Is the concept of monetary capitalism now holding us back?

[jusali]

Once upon a time we needed trade and money in order to make a living and create tools that would help us in these tasks. Nowadays however trade and money only seem to complicate this process.

We need continuous monetary growth in order for our economies to grow, yet that is totally at odds with our environmental impact. How can you extract growth from an environment that is in decline?

We have enough food and clean water to feed everyone happily yet the monetary process ensures that we have constant war and famine in order to excite competition?

We have ever more intuitive and productive software and systems negating the need for human interaction yet want full employment?

We have to produce products that have built in obsolescence in order to sell more, hell, my oven has only lasted 4 years yet my parents one bought in the seventies lasted 20+.
We upgrade our phones nearly every 2 years in order to get the latest technology, yet the latest technology is stifled in order to create yet more demand.

It's doing my head in and it seems the time has come to ask these questions surely?

 

[camouflage]

Don't agree with all you've said, but I do agree that we cannot cope with a 'post-scarcity' economy right now.

If we could transmit, store and print out fully functional material objects tomorrow we'd still have the US getting all up in everybodys face trying to clamp down on the Planet of the Free on Big Media/Big Pharma/Big Techs sez so.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There are 7 billion of us and counting. I would argue that we need trade more than ever.

However, we certainly need to change the way we trade dramatically. Taking your example of growth, we need new measures that take into account sustainability, so that unsustainable 'growth' (short-term gain that will result in a net loss in the long term) is treated as a negative. People are working on this kind of stuff. Things are not totally hopeless. Problem is that in the long term we are all dead. This tends to make people care less about the future than we should.

The New Economics Foundation does some interesting work.

 

[jusali]

Another thing is usury (sorry interest!) and all these monetary concepts that just seem intent on keeping money going to the top.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't see any alternative to money, tbh. Money is a pretty good idea, all things told. The problem isn't money per se, but who controls it, imo. The problem isn't money, but ownership.

 

[jusali]

Sorry, I'm mixing up money with capitalism.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well perhaps in a twist on the old communist idea, it is not perhaps control of the means of production that we should be aiming to take into collective hands, but control of the means of producing money - the banking system. For me, that would be a minimum starting point. We also need a break away from shareholding capitalism towards worker-owned cooperatives being the norm for all workplaces - cooperatives that would be entitled to seek investment from the state-owned money system, which itself could include cooperative societies that are not controlled by the state but are incorporated like building societies - there would be no need for such a system to be a centralised monolith, in other words.

How do we get from here to there? That's the big question...

 

[jusali]

I like that idea, sounds good. I was also considering monetary interest instead of charging interest on payback maybe one could use interest as a punitive method. So interest could be charged on the money that you possess thus driving people to spend as it is not in their interest to save/hoard large amounts of capital. You could have an allowance that is safe from interest but anything over would be charged.....

 

[love detective]

all getting a bit tail wagging the dog here

as long as the means of production are not in collective hands, as long as the social relation of wage labour remains, and as long as production of use values is carried out, not as an end in itself, but purely as a means of producing surplus value, then nothing else that springs from and rests on those underlying social relations are going to change in any meaningful way

it's all a bit like getting rid of the pope but retaining the whole system of catholicism which produced the pope

the usage of money & finance in the present day are expressions of the underlying system of social relations - they are produced by it - you can't just skim them of the top of the system and by doing so produce a new system. you have to obliterate the essence that produces and reproduces them. it's not a question of economics or economic policy, it's a profoundly social issue and one about relations between people and things, it's about the social form of human working activity

all this detail and policy prescription above does tend to ignore the elephant in the room that renders such changes impossible and incompatible with the existing set of capitalist social relations - you can't get rid of cancer (i.e. solve the issues raised in the OP) by tinkering with the symptoms of that cancer

 

[camouflage]

What might an alternative look like love detective?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

An alternative might look like what I described, tbf. I agree with the point about 'production of use values is carried out, not as an end in itself, but purely as a means of producing surplus value'. That's shareholder capitalism - that's profit. And that is something that businesses that are incorporated as worker-owned cooperatives of some kind don't do.

So yes, my first sentence above isn't quite right - ownership matters, of course. However, I can see a different situation in which wage labour still exists, in which, for the short-term at least, inequalities still persist. It isn't an ideal, but so what, as long as it is an improvement on now. There is no utopia.

If we lived in a system where money production is nationalised, we could operate markets underneath that in non-essential services, allowing for innovation, for instance, and allowing for people to establish companies through borrowing money. Such companies, as a condition of their loan, would have to be incorporated as worker-owned as soon as they start to employ anyone, but that could just be a John Lewis-style arrangement. How the money made by the business is distributed among its workers would be down to them to work out (with certain legal protections, of course). Currently, working for the John Lewis partnership is slightly better than working for Tesco. But if every business were a JL-style partnership, working for them would be markedly better than working for JL today - JL after all can get away with worse treatment as this is what people expect, and being treated a bit better at Waitrose than at Tesco is enough to keep workers happy. In a world where every place is a JL partnership, workers could demand a lot more, in particular, demanding that wage differentials be reduced.

