Is not it high time think and create " capitalism without capital "? Capitalism is a particular way, and very problematic to organize collectively the use of capital. It is a system - as indicated termination "ism" - which makes nature and humans to the alleged "necessity" of an accumulation seen as end in itself. This is not inevitable, and post-capitalism will not eliminate the capital as to innovate and advance money is essential in any economy. But to develop a capitalism without capital , we must first understand the mechanisms that now make the self- increased economic and financial capital an obsession.
Basically, capital is an amount of resources that can be transferred in time, we can keep in reserve for the future. It is customary to say that a principal must "grow", he must "work" while its owner is devoted to other pursuits. So a stock that is supposed to occur periodically (Eg annually) flow: the tree is the capital, the fruits it produces are the stream. A "good" capital produces fruit for a long time, like a tree healthy and fertile soil which, combined with human labor and a certain amount of luck, generate "revenue" with regularity.
How does it generate revenue? In any case, it takes enough to wear over time, depreciation due to entropy, can be compensated, this is called depreciation. Need we say more? Not if the capital in question is a subject of "consumption" in the long term: a work of art in the living room, family house, etc.. and if the only purpose is to keep it intact. (Of course, the very long term, the fight against usury is lost before it: all capital equipment is doomed to disappear, and maintained as strong as it is. Etruscan sculpture, even rejuvenated from time to time at great expense, eventually return to dust, the mansion too. This is probably one reason "existential" that fuel the fantasy of a monetary or financial capital indestructible because immaterial.)
Most often, the only continued existence of capital is not enough, because that capital is supposed to serve as a source of income stream. He must produce a surplus beyond same depreciation: it takes a net increase - if not its volume, the less its value. It is not merely that the tree produces enough fruit for us to replant another tree when he is dead: he must produce the fruit each season to feed the family who has planted, and that 'possibility (of that) more trees can be planted and can provide, in turn, additional fruit in future. The addition can be used for two things: (1) allow people to feed new born in the family or add them came from outside, (2) allow each person already born to consume more. Station number 1 is one that leads to a market economy (division of labor between families, so trade them, so need to exchange rate called "price") and may then lead to capitalism which is a special conditions of market economy (see article of 21 March below). The way No. 2 is one that leads to overconsumption as an outcome - or, more precisely, as an outlet - the accumulation of capital. In one, the other way, where should we place limits, where does one make choices? These issues are vast and should occupy several subsequent articles. I'm just saying, for now, they are in the background of all reflections on post-capitalism.
In a capitalist market economy, shareholders themselves are commodities: they can buy and sell, with prices varying according to their ability to generate future revenues. There is a market for financial capital, but also works of art, houses, etc.. In these markets, it is mainly the "speculation" that guides buyers and sellers: it plays on expectations of future income and future resale value of capital in question. Speculation can be a sort of savings (as in the case of small pensioner who uses the apartment once inherited from his parents to receive rents in excess of its board) or a pure gain excessive thirst (as in the case of the "investor" who uses apartments, works art, plants or stock to win vast sums on resale, after pocketing the revenue stream over the period in which he was the owner of capital).
What's wrong with that, you say? Everyone Is not free to do what he wants from what he has? Perhaps, except that in a lot of cases there is, in a capital that is legally owns an invisible reality, and whose capital market reflects only in a "perverse": the invisible reality is that often the only capital "grows" in taking the work of people, they have nothing else to sell their labor power. If I sell my Etruscan sculpture to another billionaire, the people I used to maintain it will now work for someone else, they may prefer a different team of restorers cheaper wages and less demanding their working conditions. If I sell my family mansion, I sell at the same time the staff has been working on (say) three generations, and new owner is not obliged to continue the momentum.
capital, so it's not just an object or thing is a set of social relations . There, hidden under the guise of a legal right of ownership, another reality: human beings by which the capital is, too, cargo "attached" to this capital, but infinitely more fragile than the capital itself itself. The Etruscan scultpure will last for centuries, regardless of who monitors and maintains it, and people who are hired to monitor and maintain it, them, only depend on the goodwill (That is to say, the calculation of profitability) of the person who owns the sculpture, in a social relationship, that is to say a ratio of power guided by social norms and legal rules . How "evil" that markets take into account this dependence debilitating and jeopardizing human beings with respect to the capital that employs them, is illustrated by the stock exchange mechanism: when a large listed company announces a "trimming", the course of action goes ... Under capitalism, man without capital is structurally a cost to the human being who has the capital and who uses it to "win more" and, most of the time, meet its domestic shortages by delegating work to others. (See my analysis in Critique of capitalist existence .) This work of others should cost as little as possible, or even disappear if it costs "too expensive" ... For capitalism, remember, is totally indifferent to job creation. Having to employ people, that is to say, having to use the power of life and physical strength of people dispossessed, is an unfortunate detour to humans possess. If the release of excess returns may be unemployed, Such is the case in line with the logic of a "capitalist capital.
should find a system as what capitalism interpreted as the "human cost" associated with "value creation" is transformed into a component of the value generated by capital . I repeat: a component of value - not a "source" value. This, he already is and that is what is problematic. That's because no capital can be maintained in the state, nor a fortiori a surplus, without adding significant human labor, most of the time, we must combine the "crucial factor" in " factor work "- thus making human life, the logic of" capital capitalist ", a rather bulky goods incidentally.
