Isn't it Corporatism we reject?

[SHRED]

I think the words capitalism and corporatism get mixed up and interchanged way too much.


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[ixion]

1. I agree. There is a difference...

although I know that some people like to use them interchangeably, they're separate paradigms.

[PragmaticLiberal]

2. Totally agree.

[banned from Kos]

3. Well don't stop there - explain it

Capitalism = private ownership of the means of production (Good)

Corporatism = the use of government power to enhance corporate profit at the expense of workers and democracy (very bad)

[walerosco]

31. But one enables the other

right?

[elleng]

4. Yes

[Gregorian]

5. Here's FDR's statements on it, from the corportism wiki page

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.<53><54><55>

From the same message:

The Growing Concentration of Economic Power. Statistics of the Bureau of Internal Revenue reveal the following amazing figures for 1935: "Ownership of corporate assets: Of all corporations reporting from every part of the Nation, one-tenth of 1 percent of them owned 52 percent of the assets of all of them.

[Gregorian]

12. It's worth reading Eisenhower's words on this

Critics of the notion of the congruence of corporate power and de facto fascism included President Dwight D. Eisenhower,<56> who nevertheless brought attention to the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry"<57> in his 1961 Farewell Address to the Nation, and stressed "the need to maintain balance in and among national programs— balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage."<57>



In the US, corporatism usually refers to the domination of the state by the economy, and the word is derived from "corporations", that is, a reference to big business which has enough power and money to challenge the state's political power. Therefore, what is understood by corporatism in the US and in Europe are in theory diametrically opposed notions.

[cascadiance]

6. Yep, Medicare Part D is an example of corporatism and NOT capitalism!

Where cronies pay to SUBVERT the principles of capitalism to corrupt the system to favor the pharma companies. Those adhering to the principles of real capitalism wouldn't allow this sort of subversion.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Agreed. nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. There is no difference

Capitalism tends toward corporatism necessarily. Every temporary fix to slow that tendency has proved an abject failure.

There is one enemy and one enemy only: it is capitalism.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. was wondering when somebody would make this obvious point.

capitalism survives by destroying/co-opting/absorbing competition

corporatism can be seen, I suppose, as either a means of evolving a stronger form of capitalism, or a stage through which capitalism morphs, as it combines with bought and sold government into, what...fascism?

pretty obvious endpoint there.

lookit China....they're way ahead of us

imagine what would happened if they tried an OWShanghai

wait a minute--they tried something like that over 20 years ago. na ga happen there again in the forseeable future

[SHRED]

15. What is it called when...

...a craftsperson or organic farmer sells their goods at a Saturday market?


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[alcibiades_mystery]

17. It is the great illusion of the capitalist class

to pretend that all forms of selling constitute capitalism. This is clearly false from even a cursory examination of history. Clearly, buying and selling occurred before the emergence of full-scale capitalist social organization. The distinction between buying and selling in, say, the feudalist market form of medieval Europe and the capitalist social form proper lies in the character of accumulation that functions in each (Marx, of course, provided the famous formula of C-M-C for the feudal and other pre-capitalist forms, and M-C-M' for the capitalist form; the feudalist market and its function in the emergence of capitalism has been examined in depth by historians such Maurice Dobb, Paul Sweezy, and etc., and etc.). The problem is that capitalism operates according to the principle of unlimited accumulation - accumulation for its own sake, which it accomplishes through the extraction of surplus value. The craftsperson selling his goods at market in medieval Europe certainly derived "profit" from surplus value (through guild restrictions and similar tactics), but accumulation was checked through multiple social devices, and it was not the premise of the selling operation (the market in medieval Europe and other pre-capitalist social formations was of the commodity-money-commodity, or C-M-C form rather than the money-commodity-money prime, or M-C-M' form, as multiple historical examinations demonstrates).

Of course, once capitalism proper emerges, it reinterprets all of history according to its own way of operating. For the capitalists, even the Yanamamo are capitalists, or proto-capitalists, since they engage in minor bartering with other tribes and develop symbolic currencies. This is, of course, nonsense, but it relies on the basic misunderstanding of the capitalist social formation: it pretends that capitalism is the only mode of buying and selling in order to hide capitalism's true essential characteristic: accumulation for the sake of accumulation.

[white_wolf]

9. Corporatism is capitalism. Or rather a form of capitalism. The most prevalent one currently.

You cannot fully reject corporatism without rejecting capitalism. You can try and regulate capitalism, but over time the reforms will be undone and you will have corporatism again.

[drokhole]

11. Bingo.

"We are not bringing about a vital change, uprooting the old ways of thought, freeing the mind from traditions and habits.
...
We want to do patchwork reform, which only leads to problems of still further reform. We do not want to strip away all our false values and begin anew. But the building is crumbling, the walls are giving away, and fire is destroying it. We must leave the building and start on new ground, with different foundations, different values." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Corporatism is a symptom, Capitalism is the disease. Capitalism also presupposes, and depends on, unlimited/unfettered growth which - given our planet's finite (and ever dwindling) resources - is an impossibility.

[WonderGrunion]

18. And cannibalism is a form of culinary diversity

But I fully reject cannibalism despite my adventurous palate.

[white_wolf]

22. One flaw in your analogy.

Culinary diversity doesn't naturally turn into cannibalism over time, but capitalism does tend to corporatism over time.

[WonderGrunion]

33. The makers of Soylent Green disagree with you

n/m

[LWolf]

10. There's a difference.

Some don't understand that difference. Some don't understand capitalism very well at all.

Some reject just corporatism, some reject corporatism and the twisted form of capitalism we currently struggle with, and some reject both capitalism and corporatism as a whole.

While there is no one unified mindset about capitalism, I think we're seeing many diverse minds come together to reject corporatism.

[JVS]

13. You know how monkeys always grow up and eventually try to rip your face off?

It's like that.

[TBF]

16. I reject both. nt

[Lorien]

19. Corporate fascism, to be more precise. We reject the corporate takeover of our

government. We reject the notion that money equals free speech. We reject the idea that corporate lobbyists should be writing our National and State policies. Fascism happens when an unelected third party controls the government, and that's exactly the situation now. We choose Democracy instead.

[moondust]

20. Small business capitalism isn't necessarily bad.

I think the main problem is allowing businesses to grow too large and then exert too much influence on the marketplace and on the political process. And Wall Street, of course, is the diseased beating heart of big business, pumping out the incentives that keep big business doing what it does.

Is there a problem with Mel's Diner or Judy's Boutique or the Cheers bar? Small businesses add character and keep life interesting, as opposed to the drab sameness of every Wal-Mart, Target, and Denny's wherever you go.

Etc.

[white_wolf]

23. My problem with small companies is they still exploit workers.

Not to the degree that large companies do, of course, but the exploitation does happen. That is the problem with capitalism. It is an exploitative system.

[moondust]

24. That could probably be fixed.

With an egalitarian approach that basically holds that "ownership" isn't everything, that an "owner" is a member of the team and not entitled to almost all the proceeds that come from everybody doing their jobs. Employee ownership with participative management would be even less exploitative. Coops. Mondragon sounds interesting.

When was the last time you heard the term "participative management?" I recall that getting some attention here in the 80s or 90s but I haven't heard much at all since, certainly not in the Republican "ownership society" in which ownership is everything and the owners "deserve" all the proceeds from everybody else's hard work! I'd call it parasitism. I think participative management is roughly the MO in Germany that was set up after the war and apparently continues.

[white_wolf]

26. Co-ops are by far the best business model we have.

Since everyone is an owner, everyone works and gets a fair share of the fruits of the their work. The socialist theory of Mutualism is built around the idea of worker controlled co-ops existing in a market based system. Proudhorn felt it could provide the benefits of a market while removing the flaws in the market system.

[moondust]

28. The fix for exploitation:

Index the top pay in the business to the bottom pay using a reasonable multiplier (300-500 is preposterous; more like 20), perhaps even subject to employee approval.

[frankcjames]

21. Absolutely. I have nothing against well regulated capitalism

[Poll_Blind]

25. Good point- I'm guilty of this sloppy conflation on occasion and I don't intend it.

:thumbsup:

PB

[Starry Messenger]

27. No.

Monopoly capitalism (which I'm guessing is what folks mean by "corporatism") is the inevitable stage of capitalism. You cannot maximize profits with competition, and despite the propaganda, competition in a capitalist market is there to be crushed and amalgamated, not used for improvement. Anyone who is a worker should know this deep in their guts. Our wages are considered a threat to profits: what has been our treatment for all of these centuries? C'mon kids, get a clue.

Edit: small (individual) business owners are not capitalists-there have always been trade and small markets. Capitalism is about shareholder profits and privatization of the commons.

[white_wolf]

30. Honestly small business owners remind me of sellers in a village market setting than capitalists.

I know it's a poor analogy since those days are gone, but small town business owners do seem to have more in common with say a local village blacksmith than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.

[Starry Messenger]

32. Exactly my friend.

It is the capitalist who conceals his exploitation of the workers by conflating his operations with the small businessman. The Bill Gates' of the world spread their illusion that they are just like any other guy with a storefront.

[Mr Deltoid]

29. We reject the fascism