But we can all outline ways in which things would be better if only we could change the pattern of ownership. The key question is how to get from here to there. And with this question, nationalising the money system is, imo, a possible first step. From there, erosion of shareholder capitalism becomes possible for the simple fact that John Lewis style partnerships have a competitive advantage over shareholder-owned companies, because they do not have to pay out to shareholders. They have eliminated what is essentially a leeching class of profit-takers.

 

[love detective]

What might an alternative look like love detective?

i've not much interest in the detail of what an alternative would look like to be honest, we're so far away from it at this point in time that it's my opinion that it's not up to us to lay down the detail of what it would be (it's indulgently utopian and idealist to do so i would say - so something that is suited to message boards like this)

what's certain though is that if there ever is to be an alternative (and one that is more progressive) then the removal of the barriers that prevent its existence needs to happen, to do this the existing system has to be first understood so that what is essential to it can be attacked/obliterated/destroyed and what is contingent or accidental to it does not detract from that activity.

this process of identification of, and revolt against, the essential nature of the system to be replaced would then lay the foundations for whatever system that replaces it, through its own negation - only then would I say that the process of mapping out what an alternative might look like could purposefully and democratically begin to happen - and it would belong to the mass of people involved in such an activity to decide how they want to arrange things, not us who would be dinosaurs from another age, holding them back

and the material conditions that would allow such a dismantlement to take place can not be brought about by trying to build castles on the sand, top down delusions of grandeur will never do that job

even in my attempt to negate idealism/utopianism about future blueprints above i'm aware that i'm being hugely utopian to think that there is much chance of anything like the above happening, and aware that i'm effectively imposing a blueprint myself as to how that process should work - but it's just how i see it, and i see little value about nattering about prescriptive blueprints on a message board (or anywhere else)

 

[sptme]

all this detail and policy prescription above does tend to ignore the elephant in the room that renders such changes impossible and incompatible with the existing set of capitalist social relations - you can't get rid of cancer (i.e. solve the issues raised in the OP) by tinkering with the symptoms of that cancer

Questions that come into my head when i hear these kind of statements - We've had worse and better forms of capitalism in the past (depending on the level of welfare/redistribution etc) that have made a real difference to peoples standard of living. Why would it not be possible to fight for reforms again?
how to you move from demanding reforms of the capitalist system to demands to overthrow it? Are there stepping stones?

 

[camouflage]

i've not much interest in the detail of what an alternative would look like to be honest, we're so far away from it at this point in time that it's my opinion that it's not up to us to lay down the detail of what it would be (it's indulgently utopian and idealist to do so i would say - so something that is suited to message boards like this)

what's certain though is that if there ever is to be an alternative (and one that is more progressive) then the removal of the barriers that prevent its existence needs to happen, to do this the existing system has to be first understood so that what is essential to it can be attacked/obliterated/destroyed and what is contingent or accidental to it does not detract from that activity.

this process of identification of, and revolt against, the essential nature of the system to be replaced would then lay the foundations for whatever system that replaces it, through its own negation - only then would I say that the process of mapping out what an alternative might look like could purposefully and democratically begin to happen - and it would belong to the mass of people involved in such an activity to decide how they want to arrange things, not us who would be dinosaurs from another age, holding them back

and the material conditions that would allow such a dismantlement to take place can not be brought about by trying to build castles on the sand, top down delusions of grandeur will never do that job

even in my attempt to negate idealism/utopianism about future blueprints above i'm aware that i'm being hugely utopian to think that there is much chance of anything like the above happening, and aware that i'm effectively imposing a blueprint myself as to how that process should work - but it's just how i see it, and i see little value about nattering about prescriptive blueprints on a message board (or anywhere else)

Yeah, better that one does not go blundering off into murderous Year-One Bollocks, skipping along the blood spattered pavement of good intentions whose ultimate destination has been visited so lamentably often through history. Marx declined to envision the shape of the post-Capitalist society as well. Didn't stop a few less reflective types from offering up a few specific details to be driven through with iron-fisted will.

I say we all just muddle-along with liberal capitalist-within-reason social democracy for the moment, which seems fair enough to me.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

One thing's for sure, I think: we'll always be muddling along. Societies aren't perfectible. I still think it is legitimate to ask where we might like to get to and how it might be possible to get somewhere along the road from here to there, though. I also agree with sptme that real improvements from here are perfectly possible.

