Tuesday

"Capitalism is the astounding belief                                                                   that the most wickedest of men                                                                          will do the most wickedest of things                                                                    for the greatest good of everyone."

John Maynard Keynes

Much of the mass movement literature suggests that violent direct action does have an impact on power holders. Scholars argue welfare spending increases in response to civil unrest in order to pacify the poor. They believe violence including looting, rock throwing, beatings, vandalism, arson, is most effective  when the protest group yields electoral power. 

Other factors include the size of the insurgent group, its relationship with broader society, the presence of democratic institutions, and the insurgent group's access to these institutions.

http://youtu.be/fpVePlsAggE

as the walls tumbled                                                                                             the earth shook                                                                                                   and the animals died.

Capitalism Defined from the Book Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright

Capitalism is a way of organizing the economic activities of a society which can be defined along two major thoroughfares; one the actors of the class relationship and two the coordinates of economic coordination.

Class relations are the social relations through which the means of production are owned and power is exercised over their use. In capitalism the means of production are privately owned and their use is controlled by the owners or their surrogates. The means of production by themselves cannot produce anything; they have to be set in motion by human labour. In capitalism this labour is provided by the workers who do not own the means of production and who, in order to acquire an income, are hired by capitalist firms “to work” the means of production. The fundamental class relation is between capitalist and workers. Of course this is highly simplified view of class structure while in actual capitalist countries there is a variety of other class locations loosely grouped under the title “middle class.”

Economic coordination in capitalism is accomplished primarily through mechanisms of decentralized and voluntary exchange by privately contracting parties-or what is generally called “free markets” –through which the prices and quantities of the goods and services produced are determined.

Market coordination is conventionally contrasted with authoritative state coordination in which the power of the state is used to allocate resources for different purposes. The famous phrase “the invisible hand” captures the basic idea; individuals and firms, simply pursing their own private interests, engage in bargaining and voluntary exchanges with other individuals and firms, and out of this uncoordinated set of micro-interactions comes an economic system that is more or less coordinated at the aggregate level.

The combination of these two features; class relations and economic coordination generate the characteristic competitive drive for profits and capital accumulation of capitalistic firms. Each firm in order to survive over time must compete successfully with other firms. Firms that innovate lower their costs of production and increase productivity can undercut rivals, increase their profits and thus expand at the expense of other firms. Each firm faces these competitive pressures and thus in general all firms are forced to seek innovation of one sort or another in order to survive. The resulting relentless drive for profits generates the striking dynamism of capitalism relative to all forms of economic organization.

This of course is a simplified and pure version of capitalism. As most economic sociologists stress no capitalistic economy could function effectively or even survive it it consisted exclusively of the institutions of private property and market competition. Many other institutional arrangements are needed to make capitalism actually work and are present in all real capitalistic economies.

Some capitalism has strong affirmative states that regulate many aspects of the market and empower workers in various ways to control certain aspects of the labor process and in other capitalistic states both firms and workers are organized into various kinds of collective associations that provide significant forms of coordination distinct from both market and state coordination (pg 35 Envisioning real Utopias).

Trade associations, unions, chambers of commerce and other kinds of associations help constitute what some people have called “organized capitalism.” All varieties of capitalism also contain a significant domain and economic activity that occurs outside both the market and state regulations especially economic activity within households and kin networks, but also within the broader social settings often referred to as community (pg 36 Envisioning Real Utopias).

Eleven Criticisms of Capitalism

One of the central task of socialists is to convince people that capitalism creates such a range of undesirable consequences that one should at least entertain the idea that an alternative to capitalism might be possible and is in fact even desirable.

1. Capitalism class relations perpetuate eliminable forms of humans suffering.

2. Capitalism blocks the universalization of conditions for expansive human flourishing.

3. Capitalism perpetuates eliminable deficits in individual freedom and autonomy.

4. Capitalism violates liberal egalitarian principles of social justice.

5. Capitalism is inefficient in certain crucial respects.

6. Capitalism has a systematic bias towards consumerism.

7. Capitalism is environmentally destructive.

8. Capitalist commodification threatens important broadly held values.

9. Capitalism in a world of nation states fuels militarism and imperialism.

10. Capitalism corrodes community.

11. Capitalism limits democracy.

“Envisioning Real Utopias” by Erik Olin Wright

 

The tasks of emancipatory social sciences:

1. Diagnosis and critique of existing social structures and institutions

-social justice

-political justice

2. Viable alternatives

-desirability

-viability

-achievability

The 3rd task of emancipatory social science is transformation.

The diagnosis and critique of society tells us why we want to leave the world in which we live.

The theory of alternatives tells us where we want to go and the theory of transformation tells us how we are going to get there.

This theory involves four central components:

1. A theory of social reproduction.

2. A theory of the gaps and contradictions within the process of reproduction.

3. A theory of the underlying dynamics and trajectory of unintended social change.

4. A theory of collective actors, strategies and struggles.

Lets break it down:

A Theory of Social Reproduction

Social reproduction implies that the structures and social harms identified in the diagnosis and critique of society do not exist simply through some law of inertia but in fact have a mechanism which ensures their continuity.

Since these institutions and structures cause harm to people they must have some mechanism which ensures their survival otherwise the oppressed would resist and create change to ensure a more egalitarian civilization. The relative stability of oppressive systems depends upon the existence of a variety of interconnected defense mechanisms which block or contain such a challenge. In order to transform these systems we must understand how these mechanisms work. That is we must understand the nature of the systems defense.

A Theory of the gaps and contradictions within the process of reproduction

If it were the case that the process of social reproduction was a complete coherent, pervasively integrated system then there would be little hope of deliberate transformation. Though some theories do come close to this totalizing view of social reproduction

i.e. domination is so pervasive and coherent that all acts of apparent resistance merely serve to further stabilize the system of domination itself.

These theories may still embody a diagnosis and critique of society but they fail to provide grounds for believing that transformation is possible thus scientific knowledge cannot contribute to challenging forms of oppression.

An emancipatory theory of must social transformation must examine the crack, the contradictions and the gaps in the social reproduction. In short the various ways in which the process of social reproduction opens up spaces in which collective struggles for new possibilities are available.

If we take emancipatory social science as a form of science and not just a philosophical critique then we cannot assume a priori that such openings exist so we must continue to search for contradictory processes that allow openings for transformation.

A theory of the underlying dynamics and trajectory of unintended social change

In order to formulate compelling long-term projects of social transformation, it is obviously desirable to understand, not simply the obstacles and openings for strategies in the present, but also how those obstacles and opportunities are likely to develop over time.

This is the central thrust of Marx’s historical materialism which proposed a systematic, coherent account of the dynamic tendencies internal to capitalism which in theory would lead to unintended social change and the demise of our current system.

Though we may have a good understanding of the mechanisms of social reproduction and their contradictions we do not have a good understanding of the interplay of reproduction, contradictions and social actions.

A compelling theory regarding the dynamic trajectory of social change is still forthcoming.

We do not believe that the fundamental structural and institutional changes needed for creating a democratic egalitarian society can be achieved in the immediate future yet our ability to generate credible knowledge of social conditions beyond the near future is very limited.

There is thus a gap between the time horizons of scientific theory (short term) and the time-horizon of transformative struggle (long term).

A theory of collective actors, strategies, and struggles

We believe that if viable alternatives are to be realized, this will be the result of conscious strategies, by people committed to democratic egalitarian principles.

Therefore we need a theory of strategies dealing with collective action and transformative struggle.

Again:

The theory of social reproduction maps out the obstacles we face (the systems strengths).

The theory of contradiction maps out the opportunities that exist (the systems weaknesses).

The theory of dynamic trajectory-if we had such a theory- would tell us how these obstacles and opportunities are likely to evolve over time.

The theory of transformative strategy tells us how we can contend with the obstacles and take advantage of the opportunities and move us in the direction of social emancipation.