Commodities traders caused starvation and malnutrition for 200 million people

[ymu]

Can't back up your ridiculous assertion then?

No surprise. Confabulate away, big man.

 

[butchersapron]

You know when you're in trouble when i walk away claiming that someone is being mental.

Value and GDP are not the same thing. I'm happy to talk about this stuff. You're just mentally throwing stuff at me that you've not integrated into a proper view of why things happen, that you're coming across in your new reading. Or uncritically giving me reports. Come on.

Talk to me on this. Your madness is a bit pathetic though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It didn't happen because workers were being paid too much for profits. No. Bollocks sorry.

That's not quite what Butch said, is it?
He stated that, due to the shift in the power-relations between the workers and the ruling classes, the workers were getting, in historical terms, an "upper hand" on their previous position, one that eroded the margins that the owners of the means of production were used to.

This was indeed very much the case. It's why Sir Keith Joseph et al inculcated Thatcher with a drive to destroy the various modalities through which the working class had traditionally expressed solidarity.

It happened because the bosses resented the workers getting paid too much.

Rather that they resented the power the workers had to demand to be paid what they considered an equitable wage.

The oil shocks of the 1970s allowed the Keynesian narrative, and hegemony, to be broken.

Arguably, the oil-shocks were "the icing on the cake" that had already started being baked in the 1960s to move away from Keynesianism. The oil shocks, being external, were easy to blame.

There's a reason I focus on neo-classical theory and evidence. 99.9% of capitalists are getting ripped off here too, and I don't think we will have a successful, progressive revolution without understanding this stuff properly.

Thing is, Capitalists don't mind being "ripped off", because Capitalism is all about the size of your slice of pie, and as long as you're able to retain the power to manipulate the system so that your slice is slightly larger than someone elses' slice, then Capitalism "succeeds", Capital can be accrued, and the wheel of consumption can continue turning.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fuck's sake. It's the Rand problem.

An economy built on mass consumerism needs workers paid enough to be consumers.

An employer can increase profits by cutting wages but if they all do, the economy crashes (whether or not consumer debt delays the inevitable).

Welfare, unions and minimum wage perform the function of preventing capitalists from destroying their own market through the pursuit of profit.

In the era of globalisation, it matters less, as long as there are consumers somewhere. Debt in countries that push paper to survive ends up owned by poor economies that make things. They are the consumers of the future. Hence Osborne's heist now.

You're missing a very obvious point, IMO.

Yes, for consumption to take place, and for Capitalism to thrive, workers need access to money.

However, while you correctly say that "mass consumerism needs workers paid enough to be consumers", Capitalism has a way outside of paying a living wage to faciltate consumption. It's called "credit", the issuance of which also benefits capitalism.

So, not only does Capital benefit from the surplus value it steals, it benefits from issuance of credit (in the form of interest and/or fees), and from the social implications of indebtedness.

it's called a "double whammy".

 

[ymu]

I covered debt.

 

[fredfelt]

Violent Panda - I've been reading your posts, some of which I find interesting, but you seem to use the term capitalism, and capitalists as a straw dog of money grabbing system dominated with fat cats. This is part of it but I don't think it's particularly helpful in this context - just an observation.

Back to the thread - Commodities trading is not the only 'capitalist' way to trade in, agricultural products, for instance. The small scale farmer, a capitalist, will take his produce to local market and trade his crops in his community. Every country on this planet has markets like this. Even if not officially permitted there are capitalists and markets where people seek out a living.

In my mind the speculative currency flows, commodities trading and blind faith in the global free markets has lead to markets existing for their own sake. With capitalism being used as a short hand for the neo-liberal deregulated economy it's easy to forget that markets can exist simply to facilitate the needs of a local community and support the full development of the person.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I covered debt.

I'd hardly say you "covered" it. You referred to it. Slight difference.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Violent Panda - I've been reading your posts, some of which I find interesting, but you seem to use the term capitalism, and capitalists as a straw dog of money grabbing system dominated with fat cats. This is part of it but I don't think it's particularly helpful in this context - just an observation.

It's not about a "money grabbing system dominated with fat cats", it's about a form of economic life, one which has developed, in it's modern guise, alongside the rise of "the market". it involves all of us, it invades all of us.
Economic systems all inhere "money-grabbing" (or the "grabbing" of money-equivalents) in one form or another, but the modern form of Capitalism also encompasses the "creation" of money (and I'm NOT approaching this from the conspiraloon angles about fractional reserve banking or "international bank(er)s") in a way it rarely did in Marx's time, for example.

Back to the thread - Commodities trading is not the only 'capitalist' way to trade in, agricultural products, for instance. The small scale farmer, a capitalist, will take his produce to local market and trade his crops in his community. Every country on this planet has markets like this. Even if not officially permitted there are capitalists and markets where people seek out a living.

The small-scale farmer is generally happy with a nominal "profit", or a perceived profit (i.e. farmer can't grow carrots on his land, sells sack of spuds, buys sack of carrots), he isn't looking to (unless he's growing extremely "specialist" crops) sell futures in his crops, or to speculate with reference to the size (or lack) of harvest. His "capitalism" is primitive, and doesn't readily equate to the actions of a commodity market.

In my mind the speculative currency flows, commodities trading and blind faith in the global free markets has lead to markets existing for their own sake. With capitalism being used as a short hand for the neo-liberal deregulated economy it's easy to forget that markets can exist simply to facilitate the needs of a local community and support the full development of the person.

They're definable with the same word, but they're not the same thing. When I talk about Capitalism I acknowledge the subtler definition, but I'm invariably referring to the normative definition.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

I'm glad this issue is getting an airing. I hope the role of the meat trade in causing starvation soon comes under the microscope as well.

 

[ymu]

Bollocks VP.

Because, when it comes to economics, Thatcher was a pretty good chemist?

It happened because investors wanted more stupid money in the bubble to catch when it went bust. Housing had to become an investment, so restrict supply and increase demand. Debt was used to sustain demand instead of higher wages (now 20% lower as a proportion of GDP than 30 years ago) and the debts used as gambling instruments as they bet on how long it will take for us to have nothing left to lose and we string them up from the nearest lamp-post.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bollocks VP.

Charming, you silver-tongued devil!

You referred to debt, but you didn't mention the implications of it (except for your speculation as to the implications for the investors).

yes, debt was very obviously "used to sustain demand instead of higher wages", but cui bono? Not just the employers, through minimising pay rises and garnering higher profits thereby, not just the issuers of credit, but "the system"/"the establishment" as a whole too, through the self-governance of people who have something to lose.

Like I said, double whammy.