: Frenchy [borrowing a phrase from Forbes magazine]: The true revolutionaries of today are those who are willing to take economic risks.: Stoller [objecting because, as he sees it, capitalists own and risk the labor-power of all of sociewty]: Because capitalism is predicated upon the existence of a class of people... capitalists risk ALL of society's productive capabilities with each business deal.
: : Not really true. A capitalist can also be of the labor owning class.
: I have never denied this. Indeed, the relative elasticity of class ascension is what clearly differentiates capitalism from the inflexible class structure of feudalism. To call capitalism, as I have done, a lottery is to admit that capitalism has 'room at the top' for some members of the proletariat strata.
Again, WRONG! The 'room at the top' is not finite but infinite. The computer revolution has only just begun and the next major economic revolution seems to be taking shape in the bioengineering field, after a seemingly rough start. Where will the following economic upheaval be?
It won't be in backyard Bessymer furnaces, we can be reasonably sure of that.
: That said, let me emphasize the fact that the room at the top is QUITE LIMITED.* It is quite limited because capitalism---a system that could be credibly characterized by the unyielding de-skilling of work---must produce a large amount of unskilled (and low-wage) jobs and, consequently, a large amount of unskilled (and low-wage) workers to perform them. This is why MOST of the laboring class cannot possibly be permitted access to the top of the capitalist pyramid scheme. Capitalism would cease if everyone was a capitalist.
Oh? That clearly explains the huge technological/scientific advancements in primarily capitalist countries compared to socialist countries.
: : There have been too many success stories in the recent past to deny this.
: Does the media regale us with UN-success stories? Other than fleeting mention of the unprecented bankruptcies---both household and small business---that increase each year?
Of course not. Using a sports anology and your logic you'd have to say that because there is only one baseball team that wins the pennant every year that can only mean that the game of baseball is evil (believe it or not there are actually some schools that have their teams play baseball as well as other games without the use of scores because the administration feels that it is harmful to teach kids to be competitive. Ha! The kids keep score themselves. They know who's good and who stinks.)
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: : And who benefits?
: : Well, the proles, you and me. We are able to make distances disapear because of intrepid entrepreuners and converse w/ each other in a semi-civilized manner.
: This is the most compelling point of your argument and, should I say, your whole philosophy. If I understand you correctly, Frenchy, you maintain that capitalists in no uncertain terms deserve their status and profits because they are, in fact, Promethean supermen, i.e. because they promote technological advances that betters everyone's standard of living. As an example, you mention the internet.
: The internet, however, is an example of PUBLIC FUNDING and SOCIALIZED LABOR more than it symbolizes entrepreneurial intrepidity. After all, the internet was a creation of the Pentagon in the late 1960s, a creation resulting from the research of many people, and made possible by the American tax-payer. All Bill Gates et. al did was take what the public ALREADY PAID FOR, throw some wrapping paper over it, and RE-SELL IT TO THEM.
OK, but who's to say wheather or not we'd have a useable and cheap internet today w/o the marketing genius of Gates?
Hey! I'm all for Defense spending!! Defense spending is not the same thing as social spending, at least the way I define social spending; AFDC, Head start, GI, etc.
I don't know what gave you the idea that I in any way consider capitalist supermen of any sort. Anyone can be a capitalist. You can be one if you want to.
: Nevertheless, I see your point. If I understand your perspective correctly, according to you, business people like Gates truly do develop new technologies that no one else would have developed; consequently they have earned their profits. If I agreed that that was the case, I might also adopt your position.
: However, I do not.
: My position rests on the conviction that if the INDIVIDUAL hypothetical genius you call the intrepid entrepeneur did not develop the technology that makes everyone's standard of living rise, then someone else would have. That's right: if Edison hadn't discovered the recording process, I am confident that someone else would have (sooner or later). Therefore I see the Edisons of the world as nothing more than clever robbers of science. And because of the great advantage capitalists have (lots of money for R&D as well as access to government R&D**), they are quicky able to purchase---and monopolize for a time---science and, with it, all ensuing improvements in the lives of men and women.
: Here's an example:
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: Yves St. Laurent, after importing a particular flower (Cananga odorata or, as it is known in the Philippines, where it is grown, ilang-ilang),... secured a patent on the perfume derived from the native Filipino species. In another instance, India's neem tree is the source of thirty-five patents, mainly for the pesticide properties of the plant. Local users who have long known and benefitted from the tree's properties get nothing for the appropriation of this knowledge by European and U.S. firms.(1)
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: More so than the internet, common knowledge about plants and flowers are being monopolized as 'intellectual' private property! Not for nothing did Karl Marx say 'science, generally speaking, costs the capitalist nothing, a fact that by no means hinders him from exploiting it.'(2)
: This is why I reject your interpretation of the capitalist as Promethean superman; I see him as usurper of knowledge that would be discovered in good enough time by society in general---which, admittedly, is a very communist kind of thought.
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: _______________
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: * To demonstrate the tendency for capital to centralize, allow me to point out that in 1976 19% of the American population controlled approximately 40% of its wealth. Presently, only 1% controls this same amount. Source: U.S. News and World Report, 21 February 2000, p. 40.
: * * 40% of all American R&D is government-funded. Source: Kuttner, Everything For Sale: the Virtues and LImits of Markets, The University of Chicago Press 1999, p. 215.
: Notes:
: 1. Monthly Review, January 2000, p. 9.
: 2. Marx, Capital volume one, International 1967, p. 368.
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That theory, the theory that if X hadn't invented something then Y surely would have, is meaningless. It simply doesn't matter. The fact is X made the discovery. Period.
As far as the Yves story goes, I just wonder what the intellectual property rights are like in the Philipines? Are the Pilipinos noted for being a creative and resouceful people? Is risk taking part of their history? Do they have patent laws that protect inventions?
As I see it a country without laws that recognise the efforts of the individual and the right to keep the fruit of those efforts will never be a leader in world trade. Patent infringments, or no patent laws, can only result in a people who say "Why bother to create something new, take risks, use my own resources if I won't recieve any benefits from my efforts. Might as well wait for Joe Blow to invent it and let him take the burden."
The percentage of people who own wealth in this country doesn't concern me. As long as I have the same opportunity to make my bundle I'm happy. As long as laws are in effect to protect my property, your welcome to yours.
