The Essence of Capitalism

A corporation doesn’t have a heart or compassion. It is simply a paper entity and an agreement between risk investors whose DNA is to make a profit. It’s all about money and in tough times, all measures must be taken to protect that capital. Lay-offs are an unfortunate part of the business cycle. This is an assessment of the system with which we can agree, except to him it’s perfectly natural to continue this insane way of doing business. The ‘business cycle’ to which he referred is what Marx identified a hundred and fifty years ago as regular periods of steady production, leading to rapidly increasing production (a boom), eventually causing oversupply and reduced profit and production (a recession), followed by recovery of steady production. This cycle is inherent to the capitalist mode of production so we can expect to see crises and job losses every decade or so. The timing, length, and depth of such recessions are not predictable, only that they will occur sporadically. All this shows that we work at the pleasure of capital. When profits are high and production is expanding, the worker is a sought after commodity. 

When profits dip and production falls, the worker is expendable. Capital, therefore, dictates when you will have a job and when you will be out of work, struggling to survive. The worker must tolerate this insecurity because he has no ownership of, and no say in, the productive process. In fact, the workers own practically nothing but their personal possessions (and ability to labour). Even our houses and cars, for the most part, are owned by the banks. That fact has been shockingly brought to our attention as 2.3 million American homes, and 3% of all California homes became bank properties in 2008, and 2009 is expected to be even worse. In a system of common ownership and free access to all goods and services produced, energies in unneeded sectors of production would simply be applied where needed with no interruption in the access to the necessary goods and services for citizens. This end to recessionary insecurity and obeisance to capital can only come about when we end the wages system altogether and transform society to fulfill our needs rather than private profit.

Most people are drawn to examine and accept the socialist case because of its pure logic and common sense. Once socialism is comprehended, the view of our current system of production, capitalism, comes into focus and the view is bleak and incomprehensible. The very basis of capitalism – that the ownership the earth’s resources and riches should belong to a small minority that stole and plundered them, eliminating millions of people who stood in the way in the process, is sheer insanity. That those riches, and the means to convert them into useful goods, should be organized in the interests of that minority to the detriment and deprivation of the vast majority of the earth’s population only serves to compound that insanity. This state of affairs leads to our present relations of production, e.g. oppressor and oppressed, owner and non-owner, boss and worker. This gives us our two classes – those who own but do not produce and those who produce but do not own. The owners take possession of the producers’ products and the profits realized from their sale to live a life of ease and luxury, while those who labour to produce them get just enough to keep them labouring and often much less than that. Does this make sense? Unfortunately, it gets much worse. The parasitic owning class enjoys the best housing, clothing, education, healthcare, holidays and recreation that money can buy, with so much left over that they couldn’t possibly spend the excess if they tried. Meanwhile, most of the producers make do with substandard housing, food, healthcare, and education. While some workers, whose skills are in high demand by the system for making a profit, may do quite well, they are greatly outnumbered by the millions, even billions who live in abject poverty and scramble daily to survive. 

Sadly, thousands every day, mostly children under five years, lose the struggle. All producers, including those considered relatively wealthy, live with the insecurity of job loss and the prospect of falling into poverty. The workers only work at the pleasure of the owners and their expectations of profit. Like compound interest, inequality in the capitalist system compounds as profit and dividends are re-invested to accumulate ever-larger sums of capital, increasing the gap between owner and producer. The competition for resources and profits between these groups of capital, to which the owners contribute, frequently leads to conflict and, sometimes, even war, surely the greatest insanity of the human experience. What could be more insane than one group of humans dropping bombs on another group, or having 20% of the world’s scientific brains given to creating more efficient tools of death and destruction? For the thinking person, many everyday realities are insanities – food banks in the “developed” rich nations where food abounds; homelessness or unsatisfactory housing where building materials and skills are prevalent; malnourished, sickly people where hospitals and doctors are, or could easily be, plentiful; recreational, educational and job restrictions where there is no need, save to serve the profit motive; a whole “third” or “developing” world of billions who live in unimaginable poverty and deprivation when our productive forces could provide good food, housing, health care, and education. Ready for the common sense part yet? 

A socialist world would be based on the common ownership of the world’s riches and the productive forces to turn them into useful goods. Since all products would, therefore, be commonly owned, they would be freely accessed by all, according to their needs. Imagine, No more rich or poor, privileged or marginalized, boss or worker, owner or non-owner. All producers would meet as equals to decide what, how, where, when to produce to meet everyone’s needs, without regard to money or profit. Would we then produce the shoddy goods of today, using dirty, polluting techniques? Would we ravage and despoil the earth’s forests, soils, waterways, and air, in the pursuit of profit for a privileged class? Of course not! That’s just common sense. Would we go to war over resources, or manage them sensibly in the interests of all humankind? Would we allow anyone to live malnourished, homeless, illiterate, unfulfilled lives if we had the power to change it? Of course, we wouldn’t. It is only the restriction of the capitalist mode of production and the pursuit of profit that creates the insanity of our world. It is only the common sense of a socialist society that can remedy our present situation and create a world of cooperation and plenty for everyone – no classes, no money, no war, no poverty, no want. Capitalism has brought the potential to do this but cannot deliver. That next step must be the purpose of a socialist society. It is possible given today’s productive capacities and scientific knowledge. So it’s up to you, reader, to choose to continue this insanity or to look at the alternative. When a majority have done that and decided to act, socialism and common sense will become a reality. There really is no choice, is there?