Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
That's the flaw in the "thinking" right there. In reality, the people who have all the capital keep going out of their way to maximize scarcity for everybody else.
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What Happens to Downtown?
- Thread starter Brainster
- Start date
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
That's an interesting observation - though I would suggest that the scale is capable of tipping both ways. Greengrocers have smaller customer bases, and that means they have to stock less, which could theoretically be the deciding factor or at least a very important one in how sustainable they are. If a substantial number of supermarket customers attempted to switch to shopping from local greengrocers, the latter might easily begin to have their own supply issues.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
That's probably because children brought up together tend to develop a sibling type relationship even if they're not biologically related, and so rarely marry each other. So unless they can find outside partners who can be persuaded to join the commune they don't often stay in it past maturity.
Nowadays, there are very convenient ways of satisfying your curiosity: Kibbutz (Wikipedia).
It wasn't what Marx was getting at. Why does it seem to be so in your opinion?
And yet Marx analyzed capitalism and concluded that workers needed to make a revolution and get rid of capitalism in order to improve their lot. How did you get the impression that Das Kapital encouraged them to hang on to capitalism because it "would reduce scarcity and eventually result in communism"?
His followers have fought against the impoverishment caused by capitalism, which is a sure way to upset capitalists and their representatives.
May I recommend a weekly show about how capitalism exacerbates scarcity instead of reducing it?
And may I recommend moving this discussion to another thread since it has very little to do with what is happening to downtown?
(Except, of course, that the homeless downtown and elsewhere are a very good example of how capitalism doesn't reduce scarcity?)
https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bo...al,In this sense they seek to abolish capital.
My understanding is based on the whole dialectic aspect of Marx. In that he seems to believe that capitalism was a necessary stage in devolopement to bring about the means by which socialism and eventually communism could exist. There is a not uncommon critique of Leninism/Maoism et al that they failed primarily due the revolutions happening in essentially feudal societies rather than capitalist societies.
My understanding is based on the whole dialectic aspect of Marx. In that he seems to believe that capitalism was a necessary stage in devolopement to bring about the means by which socialism and eventually communism could exist. There is a not uncommon critique of Leninism/Maoism et al that they failed primarily due the revolutions happening in essentially feudal societies rather than capitalist societies.
That does explain the relative scarcity of so many things compared to the pre capitalist societies.
No, your understanding is based on your idea that capitalism will reduce scarcity, which you then attribute to Marx: "Capitalism would reduce scarcity and eventually result in communism."
However, Marx never said anything remotely similar to that. He was no determinist. He had (sometimes too) high hopes that capitalism would bring about the means to overcome it, but he never claimed that capitalism would do so by itself and on its own. He was a revolutionary. He knew that the working classes had to make the right choice and carry it out.
You have probably already noticed that the abundance of wealth produced nowadays isn't 'trickling down' to the homeless downtown or anywhere else. Even Brainster seems to be aware of the fact.
But some people don't think homelessness is a problem. They think the homeless are the problem, and their solution is barbarism:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." (Anatole France)
Marx wrote about the choice between Kommunismus oder Barbarei.
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wareyin
Penultimate Amazing
Ah yes, because capitalism is clearly geared towards making things so common that they flood the market and aren't worth what it takes to make them. Capitalists all want to lose money by making less profit, doncha know.
Which pre capitalist societies did you have in mind, and what things became more scarce once they became capitalist?
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Money. Most of it was/is owned by just a few people.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Relative scarcity.
Ice cubes, for example. Ice cubes are way less scarce now than they were in hunter-gatherer times, across all economic classes. But rich people are still more likely to have lots and lots of ice cubes whenever they want, than poor people are.
Suddenly
No Punting
I think a lot of people on the left trip over their own feet on the wealth disparity issue because it's hard to argue that things are materially worse across the board than they were in the past just because rich people keep the cheese. There are some circumstances where it is true, but on the whole notsomuch.
