>>> Jim heartfield <jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> 03/12/00 08:10AM >>>
The approach of the monopoly capital theorists was always suspect.
**********
CB: Especially to the monopoly capitalists and their little helpers on the "left".
***********
It involved isolating reactionary capital (auto industry, finance etc) from "progressive" capital, small employers, farmers - all that populist stuff.
************
CB: As if most petit bourgeoisie start a business and live happily ever after , like the Horatio Alger story writ large in America and in all capitalist countries.. Jim has so many arguments for the success of capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit. Why small business people are just as successful and powerful as big businesses What a wonderful , democratic system we live in. Those cartoons about big fish swallowing little fish and even bigger fish swallowing the big fish are Bolshevik Bullshit. Wallstreet financier mom and pop storeowner, one and the same in Jim's world.
What is it , 7. 4 out 10 small businesses fail. But Chrysler was bailed out like nobody's small business.
***************
The auto industry is no more or less evil than any other part of capital. It is the social relation that is reactionary, not a specific element of the production process.
***********
CB: Evil is not the idea here. Being at the top of the food chain, like humans, is not evil. It is a scientifically observed configuration of the ecological system. Similarly, It is a cold blooded look from the dismal scientists that says that the auto industry was and is (?) the leading industry in American capitalism from say mid 20th Century. It is like the cotton manufacturing industry led the Industrial Revolution in England. Many economists see a sort of qualitiative role for auto. For one thing, it has many other industries feeding into it. Then GM is always touted as the largest industrial corp in the world and Ford is third. Oil is big, but it is not strategically placed like auto. In fact, we can see how auto is strategically placed such that oil is dependent upon it. If people didn't buy cars , they wouldn't need nearly as much oil.
Then the internal combustion engine, trucks , etc. are a big element in the explosion in transportation in the means of production.
As Edward Boorstein phrased it, "The auto industry is, by many standards, our most important industry...Anything significant that happens in the auto industry is bound to affect the whole economy."
What percent of GDP does auto account for ? ( 8 ½ % in 1980) How many people does it directly and indirectly employ ? (about 3 million plus in 1980) Consumer of 21 % of steel output, 60% of synthetic rubber, 11% of primary aluminum, 30% of ferrous castings, 25% of the glass, 205 of machine tools (!)
I wonder if some other industry has surpassed these now.
CB
In message <s8c7aea0.026 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>
>>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> 03/07/00 05:07PM >>>
>Baran & Sweezy correctly identified auto industry as the
>heart of monopoly capitalism.
>
>**********
>CB: Yes, the Economics Commission of the Communist Party did too. Sort of the
>top of the economic food chain in the U.S. Is this still true ?
>
-- Jim heartfield