 

[love detective]

Questions that come into my head when i hear these kind of statements - We've had worse and better forms of capitalism in the past (depending on the level of welfare/redistribution etc) that have made a real difference to peoples standard of living. Why would it not be possible to fight for reforms again?
how to you move from demanding reforms of the capitalist system to demands to overthrow it? Are there stepping stones?

of course it's possible to fight for reforms and it's crucial that ongoing attacks on living standards are defended against as best as can be done under the circumstances

and in doing so, not only are benefits won from victories in that area, but people themselves are transformed somewhat through struggle - confidence is rebuilt and pessimism eroded and this ongoing process moves further towards a situations where the basic building blocks of something more fundamental could start to take shape - but this can only be a brick by brick process, rebuilding the capacity and ability and desire to fight back from the bottom up

what i was arguing against was the kind of pontification that misses out on that crucial building step and goes straight to setting out the blueprint as to how things would work in some distant faraway land through a set of top down 'policy proposals' that are completely disconnected from the material conditions that would allow for their implementation

'nationalising the money system' for example is nothing like a 'first step' towards some other system - it's as if we can just go out tomorrow and do that - it's effectively proposing an end in itself as a practical means or a step towards it. it's the top down idealist/utopian approach that just nattering about things is enough - things will only happen when the balance of class forces swings back away from capital, and that won't happen through ideas, but by a hideously long and unglamorous process of rebuilding the ability and the will to fight back, brick by brick

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Nationalising the money system is perfectly possible. And if it is done as something that is desired rather than as something that is an emergency temporary measure, it can make a real difference.

 

[camouflage]

One thing's for sure, I think: we'll always be muddling along. Societies aren't perfectible....

Oh really....

Maybe you just lack VISION.

 

[love detective]

Nationalising the money system is perfectly possible. And if it is done as something that is desired rather than as something that is an emergency temporary measure, it can make a real difference.

you miss the point (in a number of different ways as well)

communism is perfectly possible, therefore i propose the implementation of communism as the first step in a process to get us from a capitalist society to a communist society

 

[littlebabyjesus]

you miss the point (in a number of different ways as well)

communism is perfectly possible, therefore i propose the implementation of communism as the first step in a process to get us from a capitalist society to a communist society

I don' think I did miss the point. Capitalism generates crises in which 'private' banks have to be bailed out with public money. Those are the conditions in which the money system could be nationalised. Such things already happen, but are seen as temporary emergency measures, as in Sweden. A switch in thinking so that it is seen as the desirable thing is all that is needed. I don't think that is impossible.

 

[love detective]

A switch in thinking

that's why you are an idealist and i'm a materialist - ideas don't change the world i'm afraid

 

[Blagsta]

I don' think I did miss the point. Capitalism generates crises in which 'private' banks have to be bailed out with public money. Those are the conditions in which the money system could be nationalised. Such things already happen, but are seen as temporary emergency measures, as in Sweden. A switch in thinking so that it is seen as the desirable thing is all that is needed. I don't think that is impossible.

How do you see this "switch in thinking" occurring?

 

[revol68]

Well perhaps in a twist on the old communist idea, it is not perhaps control of the means of production that we should be aiming to take into collective hands, but control of the means of producing money - the banking system. For me, that would be a minimum starting point. We also need a break away from shareholding capitalism towards worker-owned cooperatives being the norm for all workplaces - cooperatives that would be entitled to seek investment from the state-owned money system, which itself could include cooperative societies that are not controlled by the state but are incorporated like building societies - there would be no need for such a system to be a centralised monolith, in other words.

How do we get from here to there? That's the big question...

If by twist you mean rewarmed Proudhon.

You petite bourgeois dog!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How do you see this "switch in thinking" occurring?

Well, the case needs to be made for it, for starters. I don't quite agree with ld about that. For instance, in the Great Depression and after WW2, Keynes's ideas were adopted by national governments. The conditions were right for the ideas to be adopted. Where capitalism falters, ideas about how to change things are listened to.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If by twist you mean rewarmed Proudhon.

You petite bourgeois dog!

That first sentence wasn't quite right, tbh. I would see the taking control of the production of money as a means towards the end of changing patterns of ownership. If you read that post, I actually contradict myself a bit. I was too enamoured of my own piece of rhetoric.

 

[revol68]

That first sentence wasn't quite right, tbh. I would see the taking control of the production of money as a means towards the end of changing patterns of ownership. If you read that post, I actually contradict myself a bit. I was too enamoured of my own piece of rhetoric.

And Proudhon's people's bank didn't look towards changing the patterns of ownership?

Like I said it's nothing new or interesting.

 

[Blagsta]

Well, the case needs to be made for it, for starters. I don't quite agree with ld about that. For instance, in the Great Depression and after WW2, Keynes's ideas were adopted by national governments. The conditions were right for the ideas to be adopted. Where capitalism falters, ideas about how to change things are listened to.

You haven't answered the question! Well, you kind of have actually, when you said "the conditions were right". This is what ld means when he writes about materialism - ideas come from material conditions, not the other way round.

 

[revol68]

You haven't answered the question! Well, you kind of have actually, when you said "the conditions were right". This is what ld means when he writes about materialism - ideas come from material conditions, not the other way round.

It's not a uni-directional thing at all, ideas are shaped and shape material conditions.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And Proudhon's people's bank didn't look towards changing the patterns of ownership?

Like I said it's nothing new or interesting.

I don't know much about Proudhon, tbh. I'm sure the idea isn't new. Up to you whether or not you think it interesting.

 

[Blagsta]

It's not a uni-directional thing at all, ideas are shaped and shape material conditions.

Almost like a dialectical relationship!