Wednesday 10 June 2020

What The Friends of the People Are, Part I - Part 27 of 31

As Marx points out, in fact, capitalism, itself, does much of the heavy lifting, in bringing about the revolution in the mode of production. As he sets out in Capital III, Chapter 27, it is the laws of capital itself, which, by concentration and centralisation, brings about the expropriation of the expropriators, and the elimination of capitalist private property. 

“The capital, which in itself rests on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and labour-power, is here directly endowed with the form of social capital (capital of directly associated individuals) as distinct from private capital, and its undertakings assume the form of social undertakings as distinct from private undertakings. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of capitalist production itself... 

This result of the ultimate development of capitalist production is a necessary transitional phase towards the reconversion of capital into the property of producers, although no longer as the private property of the individual producers, but rather as the property of associated producers, as outright social property. On the other hand, the stock company is a transition toward the conversion of all functions in the reproduction process which still remain linked with capitalist property, into mere functions of associated producers, into social functions... 

This is the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-dissolving contradiction, which prima facie represents a mere phase of transition to a new form of production.” 

And, the only rational form of control over this socialised capital is that exercised by the “associated producers” within each company, i.e. its workers and managers “to every individual actually at work in production, from manager down to the last day-labourer”. (ibid) That takes its most obvious form in the worker owned cooperative. In the other forms of socialised capital, such as the corporation or state owned enterprise, it sets up a new dichotomy between the socialised capital itself and the money-lending capital that provides it with finance. It sets up a conflict between these two antagonistic forms of property, and the classes that rest upon them, the associated producers on the one hand, as the owners of socialised capital, and the owners of money-lending capital on the other, who congeal as the owners of fictitious capital, in the form of shares, state bonds and so on. 

In the same way that, as soon as capitalist farmers appear on the scene, the social function of the landlord ends, with the development of socialised capital, the social function of the private capitalist comes to an end. Both groups represent a parasitic excrescence on society. Yet, the landlords continued to exercise political influence throughout the 19th century, in parliament, and in the same way, the private capitalists, now, as owners of fictitious capital, continue to exercise political influence. They have used it to ensure that they continue to exercise control over capital they do not own, and thereby deprive the associated producers, as the actual owners of that capital, of their rightful control. 

Describing such a situation in which the owners of this fictitious capital are reduced to being “coupon clippers”, Engels, in Anti-Duhring, wrote, 

“Many of these means of production and of communication are, from the outset, so colossal that, like the railways, they exclude all other forms of capitalistic exploitation. At a certain stage of development this form, too, no longer suffices: [the large-scale producers in one and the same branch of industry in a country unite in a “trust”, an association for the purpose of regulating production.” 

(Engels, Anti-Duhring, p 358) 

“In the trusts, free competition changes into monopoly and the planless production of capitalist society capitulates before the planned production of the invading socialist society. Of course, this is initially still to the benefit of the capitalists.” 

(ibid, p 358) 

“But, the exploitation becomes so palpable here that it must break down. No nation would put up with production directed by trusts, with such a barefaced exploitation of the community by a small band of coupon clippers.” 

(ibid, p 358) 

“All the social functions of the capitalist are now performed by salaried employees. The capitalist no longer has any social activity save the pocketing of revenues, the clipping of coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists fleece each other of their capital. Just as at first the capitalist mode of production displaced the workers, so now it is displacing the capitalists, relegating them, just as it did the workers, to the superfluous population, although not immediately to the industrial reserve army.” 

(ibid, p 359-60) 

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