct control over the means of subsistence and production.
By the way, "that's capitalism!" was meant to be more rhetorical than analytic.
>> The market for final commodities may not be "free," but it hardly ever is, even in the U.S. Anyway, it's not the "free market" that defines capitalism.<<
>The problem is with oppressive taxation and with many restrictions and regulations, which are partially conflicting with each other. You can never be sure, whether are you OK, or just breaking some law, which you can't know because of it's excess.<
I don't know enough about Poland to disagree or agree with you.
>>Regimes such as Nazi Germany ... had capitalism without free markets.<<
>Forgive me for being contrary once again:<
on pen-l, you don't have to ask forgiveness to be contrary.
> ... in Germany at Nazi times the private industries (the large ones) was fully controlled by the state. The owners were reduced just to some kind of managers, with limited influence. And the programm of the Nazi party (National Socialist) was very similar to that which had polish (and other) communist party before 1989 (I made comparison several years ago). Of course, I'm talking about industry, economic and social-related things only, not about f.e. concetration camps, "ban the Jews" or something similar.<<
My impression is that the non-Jewish industrialists still had a lot of power in Nazi Germany, while some Nazis became capitalists. But this argument is getting too far away from the thread, so I'll drop it.
> ... capitalism works in our country as "diagnose" for current troubles (partially even in official propaganda) - although we cannot see the capitalism here. As I wrote, capitalism means for me free market first.<
Then we're using the term differently. I don't see much point in arguing about the meaning of the word "capitalism," so I won't.
> ... I wish Poland to be comparable to USA, but it cannot be compared at the moment. As it was said by Milton Friedman, when he was visiting Poland at 1989: "You shouldn't make the things, which they're making now, when they're rich - you should make the things, which they made much earlier, when they was as poor as you are today" (about the aspirations of many Poles to immediately retake the western standards of living).<
It's always a mistake to quote Friedman, since he's so often wrong. He didn't realize (or rather, he didn't include in his presentation) that if Poland followed that strategy, it would be competing with South Korea and a lot of other countries.
...
I've got to go, so I'm ending this message here.
Jim Devine
