Well put. I think David Harvey explains this kind of thing in more depth in Rebel Cities. I’ll explain his work not as a correction, as I agree with you, but to add to what you said as a different summary might help you people who haven’t heard this before.
There’s a chapter on the ‘surplus capital absorption problem’. The successful capitalist ends every day with more money than they began with. What do they do with the extra, the surplus?
They can spend some, sure. But there are only so many things to buy. And if they don’t invest, inflation will make them poorer and their competition will become more competitive, stealing their resources, labour, and customers. Part of the surplus, then, must be invested.
But what in? Everything is already owned by someone. So that leaves new industries, and the destruction of other things that already exist.
New industries implies that it’s possible to keep building and building forever, leading always to use more and more scarce and harmful resources.
And destroying things only to re-build them isn’t always very nice for the people who live in and use those things. Destructive wars, and consumer goods that break every three years and can’t be replaced, are terrible for the environment.
But all this is the essence of capitalism. A system where commodities are produced for their exchange value, not their use value. This the ‘commodity form’. It’s the exchange of commodities for money that creates the opportunity to profit. It’s this profit that allows the successful capitalist to end every day with more money than which they began. The problem of climate change cannot be solved within this capitalist logic.
The essence of Marxism, one might say, is the critique of the ‘commodity form’ and everything that flows from it. (This is what Marx works out in Capital, Volume I.)
The essence of socialism is the attempt to dissolve the commodity form, to produce things for their use value, not their exchange value. When society makes things on the basis of need and use, several things can happen: no more war; we can make consumer items that last and that can be repaired; we can build habitable, green homes for people to live in, not for property developers to speculate; etc, etc.
The essence of communism is the society that comes after socialists have fully taken us beyond the commodity.
Well put. I think David Harvey explains this kind of thing in more depth in Rebel Cities. I’ll explain his work not as a correction, as I agree with you, but to add to what you said as a different summary might help you people who haven’t heard this before.
There’s a chapter on the ‘surplus capital absorption problem’. The successful capitalist ends every day with more money than they began with. What do they do with the extra, the surplus?
They can spend some, sure. But there are only so many things to buy. And if they don’t invest, inflation will make them poorer and their competition will become more competitive, stealing their resources, labour, and customers. Part of the surplus, then, must be invested.
But what in? Everything is already owned by someone. So that leaves new industries, and the destruction of other things that already exist.
New industries implies that it’s possible to keep building and building forever, leading always to use more and more scarce and harmful resources.
And destroying things only to re-build them isn’t always very nice for the people who live in and use those things. Destructive wars, and consumer goods that break every three years and can’t be replaced, are terrible for the environment.
But all this is the essence of capitalism. A system where commodities are produced for their exchange value, not their use value. This the ‘commodity form’. It’s the exchange of commodities for money that creates the opportunity to profit. It’s this profit that allows the successful capitalist to end every day with more money than which they began. The problem of climate change cannot be solved within this capitalist logic.
The essence of Marxism, one might say, is the critique of the ‘commodity form’ and everything that flows from it. (This is what Marx works out in Capital, Volume I.)
The essence of socialism is the attempt to dissolve the commodity form, to produce things for their use value, not their exchange value. When society makes things on the basis of need and use, several things can happen: no more war; we can make consumer items that last and that can be repaired; we can build habitable, green homes for people to live in, not for property developers to speculate; etc, etc.
The essence of communism is the society that comes after socialists have fully taken us beyond the commodity.
Hence the argument: socialism or extinction.