FourWinds
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Re: Capitalism the term
Sep 09, 2003, 10:48
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There are not "free markets" though are there. The WTO (American Trade Organisation) and the World Bank set all the the markets. They force people to import at high prices when locally produced goods do the job.
I'm one of these who only has quetsions (in the main), sorry.
What I do believe in in the future WILL boild down to very local economies being the only way forward. When the oil runs out stuff like electricity and clean water will have to be produced on a local scale. I'm not sure how the hell it'll be done, but that's the way we'll end up.
As you say, who'll give up their puter and cellphone right now to see a better future? A few, but not enough. One day we'll have no choice.
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FourWinds
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Re: What is better than Capitalism?
Sep 09, 2003, 11:34
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I have a "small society" future planned. That small society will probably just be me and my wife being as self sufficient as possible (one day - the first steps are being taken as I type)
I think I can produce enough energy and food to pretty much free me from being part of the global economy. I'll never escape it totally, but I can try my hardest. I know I'll still have to earn some form of living, but hopefully it will be possible for it to be a greatly reduced one.
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Toni Torino
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Re: What is better than Capitalism?
Sep 09, 2003, 11:37
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You'll have to get Margo and Jerry to move in next door, 4W....
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FourWinds
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Re: What is better than Capitalism?
Sep 09, 2003, 11:39
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I don't see that money can be scrapped altogether. Even if you dispose of coinage there's still a price.
I do believe though that it would be possible to make, say, bread and milk free to everyone everywhere. State owned herds and the farmers paid by the state (through taxes).
It would obviously have to be completely global though. People would not abuse the system, because there'd be no point. Why pick up 10 loaves and 500 pints of milk when there's no resale value in it? People would (on the whole) just take what they need.
That would take care of a chunk of most peoples basic needs.
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FourWinds
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Re: What is better than Capitalism?
Sep 09, 2003, 11:40
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Fortunately my plans do not involve a 'next door' :-)
I'll reveal more when the current stage is confirmed ...
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Toni Torino
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Re: What is better than Capitalism?
Sep 09, 2003, 11:41
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Curses! I'd have enjoyed being Margo.... ;0)
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FourWinds
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Re: Technology!
Sep 09, 2003, 11:49
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Fuel cells are not an energy producer but a storage device. As you say you need the sun (or whatever) to charge them. They are not efficient.
Even the oil companies are admitting to low reserves now in industry magazines and papers.
The short term problem is not oil supply, but *cheap* oil. Then supply probelms kick in at a later date.
There is not enough investment in renewable energy. One of the most promising schemes in the UK (up north somewhere) was shut last year because the gov't wouldn't give them £10m, but could spend hundreds of millions on a war for oil. Go figure.
How do you smelt metals etc. to make new wind-turbines when all the fossil fuel has gone?
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anthonyqkiernan
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Re: moral concerns
Sep 09, 2003, 12:08
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But, I never suggested that. I didn't even suggest that I was against capitalism (in the post you refer to). Having a 'better' idea does not necessarilly set you up in opposition to something. Opposition defines itself by being purely against something.
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necropolist
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Re: Capitalism the term
Sep 09, 2003, 12:49
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not only is the 'free market' a myth (as FourWinds has pointed out) but the notion that such competition is limited to the epoch known as capitalism is also equally flawed.
There is a reason why it is known as CAPITALism, rather than COMPETITIONism. It's what Marx called the 'law of value', which (very very basically) relates to the way labour power is turned into a commodoity to be traded at the lowest value, and that one of the key ways to lower it's value is by 'constantly revolutionising the means of production' (but not the mode of production) and introducing new technologies so that less and less labour power is required.
This is something that all capitalists MUST DO if they are to survive, they are driven to constantly 'update' their technology - as charlie boy put it:
"accumulate accumulate...reconvert the hgreatest proportion of surplus value into capital. Accumulation for accumulations sake, production for productions sake".
Thus, capitalism is defined centrally by the need, according to an external iron law. it si competition between different poles of capitalism (which can be individual companies, or individual states, a la the USSR) that make them follow such laws, but that is only a factor, rather than the central dynamic & individual feature.
It is handy to try and say that capitalism is 'simply' competition tho, as that makes it appear far more as if it is an eternal presence, that cannot be changed.
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necropolist
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Re: A world without "money"
Sep 09, 2003, 13:49
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part of the problem here, Dog, is that you seem to think that the abolition of money would happen tomorrow, at the click of someones fingers. Now if it were a simple diktat passed down from on high, then your criticisms would be quite fair. But I don't think anyone actually see's it happening like that.
most communists (ie those that seek the abolition of the state and money in its entirety, as opposed to those socialists who simply want to run the system a bit better) recognise that inb order to change the world, their needs to be a revolution. This is not simply becasue the current ruling-class will not hand over power without being forced to, it is because, as Marx put it, the working-class need to 'rid themselves of the muck of ages' - undergo a radical transformation in their selves, in their consciousness, and in their very being. And that can be achieved by the revolutionary process.
Also, money would not be immediately abolished for all things - but i would see it as likely that it was used for less and less things as we progressed. We dont need money to go the doctors now - but you dont find us going every day, just because its free. That would be silly. Likewise other services could be provided free almost immediately, as well as some goods, and as society progressed and developed, the list of free goods would grow, until finally everything was free.
Who is gonna clean the bogs? Day 1 - counter-revolutionary scum, Jimmy Tarbuck, IDS, Nick Griffin, Day 335678 we all are, in tunrs, either that or we'll have really clever machinery to do it for us.
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