/lit/ - Literature

>>19638090
I think it's often better to ask the right questions than to propose the "right solutions." You're not a Marxist, but one insight from Marxists is that economic substructure determines political superstructure which in return reinforces the former. Marxism also argues the relationship of production should correspond to social productivity. What they mean is that when social productivity is strong enough, socialism will come out to replace capitalism as the latter can no longer escape from its cycle of crises.

I even agree with Milton Friedman's strict technical analysis (although I'm not a fan of his economic policies) in that businesses are built to deliver a profit to their owners such as shareholders. The question everyone should then ask themselves is whether they think Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and other CEOs -- for all their organizing talents which I won't deny -- should have more power over their societies than political leaders. The reason I think that's a bad setup is that CEOs and shareholders are focused on the practical, short-term interests of their companies and not the society as a whole. It can't be any other way if you believe in Milton Friedman.

But I don't believe that can solve the mounting problems facing the society as a whole. I think you'll get a society -- we have a society -- based more and more on rentier-like speculation than actual production, as investing in real production ceases to be profitable (hint: given the falling rate of profit in the system as a whole). The result is what we see: a stagnant economy with widening inequality along with growing instability that (paradoxically) threatens the capitalist class' long-term rule. But again, they're more interested in feuding among each other or protecting their own narrow interests in various sectors of the economy from their competitors. Markets aren't really the problem. The problem is that capital holds the power, in my view.

>>19636933
I think the capitalists simply won. In fact, the capitalists are quite disorganized today because they don't need to be organized on a class-wide basis, because the working class was shattered and doesn't pose a threat to them. Money rules politics, and "politics" as such is like different groups of capitalists feuding with each other over which respective sectors of the economy should be favored (like globally integrated services vs. resource extraction and small manufacturers). Parties barely exist anymore, they're basically shells, or conduits for money to flow from donors to candidates (who are ultimately in the pockets of special interests) who cater to the fears, prejudices and self-regard of their constituents ("identity politics" of left and right). What distinguishes politicians is not really the policies but *how* they mobilize their voters, in the main.