Nicholas wrote:
>However, only those societies will be
> prosperous that maintain *a* system of private property and profit,
whether that
> system is purely free market (an idealization) or salt-water capitalism
> (market socialism).
>
> Nicholas
>
Having spent much of the night smoking non-tobacco cigarettes, I
hesitate to reply with my own words. But here's a quotation:
"The World Health Organisation reports that the biggest killer in the
world today is not coronary thrombosis or cancer, but 'deep poverty'
in which a thousand million people live....In the United STates -- the
richest society in the whole of human history -- 32 million people
were living below the poverty line in 1988 (at the height of the
1980's boom) and nearly one in five children were born into poverty.
In Britain, a third of children grow up in poverty."
And here's another:
"In 1950 the richest fifth of the world's population took 30 percent
of its incomes; today they take 60 percent. Meanwhile, the poorest
fifth of humanity are left to share a mere 1.4 percent of total world
output."
(Both taken from: Harman, C. _Economics of the Madhouse: Capitalism
and the Market Today_ (London: Bookmarks, 1995).
Evidently, capitalism does produce prosperity. But that is certainly
no reason not to work for its speedy overthrow and forcible
suppression, in Marx's phrase, "by the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority."
Slavery (that is, non-"wage-slavery") produced prosperity for SOME
people. But that was not a point in its favour, according to most
slaves.
*****
Yet another quotation, this one pertaining to the relation between
capitalism and "scarcity":
"In the world as a whole, there is now more food per head than ever
before in history, and food production is likely to go on rising
faster than population for the rest of the century -- cereals
production will increase by 2.5 to 3.5 per cent a year, against world
wide population growth of 1.7 per cent a year, between 1980 and 2000
according to World Bank, US Agriculture Department and UN Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) projections. Even the poorest
developing countries, as a group, have increased their per capita food
production substantially since 1960 and will, on present trends, make
even greater strides by the year 2000. In the short term, of course,
huge surpluses of cereals and dairy products are being stored in
government silos and refrigerated butter mountains all over America
and Europe."
(Anatole Kaletsky, _Financial Times_ (UK), April 3, 1985).
I do not claim that this settles the issues surrounding scarcity. But
it clearly DOES show that anyone who goes hungry today goes hungry
BECAUSE OF CAPITALIST PROPERTY RELATIONS (that is, because they only
get as much food as they can pay some boss for, such that the latter
makes a profit), and that therefore the question as to the so-called
"legitimacy" of those relations cannot be settled without reference to
the question as to the "legitimacy" of unnecessary
death-by-starvation.
One last quotation:
"The form of association...which, if mankind continues to improve,
must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can
exist between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice in
the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on
terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they
carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and
removable by themselves."
(John Stuart Mill, "Principles of Political Economy").
It's clear that we are straying somewhat from the topic of Foucault,
but I claim that relations of production (in Marx's sense) are
a special case of relations of power (in Foucault's sense), so at
least I have an excuse!
---
Steve D'Arcy
Toronto
>However, only those societies will be
> prosperous that maintain *a* system of private property and profit,
whether that
> system is purely free market (an idealization) or salt-water capitalism
> (market socialism).
>
> Nicholas
>
Having spent much of the night smoking non-tobacco cigarettes, I
hesitate to reply with my own words. But here's a quotation:
"The World Health Organisation reports that the biggest killer in the
world today is not coronary thrombosis or cancer, but 'deep poverty'
in which a thousand million people live....In the United STates -- the
richest society in the whole of human history -- 32 million people
were living below the poverty line in 1988 (at the height of the
1980's boom) and nearly one in five children were born into poverty.
In Britain, a third of children grow up in poverty."
And here's another:
"In 1950 the richest fifth of the world's population took 30 percent
of its incomes; today they take 60 percent. Meanwhile, the poorest
fifth of humanity are left to share a mere 1.4 percent of total world
output."
(Both taken from: Harman, C. _Economics of the Madhouse: Capitalism
and the Market Today_ (London: Bookmarks, 1995).
Evidently, capitalism does produce prosperity. But that is certainly
no reason not to work for its speedy overthrow and forcible
suppression, in Marx's phrase, "by the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority."
Slavery (that is, non-"wage-slavery") produced prosperity for SOME
people. But that was not a point in its favour, according to most
slaves.
*****
Yet another quotation, this one pertaining to the relation between
capitalism and "scarcity":
"In the world as a whole, there is now more food per head than ever
before in history, and food production is likely to go on rising
faster than population for the rest of the century -- cereals
production will increase by 2.5 to 3.5 per cent a year, against world
wide population growth of 1.7 per cent a year, between 1980 and 2000
according to World Bank, US Agriculture Department and UN Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) projections. Even the poorest
developing countries, as a group, have increased their per capita food
production substantially since 1960 and will, on present trends, make
even greater strides by the year 2000. In the short term, of course,
huge surpluses of cereals and dairy products are being stored in
government silos and refrigerated butter mountains all over America
and Europe."
(Anatole Kaletsky, _Financial Times_ (UK), April 3, 1985).
I do not claim that this settles the issues surrounding scarcity. But
it clearly DOES show that anyone who goes hungry today goes hungry
BECAUSE OF CAPITALIST PROPERTY RELATIONS (that is, because they only
get as much food as they can pay some boss for, such that the latter
makes a profit), and that therefore the question as to the so-called
"legitimacy" of those relations cannot be settled without reference to
the question as to the "legitimacy" of unnecessary
death-by-starvation.
One last quotation:
"The form of association...which, if mankind continues to improve,
must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can
exist between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice in
the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on
terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they
carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and
removable by themselves."
(John Stuart Mill, "Principles of Political Economy").
It's clear that we are straying somewhat from the topic of Foucault,
but I claim that relations of production (in Marx's sense) are
a special case of relations of power (in Foucault's sense), so at
least I have an excuse!
---
Steve D'Arcy
Toronto