How consider, for example, that jobs created or the compensation paid, are also counted as return on capital ? This would mean probably not seeing in the capital a way to exploit "resources" (natural and human) to make a profit, but a means to support a community of human beings and give meaning to their lives. But such a radical reversal is it only possible as productive capital (industrial or financial) is authorized to remain in the hands of individuals who are considering life on the mode of operation beneficial to other humans? Post-capitalism should not be based on a communal property regime capital , where is the community as a whole, on a fully democratic way (so no "collectivist"!), Decide on how it should combine human labor and economic capital? A radical method of this kind of system is obviously the workers cooperative. More broadly, it would be an economic democracy where capital is no longer - could no longer be legally speaking - source personal enrichment, but only source of wealth production "communal" right back in to those who loved their work to the common capital. This communal wealth could still be in circulation and redistributed through that in Ethics of post-capitalist existence , I called a social market economy .
In this non-capitalist market economy, would there still managers? Yes, of course, but as part of a division of labor in which - as workers like any other, not subservient to any group "owners" private - they are nominated by their peers within the company, tentatively to be performing (as part of any renewable mandates, but not de jure permanent ) task management and coordination rather that production tasks. And what about entrepreneurs? They still exist, but in a form that will jump our current businessmen : as "municipal employees" or as "delegates to the creation," not crowned as pioneers of private rights and prerogatives of self-made man . The Contractor
communalist an employee would like the others, receiving an income for his creative work, under the control of the economic democracy that metes and bounds as the salaries of other functions (producers, coordinators). But then, what are their incentives to the contractor "communal"? If he can not hope to draw from his creativity and entrepreneurial spirit wealth that nothing restricts a priori (which is the case in capitalism), why does it motivate innovate, create to sacrifice his time and energy? The answer is quite simple, although it may seem a bit brutal in the current climate, where it glorifies the "entrepreneurial spirit" by confusing it with personal ambition, love of the game risky and greed: Do entrepreneurs remain those who have a real vocation, not only instrumental and technical but also social and spiritual and does not pay only the economic surplus generated by their financial and innovation, but by the joy and pride of having contributed to prosperity (also redefine - but not here, all in good time !...) his community.
Not bad for those who today claim to be "contractors" but are actually foremost collectors of surplus in the long term by addressing their anxieties "success" would simply be disqualified in a post-capitalist economic democracy. However, others may prove creative, innovative and dynamic as social entrepreneurs in a new logic in which capital would be a loan from the community, available to them so they brainstorm beneficial to this community.
You did not misread, I'm writing: the capital is seen as "a loan from the community! Fini, in this post-capitalist logic, the principle of the loan capitalist bank, itself conditioned by expectations of profitability without measure coming from "investors" who put their money into these banks capitalists. It will inevitably think replace the capitalist banking system by financing networks - public or private - cooperative and focused themselves on the community service - quite moderately paid service, obviously, compared to delusions of current profitability of a banking sector capitalism. The requirements of the post-capitalist communalism are strong - but those of capitalism today are too! Simply, they are legitimized by ideology and culture that blind us quite heavily on the human cost of the logic of inequality at work, which focused on unequal access to economic and financial capital and its "benefits". Banks and other institutions of private and public funding to play the game now fully the logic of a "capital capitalist" in that they value above all the capital that is "profitable" maximally through the work so exploioté undemocratic. Maybe there some exceptions public credit institutions or other "economic tools" group that could be drawn - if only those institutions and these tools were not (at least in Wallonia) in the hands of a political caste that PS mainly uses it as a foil and as a place where "resettle" their friends at the end of terms ... Compromise politicking with the "capitalist capital" has, at present, no color preferred policy ...
It will therefore, in the context of economic transition to post-capitalism, a vast cultural and spiritual work, without any denial of democracy, but with an unyielding insistence on the injustices and current inequities. The work of re-thinking "is difficult and has only just begun. It is not thus "unrealistic" even "dangerous" or "totalitarian" as some readers will claim probably skeptical of this blog. Thoroughly rethink the very notion of capital - and therefore also the nature of human motivations that underlie our system - is a total emergency. I've been here only a few small items, which have nothing final and will surely, on reflection, although insufficient. Still: you have to start somewhere.
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