The absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is what “our pamphleteer” overlooked…
The absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is what “our pamphleteer” overlooked..
Our pamphleteer overlooks two things:
The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour-power at its disposal.
This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation:
As a result of the introduction of machinery, a mass of workers is constantly being thrown out of employment, a section of the population is thus made redundant; the surplus product, therefore, finds fresh labour for which it can be exchanged without any increase in population and without any need to extend the absolute working-time.
Any questions?
Consolidation of wealth has only been endemic to capitalism because stupidity is endemic to humanity. The stupid tax incentives favoring the selling of assets to net capital gains windfalls at low income tax rates rather than hold assets and invest internally were set in hopes of achieving economies of scale without any respect for dis-economies of scale; i.e., the pursuit of monopsony, monopoly, and marketable political power. Of course the (permanent) income tax itself came about more to unleash the titans of US capitalism via lower barriers to trade than to constrain the accumulation of wealth, but at first (1913-1954, except for 1936-1939) there was a tax incentive for distributing profits with dividends that encouraged holding income generating assets rather than cashing out to consolidation.
In practice every economic system has as its foundation a set of rules established by its own elite in their own self-interest. Thus the notion of impartiality in the governing of economic matters may the most abstract concept ever imagined.
As the dude would say, “that’s just your opinion, man.” You may be right about “every economic system” but unless you show your homework, I’ll take Marx’s deeply-researched historically specific analysis over your potshot. My point, however, was not to extoll Marx but to point out the incredible similarity between the two statements and to allude to the implication that there may be some significance to that similarity.
Sure. Then what are those “causes which develop the expansive power of capital?” Two of my favorites are externalized costs and avoidance of competition via consolidation.
absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its
“
~~Sandwichman~
The question for Sandwichman :
the stranded capital is the old proletariat. the new capital is the machines, the new proletariat. our next boots on the ground will be the new proles, the robots. we still need we-the-people, the old proles to design the new proles, but soon we shall have new proles to design the neo-proles. Tell me something!
Have the neo-proles designed a vaccination to save the stranded assets? The vax is not working. The vax was used predominantly inside developed nations and rarely in the undeveloped. Examine the evidence!
Chad, a large undeveloped nation has 174 covid/19 deaths. USA, a highly developed nation has 616,538 deaths.
Why
!
Hmmm:
Lets start with density; Chad = 34 people/sq mile and the US is 93 people per sq mile. Chad has one city with more than a million people, 0 cities between 100,000 and 1 million people, and 0 cities between 10,000 and 100,000 people. The largest city in Chad is N’Djamena, with a population of 1,447,987 people.
Area: Chad 495.8 sq miles. US 3.8 million miles
Total population: Chad ~17 million US ~325 million
US: 83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas and 300 urban areas in the U.S. have populations above 100,000. Chad, I answered above.
Why did you wander off the track of the post?
“Justin”: Can you tell me in what volume of the MECW did Marx discuss the rate of Covid infection in Chad?
Seriously, though, the Chadians are not famous for gadding about the world in jet planes. That’s why they call it “Chad” and not “Gad.”