So socialism

Lexicus said:
Kalecki argued that the capitalists would throw profitability to the wolves to preserve their social position as bosses.

I think we're basically watching that happen in real time. It's obvious that socialist public policy would create a much more healthy environment for business, make it much easier to profit by creating value than by securing rents. But they'd rather squeeze rent out of a dying planet until it dies than admit the poors are equal humans.
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Which describes the trajectory of profitability and the re-rise of the capitalist class from the mid 1960s through about 2010.

But did Marx really argue specifically my aforementioned?
 
Lexicus said:
Not familiar enough with his work to say. Perhaps schlaufuchs could shed some light on this.
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I’m hoping. I got it summarized by Steve Keen who, he’s good but you never know secondary sources. So if @schlaufuchs can help us that’d be cool. Keen had some interesting takes but they’re useless if the first part isn’t an accurate summary.
 
Lexicus said:
Wait, so you are a Vietnamese person who wishes that South Vietnam won the war?
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No. The sooner that war ends, the better, by whatever side. However, they tried a non-market economy and failed; well, worth a try, some lessons tell us all to stay away from any central planning practices including no-zone-laws. My views are often conflicted with each other. In this period, we are trying to sell more and more state-owned companies to the public on the stock market; I see a lot of state-owned businesses becoming bankrupt a good sign of the economy and political space (less corruption, therefore, less taxation).

A script in Wikipedia google translated:

"However, besides the successes in defense, the Central Committee led by him had to face great economic difficulties, and the consequences of wars brought the economy into crisis. Nam was isolated during the period 1976–1986. On May 16, 1975, Le Duan went directly to the South to grasp the situation, including the economic situation. He acknowledged the positive elements of the private economy and of the free market in the South.[39] At the preparatory meeting of the 24th Conference of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party, term III, he said[40]: “In the North, it was necessary to cooperate immediately. But the South can't do that now... There must be a bourgeoisie, let it develop somewhat... The Politburo, after studying it, found that it was a rule to maintain several economic sectors. necessary in this initial stage…” However, the majority of the Party Central Committee at that time wanted to apply the planned economic model immediately. Therefore, the Conference finally resolved: abolishing the commercial bourgeoisie, reforming the country into socialism, pilot building cooperatives, socialist reform of handicrafts and small business.[41] Professor Tran Van Tho wrote about the economic status of that period: "The ten years after 1975 were one of the darkest (economically) periods in Vietnam's history. Only in economic terms, being a country agriculture (in 1980, 80% of the population lived in rural areas and 70% of workers were farmers) but Vietnam lacked food, ..."
 
Hygro said:
Did Marx really argue that it is the unique tension of the ability to get surplus productive value out of labor above its employment cost that would drive capitalists to ultimately have to squeeze labor harder and harder to get any profits over in the long run, and that being pressure on humans would eventually force an inevitable workers revolution?

Focus being on labor’s unique tension between use value and exchange value.
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Not in so few words but he did explain that capitalism would eat itself.
Then Lenin explained that could be delayed a long time through imperialism: impoverish workers someplace else outside their polity, and their political position won't be under such pressure. The last stage of capitalism, as in the last way to extend it.

After 1990, as capitalism took over and looted portions of the world that had been socialist, it got an extended lease of life. Imperialism expanded, after it had contracted (with capitalism looking shaky) over the 60s and 70s.
Now capitalism imperialism ("globalization") is contracting again, as the world market fragments. This will have political consequences.
 
amadeus said:
What do you think they will be?
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I have no idea really. Too many moving parts.

Looking back at something for possibilities, it would be the 1970s or the 1930s. But the world is much different, circumstances are different. In terms of fragmenting into regional or national units (deglobalization), it would be the 1930s. And are currency controls coming back? Those existed in the 1970s but the 1930s was chaotic.
Politically, capitalism only survives crisis times when not backed from outside powers by giving ground. How much ground? A return to intitutionalism? Social democracy? Those are widrawals with precedents, if not there are more radical precedents. No way to guess whta will happen. Only try to list the possibilities.
 
innonimatu said:
I have no idea really. Too many moving parts.

