When I bought a condensed version of Das Kapital by Karl Marx over the Internet, I fully expected the introduction to denigrate Marx's work and label it outdated and irrelevant. My anticipations were fully justified, as it did just that. However, if one actually reads Das Kapital, one can readily understand what a brilliant and logical critique Marx makes of capitalism and how very relevant it still is to today's world. The true test of a good scientific theory is if future results predicted by that theory actually come to fruition in reality. I can cite several of Marx's predictions that are accurate and validate his theory.

Marx predicted that economic depressions would continue to appear periodically in capitalist societies because workers were not paid enough to buy back all the goods and services they produce and overproduction results, precipitating layoffs of workers. This further depresses purchasing power, creating a downward spiral. The value of a product is determined by the amount of human labor necessary to create the product. Since the capitalist takes a considerable amount of that value as profit, the workers do not have the purchasing power to consume all they create.

Marx thought that mergers between large capitalist enterprises would become more frequent. He called the process centralization. Mergers lessen competition, enlarge market share, create greater efficiency and reduce labor costs. Anyone who lived in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s is cognizant of the merger mania that occurred and the large number of people who were laid off as a result. Marx is proved right once again.

During a lecture by political analyst Michael Parenti, I remember that he made the statement that Marx had noted that the one part of the national wealth of a country which would always belong to the working class was the national debt. It is true. The rich create a large portion of the national debt with their wars and government subsidies, and then, the poor through regressive taxation pay interest to the rich bondholders of that national debt. The rich make money both ways-in the creation of the debt and the interest paid on it.

Before the capitalist system came into existence, producers and consumers of products came into direct contact with one another and an exchange of more or less equal value occurred. With the arrival of capitalism and the accompanying division of labor and mass production machinery, an intermediary was then present between the producer and consumer, the capitalist. The worker no longer possessed his own labor power, but was obliged to sell that labor power as a commodity on the open market. Labor power is different from all other commodities in the fact that it has the capacity to create value and value above that of its market value to the capitalist. Karl Marx considered the value of that labor power as a commodity to be the wage necessary to sustain the worker for the next day's labor. That is, a subsistence or survival wage, which varied from country to country depending on various factors. Naturally, if say three hours labor were necessary for the worker to earn his daily subsistence, then all hours worked above that time were pure profit for the capitalist. As a consequence, hours of work became exceedingly long, but obviously, some hours of sleep were needed for the worker to recuperate. Any time that machinery lay idle was a loss of potential profit for capitalists and so different shifts were organized to take advantage of all 24 hours in the day. If the intensity of labor were increased, then the result was more profit and consequently speedups of production lines and coercive, brutal foremen were commonplace. Obviously, little attention was given to safety conditions or pollution in the factories. Child labor became prevalent because children were more adept and agile at certain tasks and their subsistence wage or that of a whole family was less. The only exceptions I would make to the survival wage were in countries like China, where labor was so superabundant that capitalists were willing to work people to death and simply replace them. Another example is King Leopold of Belgium who worked thousands of natives to death in the Belgian Congo to enrich himself.

The objective I have in relating all the information above is that these conditions of subsistence wages, child labor, long hours, brutal foremen, unsafe working conditions, etc. are precisely those presently existing for millions of people in the sweatshops run by multinational corporations in the Third World. Karl Marx is accurately describing the reasons that millions of children and adults in Asia, Africa and Latin America live in abject poverty and misery. Thus, he again illustrates his relevance to the world today.

The reason that worker's lives improved in Europe and the United States is that labor unions were organized and forced the capitalists to pay more than just a subsistence wage, required them to eliminate child labor and unsafe working conditions and reduce pollution. Capitalists did not do these things voluntarily or because capitalism created such great wealth that they decided to let a little trickle down to the workers. Anything magnanimous they do puts them at a competitive disadvantage with other capitalists. That is why capitalists now move factories from country to country constantly seeking the cheapest labor.

Marx made one prediction that I disagree with somewhat. He maintained that since millions of people were initially usurped of their wealth and lives as independent workers by the capitalists during a period of prolonged violence and other odious methods, it should be much easier now that the means of production are socialized for millions of workers to take back that wealth from the few who stole it or their descendants. I don't think he realized the power and sophistication of the modern media that would come into existence and its ability to convince workers that their interests and those of the capitalists are identical, or that they too by hard work and perseverance can become capitalists themselves and exploit the labor of others-the Horatio Alger myth.

The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley must have been thinking along the same lines as Karl Marx when he wrote these lines to inspire resistance by the working class:

"Rise like lions after slumber in unconquerable numbers

Shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you

Ye are many, they are few."

What a load. Predictions on capitalism? How come he didn't see the needless genocide of 100 Million people coming, or the ultimate bankrupting of Communist Russia by American capitalism?

Any predictions made by Marx you could have probably gotten off the psychic friends network (before they went tits up).

"Firstly, for the last 70 years socialists and communists of all shades of red - in both East and West - defended the USSR as Marxist ideal to be emulated and aspired to.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb were some of the first. Their socialist credentials are unimpeachable. It was they, who established both the British Labour Party and the Fabian Society. But it was also they, who in 1935 declared the USSR to be a socialist utopia and "future" of civilization. This was at a time when Stalin was murdering millions and had other millions starve to death in Ukraine. All of Stalin's purges and genocides were reported in the media, but the Webbs, who read the British and US papers and who visited the USSR, chose to ignore them."

http://www.libertylog.com/000608.html

One wonders what system you are comparing capitalism too?

You talk of factory pollution -- as though the USSR wasn't a far worse polluter than the US! Not only did the USSR spew a comparable amount of gasses, but they didn't PRODUCE anything for all that smog.

(The US, on the other hand, has outstanding numbers when you look at green house gasses per $ of GDP.)

You talk of poverty -- as though there were no bread lines in the USSR! As though China, Cuba and North Korea don't have poverty. Hell, that's their main export!

You say:

Karl Marx is accurately describing the reasons that millions of children and adults in Asia, Africa and Latin America live in abject poverty and misery.

No. . . the biggest cause of poverty is MARXISM. It has led to oppression and poverty everywhere it has been tried.

And spare me the "none of this is true Marxism" claptrap. If neither the USSR, China, Cuba, VietNam, North Korea nor the former Eastern Bloc aren't/weren't true communism, then true communism doesn't exist.

Communism requires that humans give up all of their freedom in exchange for a (empty) promise of subsistence. Any system which requires humans to give up all of their freedom is doomed to cause widespread misery.

you capitalist idiots seem to think that the u.s. is the only capitalist country in the world. What about all the bourgeois democracies in S. America, Africa, and Asia? Capitalism has been more disasterous in those areas than supposed Communism was in Russia or China. The u.s. is not as successful as you seem to think either. Look at the conditions of our cities. There are a lot of people living in third world conditions right here. Your ass is probably too scared to these areas and you should be, because people there hate pepole like you, for good reason. Mexico is a capitalist nation, what is your explanation for the poverty there (racist theories are scientifically invalid, just so you know). Why do you rightwing idiots even waste your time @indymedia anyway - go jack off to your redneck sisters on some porn site, assholes

Smooth move, ex-lax. This thread isn't about capitalism, it's about the inherent flawed nature of Communism and how it has failed every place it has ever existed. And yet for some strange reason idiots like you seem to cling to it. But since you brought it up, I hate to break it to you but racist theories are in fact very valid when considering the global theaters of economic conditions. Actually they are the most valid. Kick back and take a look at the world as it stands. Every place in the world dominated by white people have almost exclusively throughout history had the most resilient and thriving economies. England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, etc. hell even the Russians are recovering nicely after shedding all those Persian and Arabic sattelite nations and casting off the constraints of Communism. In contrast look at the areas of the world dominated by Hispanic, Negroid, and Oriental races. All of which are mostly strapped by overpopulation, disease, and rampant poverty. The Chinese are the only ones coming close to thriving at a decent level and that's because they're becoming more capitalistic every single day. Race certainly plays a valid role...

Can't any of you think rationally and realise that there is common ground where a bit of Capitalism and a bit of Communism can actually be balanced and used for the betterment of mankind. Sure I'd hate to be like Russia or the old USSR. However, completely free market Capitalism has flaws that can be fixed by some of Marx's theories. Anyway, the FBI and CIA are acting like Soviets anyway so how Capitalist is America really?

Blance between the wealthy and their counterparts has been shown to create prosperity for all. Capitalism suffers from corporate highway robbery in a way that can only be AKIN to the Soviet robbery of the rich when communism took over. Neither is beneficial to the greater nation. There must be a balance of greed with conscience, it's called Checks and Balances and it's written into the law of this land.

It was not Marxism per say that caused every affliction on the planet. In fact the Communist regime did very little to honor the true theories of Marx. Rather, it was direct competition with an ever threatening U.S. nuclear machine, coupled with chemical warfare against pigs in Cuba and many other horrid CIA tactics that made the Soviet block fail. It was called THE COLD WAR, duh. Of course Soviet human rights repression gave us plenty of justification for this, but when did Marx ever advocate for this type of repression, I'm open to quotes?

You say that communism doesn't work. First, communism is "from each acccording to his ability, to each according to his need" and the withering away of the state to a worker's democracy. That has never existed anywhere in the world. So how could it possibly fail? Socialist societies have existed and a few still exist, but they have always been under continual attack by embargoes, sabotage, covert attempts to overthrow them and sometimes outright invasions. Yes, some of them failed but under extreme duress applied from outside the country. Hardly a fair comparison with capitalism. Capitalist countries are rich because they have colonized the Third World and for centuries exploited its natural resources and cheap labor.

The second complaint you guys always make is that leftists have no solutions. I have a solution- democratic worker ownership of the means of production. Would workers vote to go to war for the enrichment of capitalists who no longer exist? Would they vote to send their jobs to a Third World country? Would they vote to set up sweatshops and exploit the labor of people in other nations? Would they vote to raid their own pension funds? Would they vote to pollute their own communities and the Earth? No, I suspect they would spend the profits from their factories for schools, universal health care, repairing the infrastructure, cleaning up pollution and other desperately needed things in this country.

Another criticism is that we already have a mixed economy incorporating some aspects of socialism so Marx's criticisms don't apply. Yes, it is mixed but almost totally for the benefit of capitalists. The US government gives billions of dollars in corporate subsidies, research and development, export promotions, tax breaks and other benefits to large corporations. In the last century they gave the railroads thousands of acres of land beside the tracks and also immense subsidies. It is socialism for the rich. The few aspects of socialism for the common people like public schools, Medicare, Social Security, etc., they are now trying to privatize because they want all wealth to go to the rich. Mixed economies don't disprove any of Marx's theories because Marx fully anticipated that the state would help capitalism to be maintained, since the state is controlled by capitalists.

Gary, the answer to why Communism will always fail and has always failed in the past (that communist states have never even made it to the utopia you describe is more testament to it's historical failings) is very simple.

It's right in here...""from each acccording to his ability, to each according to his need" "

This very notion is at complete odds with human nature. With the exception of a very , very, very few people worldwide (only enough of an exception to actually prove the rule) neither parts of this mantra is even remotely acceptable.

Humans define their quality of life on having what they WANT..not what they need. You and I may agree that it would be better if it were not so but it is. It is an absolute. Furthermore, the means to acheiving what a person wants is to work beyond the point of givng away his production "according to his abilities". There is simply no place in this equation for the motivation required for a society to expand and progress. Why would anyone want to work harder, risk failure and try and innovate if his quality of life doesn't change. His needs are presumably the same so what he recieves for his efforts will stay the same. Yet his abilities will increase so more will be taken from him.

