Capital is still exploitive (Earth, beliefs, grace, blood, evolution)

[GeneCosta]

We were invited to do a sensational short on our politics:

The idea that capital creates nothing without the work of laborers and the desire of consumers is revolutionary even today.

Since today's scholars freely use the adjective classical to describe liberal economists prior to Keynes, permit me to distinguish Proudhon, Tucker, Marx, Spooner, and Bakunin from their peers born after the "Marginalist" Revolution using the same standard. You see, classical socialism grew out of response to the emerging capitalist class, whose practices were becoming quite noticeable by the philosophes and common person during an age that is now hailed as revolutionary itself. Indeed during the French Revolution classical liberals and classical socialists associated themselves on the Left, and why not? Adam Smith openly criticized the practices of big business, and preached that the market would allocate perfect liberty to a nation of producers. Not workers and capitalists, but producers. When liberalism began to defend stock companies pushing to privatize commons land for the sole purpose of introducing new labor into the market, socialists responded: wealth should be allocated to the producers of such wealth.

Different ideas developed according to this socialist principle. Proudhon and Tucker continued on Adam Smith's prestige by referring to a 'free socialist market,' which today seems contradictory due to vile propaganda, but really is quite in line with reality. Tucker saw that a fair "workers wage" would be achieved in a decentralized market that does not recognize legal fiction - people could turn up a cooperative, start their own business, or work as a private contractor.

Marx and Bakunin took a different route by focusing on participatory action in the form of workers' councils. Markets, they argued, were inefficient at producing the "perfect equality" Smith envisioned. Instead the workers would have to own the means of production in common without a market; democracy would be an extending bloodline up and down the socialist system.

The two diverging sides to socialism became critical of each other, but at no time did they call the other out as being "anti-socialist." Now, after the fall of the Soviet experiment, the socialist movement has seen remarkable unity behind the notion that the people should decide what works best for them. Me personally - I think a combination of the two approaches is best.

Too often Marx's labor theory of value is attacked as being obsolete. Ever since its foundations were first conceived by the Diggers and similar pre-modern commons groups, socialism has been hailed as dead. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this conclusion: 1.) Marx defined LTV in Das Kapital not towards concrete specifications and 2.) socialism rests on the simple truth that wealth is mostly a product of land and labor. Capital produces nothing of value. It is only a transfer of wealth.

Marx's definition of the labor theory of value derives from the belief that the amount of pleasure alloted from laboring to produce any commodity is a fair indication of that commodity's value. Neo-classical economists have a tendency to skip over the parts where Marx freely admitted market demands, personal preferences, monopolies, and other indescribable variables change the value. However, he stated that labor is generally a good indication of value. Air, for example, is one of the most important substances for earthly organisms, but nobody would find much use value in a glass of air.

Socialism envelopes all beliefs around value: labor, marginalism, or none at all. As Marx said, capital is like a vampire: it sucks the life out of land and labor. Socialists believe that those who produce the wealth should have a say in where it goes. Today we're told that is possible, that we can regulate the market with the state's grace, but representatives continue to work in the interest of big business. They pick up over $500,000 in benefits in exchange for subsidizing $150 billion tax dollars each year towards corporations, strengthening the incorporate process, using the military to tear open new markets, squatting on all real welfare with crappy bureaucracy, and producing the money they use to raise interest on us and make a fortune.

The earth is what provides us with the possibility of riches, and labor is what meets our demands; capital is merely the taking of wealth from one person to satisfy another under the guise of private property. But what is property? Proudhon proudly proclaimed "property is theft; property is freedom." What he meant is that the property our states define are based on arbitrary standards. Why, for example, can corporations be granted public protection and privileges yet still operate as private institutes?

Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.