Looking back at something for possibilities, it would be the 1970s or the 1930s. But the world is much different, circumstances are different. In terms of fragmenting into regional or national units (deglobalization), it would be the 1930s. And are currency controls coming back? Those existed in the 1970s but the 1930s was chaotic.
Politically, capitalism only survives crisis times when not backed from outside powers by giving ground. How much ground? A return to intitutionalism? Social democracy? Those are widrawals with precedents, if not there are more radical precedents. No way to guess whta will happen. Only try to list the possibilities.
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Imo it's gonna look more like the last decade or two of the 19th century when the first round of globalization really was kneecapped by the political consequences of the Depression that began in 1873. Obviously, that led ultimately to the Scramble for Africa and ultimately to World War I.
 
Lexicus said:
Imo it's gonna look more like the last decade or two of the 19th century when the first round of globalization really was kneecapped by the political consequences of the Depression that began in 1873. Obviously, that led ultimately to the Scramble for Africa and ultimately to World War I.
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We're already at the gates of the next World War I, that is World War III. The problem is there isn't the same access to resources to keep things growing like after 1873. A few lean decades gave the industrialists room to expand. But finance would be back. In the modern day, the same opportunity for growth isn't there. The "growth" conferred by financialization of the past 30 years is mostly liquidations which have left a lot of industry very vulnerable. Supposedly, you don't need to do obsolete things, but then there's writing on the wall with things like the Ohio crash and Boeing disaster and hundreds of shortages brought on by this latest crisis. There's absolutely no guarantee the government can learn from this, and it probably has something to do with the fact that there's literally nothing the government can do to make something like COVID not hurt. It doesn't control enough of the economy. It's privately owned. It can control the money supply through interest rates and bail out a bank of scammers, but it can't order the production of necessities, merely place orders for them.

The other thing is that a lot of the world in general has been growing. Asia produces everything now. A good chunk of that value ends up outside Asia. Now, yeah, Asia's been growing, and not everyone is thrilled about that. There is still definitely an exploited class and battles over that exploitation continue constantly. There's lithium in Bolivia and fighting continues over whether foreigners (first world billionaire tycoons) should be allowed to take it all. At a really good price, because that's the point of imperialism: the coups, captive markets, war and so on.

A very possible scenario: World War 3, but somehow life goes on even after the bombs drop and America collapses after a couple more bad elections. We all learn to make do.
 
amadeus said:
Do you think they are more industrial accidents now than 50, 100 years ago?
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It would not surprise me
  • 340 million occupational accidents annually
  • 160 million victims of work-related illnesses annually
  • Over one million work-related deaths annually
A hundred years ago that would have been over a quarter of the population.
 
amadeus said:
Do you think they are more industrial accidents now than 50, 100 years ago?
Click to expand...

Strangely enough I suspect not, certainly not in relative terms.

Machinery tends to be better designed and safer to use nowadays.
Furthermore its dfeployment reduces the number of workers there
to be injured and being expensive employers take more care over it.

But there are some areas and places such as construction with
foreign workers where improvements have plateaued.
 
amadeus said:
Do you think they are more industrial accidents now than 50, 100 years ago?
Click to expand...
In absolute terms, there can be no question that the impact of industrial accidents is greater now than it was 50 or 100 years ago. But even setting that aside, all relative improvements that have been achieved since then are thanks to those who fought to achieve them, not some vague specter of human progress and good will that guides humanity to a brighter future.

The other thing is that to even compare the situation to 50 and 100 years ago is misguided thinking. 100 years and 50 years ago were each different from each other and both different from now in ways that go beyond how much workplace safety the western nations have developed. The main thing is that the economy doesn't work like it did 50 years ago, in America, the west, or in the rest of the world. America has much fewer workers exposed to the harmful industrial situations that originally generated workplace safety as a major concern to begin with. An even to the extent it remains a concern, most of the responsibility for training and safety ends up falling on the unions. As a former employee of an Industrial Chemical Workers' Union I observed their main responsibility was processing its own paperwork and using government funds to conduct hazardous worker training. Meanwhile, the private owners of many large industrial chemical concerns and the trains that carry those industrial chemicals have been praying at the altar of Larry the Liquidator and making money hand over fist while gutting key safety roles. You can roll your eyes at the Norfolk disaster and wave your hand at certain attributes improved safety from a statistical perspective, but those statistics are both 1. massaged by the very entities that release them for best optics, and 2. in no sense all-encompassing.

To briefly digress on this point, consider the lithium-ion battery. You may be aware that the lithium-ion battery possesses a capability to cause fires that are generally immune to asphyxiation because thermal runaway causes these batteries to spend all their own energy generating heat until they are fully discharged. You might not be aware that the current state of federal firefighting regulation cannot recommend a standard for handling, and actually does not possess a classification for lithium-ion battery fires at all. It's not an electrical fire, for starters. Safety-minded industry-working folks like myself regard this as a major blank spot. And it tends to be the case that it takes a really bad, high-profile accident to work the public up enough for politicians to do something about it. In the meantime, Tesla car fires are going to continue occurring and taking hours to put out.

You might say, "the government regulation doesn't change the reality of how easy the fires are to put out." But I would disagree. Having a standard and paying official attention to the matter are the core of enforcing safety standards within an industry. It might also illuminate additional proper countermeasures. You might also say, "but this one missing standard can't make up for dozens of safety standards that have been implemented since then." It certainly doesn't, but again we have to ask who is really responsible for generating and enforcing standards. For the most part, they do tend to be the industrial workers and engineers themselves. The government is the bludgeon that forces the owners to play by safe rules.

At any rate, talking about how automation exposes fewer workers to hazardous conditions now, this is also a narrow view: the great expansions of the last fifty years means much new unsafe work is now done in Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and India. The quality of plantation labor has also scarcely improved in many nations. Certainly, major western companies and brands still lean on slave labor, and still use their resources and the authority of the IMF and World Bank, etc, to ensure conditions around the world remain ideal for retaining such slave labor.

Now, supposedly, this has nothing to do with America and the west, because all governments are responsible for their own policies. But government policy actually has the least to do with it per se. What matters is the development of industrial power, the economic forces that are irresistible and work to transform places like Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and India into large workshops or plantations, and that the owners of these workshops and plantations are many of the very same owners who have bought and sold the governments of the west. No, not all of them are Chinese. There is actually a constant battle between the people of these countries and the private owners of all the forces of production around the world about these exact issues. And the battle for workplace safety and even basic dignity continues forevermore and will continue to continue even after you've passed hundreds of new safety laws, because one liquidator later and you're crashing toxic trains into Ohio again.
 
Crezth said:
The other thing is that to even compare the situation to 50 and 100 years ago is misguided thinking. 100 years and 50 years ago were each different from each other and both different from now in ways that go beyond how much workplace safety the western nations have developed. The main thing is that the economy doesn't work like it did 50 years ago, in America, the west, or in the rest of the world. America has much fewer workers exposed to the harmful industrial situations that originally generated workplace safety as a major concern to begin with. An even to the extent it remains a concern, most of the responsibility for training and safety ends up falling on the unions. As a former employee of an Industrial Chemical Workers' Union I observed their main responsibility was processing its own paperwork and using government funds to conduct hazardous worker training. Meanwhile, the private owners of many large industrial chemical concerns and the trains that carry those industrial chemicals have been praying at the altar of Larry the Liquidator and making money hand over fist while gutting key safety roles. You can roll your eyes at the Norfolk disaster and wave your hand at certain attributes improved safety from a statistical perspective, but those statistics are both 1. massaged by the very entities that release them for best optics, and 2. in no sense all-encompassing.
Click to expand...

I would agree with this and amplify this point by noting that in the US at least, many of the most dangerous occupations, such as warehousing and meat-packing, are done under conditions where employers have every incentive to falsify the records of workplace safety incidents and the largely undocumented immigrant workforces have little recourse. So I would submit that we do not really know the true state of workplace safety in the US.

Crezth said:
Certainly, major western companies and brands still lean on slave labor,
Click to expand...

Yep, and friendly reminder that the US Supreme Court recently ruled that this is fine btw.
 
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