By Bertell Ollman | [print_link]
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One of Marx’s greatest achievements in Capital was to show that capitalists, understood as the owners of the means of production, do not make a necessary “material” contribution to the production of wealth, and, therefore, that production can go on without them. We do not need them, so there is no good reason that they should take—and that we should allow them to take—any of the wealth, power and status that goes with owning capital. Marx arrives at this conclusion through a detailed analysis of what goes on in the production process in capitalist society. Alperovitz makes the very same point that Marx does, but whereas Marx arrives at it theoretically, Alperovitz arrives at it empirically by marshaling a warehouse full of instances in the U.S. where production (and distribution and exchange) goes on without capitalists.
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So what can we learn about the real possibilities of socialism from the large quantity and great variety of seeds of socialism that have emerged in our developed capitalist society?
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1. I have already mentioned what is probably the greatest lesson, conveyed by all the case studies, which is that production can go on without capitalists, without people making all the decisions that owners do thinking only of the bottom line. This truth cannot be repeated often enough, and its implications for the future are enormous.
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4. That same power also reduces the competition borne from insecurity between the workers inside an enterprise while simultaneously expanding their cooperation with each other.
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5. It also develops their self-confidence and sense of self-worth along with some of the human qualities that underpin these changes in attitude.
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6. By giving a higher priority to issues of health and safety and to job security generally, workers owned enterprises also reduce the degree of worry and anxiety for both workers and their families that ordinarily accompany most of the jobs in our society.
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8. By becoming co-owners of their enterprises, no matter how passive, workers are also brought to think about a variety of new questions. Planning and what goes into making a good plan, for example, is put on the table, at least as regards their own enterprise, even where the relations between enterprises are left to the laws of the market. And whenever economic planning succeeds on the micro level, it is impossible not to suspect that it may also work for the larger society.
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9. The move to any form of public ownership also represents a significant increase in the freedom, equality and democracy of all the people affected, in how they experience these conditions and come to understand them, particularly in their interdependence as necessary preconditions and results of one another. It usually leads most people in this situation to want more freedom, equality and democracy in the other areas of their life as well.
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). Here, it is enough to point out that as far as enterprises are concerned, markets are not simply about buying and selling but about the profit maximizing imperative that arises from the very nature of the competitive struggle, an imperative that exercises a decisive influence on what one must do if one wants to succeed or, sometimes, even survive.
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In summary, here are my answers to the five key questions posed by America Beyond Capitalism:
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- 1) Does it offer a vision of the future that is better than the society in which we live? Yes.
- 2) Can we expect any help from the capitalists and their state in moving toward such a future? No.
- 3) Is such a future, therefore, possible? Probably Not.
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Copyright © Bertell Ollman 2004-2010. All rights reserved.