| This question <186|240> overall <232|238> Peace: <80|238>. |
| Question 301: Thread 301 |
| [237] Peace: How to beat capitalism in less than 50 years i too find this thread interesting. i did not check the citation about crisis and the demise of capital in fifty years. i find it suprising that E. Mandel would say this. i do not at all believe that crises will be the demise of capitalism. Marx and Engels can be forgiven for having a faith in this mechanism or contradiction of capitalism as causing its own downfall; but capitalism is quite capable of transforming itself, as it has done in world wide Great Crises of 1820's; 1870's; 1930's; and 1970's. Business cycles which occur quite often are not de-stablizing, but rather the business cycle is what seems to give capitalism its stablity or its strength to endure, reproduce and transform when it has to. |
| Crises do not bring individuals (the working class) together but rather fragment them, putting them into competition with one another. Crises should not be understood as the causal mechanism for the fall of capitalism; it is much more enduring than this. |
| Moreover, i no longer believe that the proletariat are the universal consciousness (either in Marx or Lukacs). The working class are not in any material condition to gain universal class consciousness. i reject this teleological faith in the working class consciousness the emancipatory potential we must depend. |
| Also i remain in disagreement that becoming rich somehow “saves yourself”. But i think the main disagreement here is in our levels of abstraction. It is true that being wealthy in capitalism can make for a less miserable life for any individual; but when i look around and see the conditions for the vast majority of people in this world, something is deadly wrong. Namely, the individual does not matter, and there is very little room for (individual or otherwise) human agency. Because i am the exploiter and receive a greater amount of the surplus value produced does not make me feel emancipated. Only in capitalism would such a belief exist. Does winning the lottery really mean emancipation; come on! Does becoming a criminal mean that you have transcended being a victim? |
| i am very discouraged by this statement: “Morally, this may be a bad approach, but in Capitalism it is rob, or be robbed.” With this you have suggested that virtue does not exist for the individual under capitalist relations. i very much want to disagree and firmly reject this. There are many examples of virtuous individuals facing and within capitalist relations. |
| i think you have misunderstood my comments about freedom. Did i say that freedom is not necessary for happiness? If so this is certainly not what i mean at all. What i mean is that freedom cannot be reduced to the a utilitiarianist feeling of happiness (pleasure) and avoidence of pain. But freedom itself will of course entail happiness. And i do not believe you when you say freedom is not having to go to work. Freedom is still something different to me. |
| i find myself agreeing with you when you say it must start from the top down. i am not sure this is the answer, but to begin to transform social relations into (at least less) non-exploitative social relations it must be more than the working class. But i would disagree that to make a difference you must be a capitalist. The history of socialist thought has had many capitalists (e.g. F. Engels and Robert Owen). |
| We must try to understand how capitalist relations function; and must educate one another about this. Happiness has something to do with virtue and ethics. But even with this we can be fated for an “Unhappy Consciousness”. Allowing one's self to give up one's virtue and inner ethic is the greatest form of self-estrangement that a human being can face. Not everyone can develop such a virtue; but it would be a great disappointment to believe that the only way to become virtuous is to become capitalist. |
| However, i certainly agree that we fetishize money and people that have money in this society. Moreover, having money certainly makes an individual's life easier in capitalist relations. Yes, we need to understand this, but at what (social) cost are people becoming rich. This is why we need to understand the dynamics and mechanisms of capitalism. We must understand the unacknowledged conditions that enable us and constrain us as individuals; and we must begin to understand the unintended consequences of our individual action, when we have accepted the unacknowledged conditions as normal. |
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