tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7230874369158848961.post1861468926689605054..comments2020-02-02T14:41:59.521-08:00Comments on Random Meanderings: The Devitation of Modern Capitalism from Its OriginAlekseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05182129157993088301noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7230874369158848961.post-625302832722886722014-01-15T12:22:36.504-08:002014-01-15T12:22:36.504-08:00I tend to think that class struggles are ineradica...I tend to think that class struggles are ineradicable from any society, whatever the prevailing political and economic institutions, vision or leitmotifs are. So I'm inclined to believe that management and containment of that conflict is a more realistic goal than seeking their eradication. That's not just because I know well the history of developments in the countries which have experienced totalitarianism with the socialist or communistic taint, although that's pretty important too. <br /><br />I tend to support Rawls' rationalisation for inequality, that a society which has no egalitarian objective can be judged superior to one which does if the very least within the unequal society is more prosperous than the very least in an egalitarian one. That is to say that if it is agreed that stratification is inevitable, ie the seperation of individuals, families and communities into different classes, then the wellbeing of the very least in each is comparable and the criteria for judging the success of their political and economic institutions. <br /><br />The only possible caveat to that, and its totally hypothetical and theoretical really, is that, I would suppose, that Rawls' is talking about material prosperity. That is fair, up to a point, and I accept Maslow's hierarchising of needs into survival needs etc. etc. However, beyond a certain point I would consider the presumed material "prosperity" of the bottom class in an unequal society to be nothing to be envied. Especially if it involves dependency and the stripping of responsiblity and the egalitarian but all round less prosperous society does confer independence and responsibility. <br /><br />Steps towards resolving the problem of the plutonomy are not easy to come by, personally I'm a fan of the thinking of Daniel Schweickart, less so Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert (although they have coherent visions and good responses to the finer points of Hayek and others). <br /><br />To be honest I think there needs to be agreement among a large enough population that it is a problem to begin with, then the creation of a consensus that something needs to be done about it beyond simple, and contestable or reversable "redistributions" or "disturbances" of the existing distribution of wealth. The simple, and often mistaken, free market dogmas are too widely accepted and aggressively promoted presently to be assailable by reasonable doubts. Larkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01891704910905686379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7230874369158848961.post-41381997301219864652014-01-15T00:49:46.871-08:002014-01-15T00:49:46.871-08:00Thank you for your comment. I agree that there is ...Thank you for your comment. I agree that there is no such thing as "perfectability" and therefore, we can only come so far in creating a close approximation of a free-market. I also agree that class struggles are an ineradicable part of capitalism, but to that I'd like to add that they are often more severe in socialist or communist societies. In the latter, the elites either get absorbed into the government or are eliminated from the political arena through exile, incarceration and execution. While it is true that socialist societies tend to be more efficient at rescuing the least privileged from grinding poverty, their elites often undermine the interests of the underclass similarly to how the elites of the capitalist societies do. <br /><br />In the capitalist society of the United States, plutonomy is the problem, as you put it. The transnational corporations are able to disrupt the forces of the market by infiltrating the government through lobbying. <br /><br /><br />How do you think we could take steps towards resolving that problem? Alekseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182129157993088301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7230874369158848961.post-2317555336325191432014-01-12T09:24:18.379-08:002014-01-12T09:24:18.379-08:00The problem with perfect competition is twofold in...The problem with perfect competition is twofold in my opinion, first of all, the idea of perfectability itself or even approximations of the same, the second and possibly most significant, is class or social struggles. That is struggles which go beyond competition, even transitory conflicts, which may be personal or cultural but are not perrenial in nature. <br /><br />I think this has always been the case, its a fixture or structural trait, its maybe even possible that it is impossible to eradicate class conflict, merely manage it. Although I dont believe that any political party is willing to even manage class conflicts, at least not in any balanced fashion, there are winners and losers, as any game of monopoly shows, and this seriously eschews the operation of markets in any abstract theoretical way. <br /><br />The biggest development in terms of eschewing market forces, I believe, has been the development of a plutonomy, acknowledged in memos at Citibank and other institutions. So the social structure is no longer a pyramid or diamond but an hourglass. The proliferation of pound stores and bargain basement markets for one class and niche services for the uber-rich neither of which relate to one another much and have little sympathy for one another. I dont know if you would agree but ideological shifts have taken place reflecting this, Ayn Rand and her valorisation of John Gault, the archetypical uber-richy of the plutonomy, has replaced Smith long ago. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com