It's simply folly to think that this would have even a remote chance to work in any society, of say more than a dozen people, without massive state force compelling the people to accept it.

Communism is simply flawed. It was concieved and designed without taking into account basic human nature.

The effects of capitalism have been moderated by liberal policies and environmental regulations. The 20th century in America has been the history of capitalism in crisis, and liberal policies like bank regulations, environmental regulations, and social welfare making capitalism more viable. The world is pretty gray, at least in the core nations where capitalism thrives.

The story in Russia, and most nations that went Communist was one of going from a peasant society to a modern society where people can read, and the majority do not farm, and women and children are no longer considered property.

Both systems succeeded at some of their goals, and failed at others, and then were transformed into something more hybrid. Both systems also killed millions on their way; in America, it was slaves and the American Indians first, as well as people all over the globe. In Russia it was the old monarchists and the rich, as well as others the system hated.

I understand that a lot of European nations were Socialist for a while. They had high taxes, valued individual rights over corporate rights, had labor in power, and so forth. It sounds like these were capitalist monarchists who liberalized to avoid being turned Communist.

The main difference is that America survived, and is great at "raping the earth" to use some hyperbole. Sure, we don't have smokestack industries (because they're in the third world now), but we do have a surplus of garbage and junk food.

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Also, fresca's argument of "human nature" makes no sense. Most people are pretty lazy. They aren't that motivated toward anything at all, and only wish to procreate and survive without suffering. Most people wouldn't work 40 hours a week unless they were threatened with starvation and homelessness. The people who are driven to do anything are a small minority, perhaps 20% of the population.

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The rhetorical strategy of the conservatives/capitalists is to ignore the important role of the global transnational corporations in capitalism. They create this heroic figure called the individual, and say that capitalism valorizes the individual. At the same time laws like USA PATRIOT are passed, corporations invade our privacy, and people are jailed for victimless crimes.

The focus on the individual takes attention away from the Coca Colas and Wal Marts, who are the real capitalists. They take focus away from the big banks, big military companies, the big oil, and so forth. These capitalists are out to destroy local businesses, invade privacy, and violate human rights.

The Left needs to take reclaim the ideas of the "individual" and "free enterprise". Here are some facts that make good, concrete arguments:

- Universal healthcare and welfare helps small business by making their compensation packages competitive with larger businesses.

- Local businesses generate more tax revenue than big businesses.

- War is the biggest form of big government, and the most likely to become corrupt.

- War is good for business.

- Supermarket "value club" cards invade your privacy more than your tax return.

- Businesses support the police who kill union organizers in the global south.

- The media is dominated by big business.

- Labor is the most expensive part of a product.

"Also, fresca's argument of "human nature" makes no sense. Most people are pretty lazy. They aren't that motivated toward anything at all, and only wish to procreate and survive without suffering. Most people wouldn't work 40 hours a week unless they were threatened with starvation and homelessness. The people who are driven to do anything are a small minority, perhaps 20% of the population. "

I agree in theory. But it is exactly that 20 % (or whatever it may be) that contribute all the advances and progress a society enjoys. Under a communist system this group would be completely stifled.

I'm not anti-communism for any reason other than that it's a flawed idea and unworkable. I don't think it's "evil" it's just impossible.

The elite in the USSR had it pretty good compared to the average Jane or Joe. They weren't rich or anything, but they had their car, their nice home, more money, and so forth. The main difference was that the elite were government-selected.

There's this idea that everyone in the USSR was poor, but it's not true. There were people with talent who made a little more money. After Glasnost, it's not like people are getting rich; Russia is poor. Well educated, and poor. Capitalism is failing there.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/04/reich-r-04-26.html

Reich's unstated fact is that capitalism requires a lot of regulation to function as a "free market". The freedom of a free market is like the freedom of a fish in an aquarium.

What I read into that essay is that captialism brings out the criminal in everyone.

"What I read into that essay is that captialism brings out the criminal in everyone."

Of course you did.

That's what you're programmed to think.