The main problem with wealth disparity isn't so much about fairness as it is a sign that a society is in collapse. Once there is such a huge difference in material circumstances then there becomes huge differences in life experience and eventually parts of the society stop seeing the point of acting in a way to benefit the whole. Once that develops things do go to hell and everyone loses.
It's not the purpose of what they are doing, but it is the result. In order to stay ahead of the competition, their goal is to pay fewer workers to produce more goods, which means that the people they made redundant can't afford to buy those goods even though they have become cheaper.
The 'things' as such aren't scarce. But the 'things' come with a price tag, which means that only people with money can buy them. That is why you can have an abundance of food on one side of the fence, and on the other side you have people who are starving. The purpose of producing 'things' in capitalism isn't to feed people. It's to sell 'things' to people. And people without money can't buy them.
That is the perversion of scarcity in capitalism.
For the same reason, you have vacant buildings on one side of the street downtown and homeless people on the other. Brainster is upset by both of those things without seeing the connection. Instead, he blames the homeless for making the vacant buildings unattractive for businessmen.
So money as such isn't scarce. On the contrary, there's an abundance of that ****, too. In fact, sometimes there is so much of it that capitalists run out of opportunities to invest it profitably. That is usually the point when they begin to offer loans to people who will never be able to pay them back. Remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
So even when the capitalists have the problem of having too much money, it never really 'trickles down' to the homeless downtown. It's not the point of money as capital to do so.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
My latest reply to Norman Alexander is a better fit for this thread.
Even if you used a stolen credit card to make the purchase, the refund would just go back on the credit card.
Besides, it's easier to walk into the grocery store, buy a flat of bottled water with food stamps, step outside, empty the bottles, step back inside, and turn the bottles in at the convenient in-store bottle drop station for cash. Then head a couple blocks over to the tent camp under the freeway overpass to find someone with pills or powders for sale.
I actually live on the block between the grocery store and the camp. I've seen the first half of the process - addicts on the sidewalk outside the grocery store dumping out bottles of water. I cannot confirm the second half for you, though, as I'm not really interested in personally witnessing a drug deal in a homeless camp. I do sometimes have to step over little piles of water bottle lids, though. Maybe I should take a picture the next time I see one, post it here for your edification. If I'm a little bit lucky, I might even be able to make a good composition with a nearby turd. Probably left by the same person that left the bottle caps.
They try to turn free funds from the government into fentanyl, by using the government funds to buy bottled water, and then turning in the bottles for the recycling credit, which is paid in cash.
Dunno how it is in Australia, but in the States these days it's pretty typical for a store to want to see the receipt, and issue a refund in the same form as the original payment.
Even if you used a stolen credit card to make the purchase, the refund would just go back on the credit card.
Besides, it's easier to walk into the grocery store, buy a flat of bottled water with food stamps, step outside, empty the bottles, step back inside, and turn the bottles in at the convenient in-store bottle drop station for cash. Then head a couple blocks over to the tent camp under the freeway overpass to find someone with pills or powders for sale.
I actually live on the block between the grocery store and the camp. I've seen the first half of the process - addicts on the sidewalk outside the grocery store dumping out bottles of water. I cannot confirm the second half for you, though, as I'm not really interested in personally witnessing a drug deal in a homeless camp. I do sometimes have to step over little piles of water bottle lids, though. Maybe I should take a picture the next time I see one, post it here for your edification. If I'm a little bit lucky, I might even be able to make a good composition with a nearby turd. Probably left by the same person that left the bottle caps.
Make America Beautiful Again - The Endlösung
MABA:
Also here:
Isn't it amazing how it all comes together? And how this thread, in spite of the title, was never really about 'What Happens to Downtown'?
MABA:
Also here:
Isn't it amazing how it all comes together? And how this thread, in spite of the title, was never really about 'What Happens to Downtown'?
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Brainster
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 26, 2006
- Messages
- 22,326
It was clear since the OP:
