>There're certainly not as many individual capitalists as there used
>to be (along the lines of J P Morgan et al., right?), and more
>people can and do get a share of the capitalist "pie" by owning
>shares in companies (is this what you mean by "socialization"?).
>But wouldn't the vast majority of those share-holders get very
>little out of their stocks, assuming they keep them for dividends?
>Wouldn't they have to work "9-5" to make ends meet on a regular
>basis, reinvesting their dividend money in a company or just
>treating it as some "extra income" for spending? And the vast
>majority of stocks are still held by a tiny minority of people,
>right (presumably also getting the lion's share of the money back
>from purchasing the stocks, through dividends, sale of stock, change
>in value, etc.)?
>
>(Forgive my ignorance about something this basic, but the few people
>I know who have stock don't really worry about it all that much (at
>least, not in front of me), and I don't know how much stock one
>needs to buy to be able to live independently. Nor do I know how
>much money one gets from stocks as dividends or whatever.)
>
>So a capitalist today could be like Morgan, but, due to
>socialization of stock ownership, a "capitalist" could also,
>theoretically, (and most likely is) be some John/Jane Average who
>still has to work for a living while owning and receiving income
>from stock ownership. And this fact has to be accounted for. Is
>that what you're saying?
>
>If that is the case, then I'm still puzzled why this matters all that much.
It matters because it's not that easy to specify how corporations are run - for whom, by whom, under what principles. We've been through 20 years in which the stock market was the guiding star - linking pay to stock performance was supposed to align the interests of CEOs and shareholders, and free & easy M&A was supposed to impose good discipline. It's come into a crisis of phony accounting and generalized bubble thinking. If you want to socialize corporations, how do you do it? Who are the owners, and how are the things run?
Of course workers own stock; for that they may get some dividends and capital gains, though dividends are low and capital gains mainly a memory. Seriously rich people tend to move assets into municipal bonds and other fixed-income investments; they own claims to revenue, not surplus value. Does that make them capitalists? Or have they just found a way to tap into the surplus value on the basis of inherited congealed SV? They don't actively contribute to the capital-labor relation with their investments in New York State bonds. Jackie O had no influence over corporate or state policy; she acquired some books and went to parties and watched herself on TV. (Gore Vidal said she spent her final days following the coverage of her final days.) Is Henry Kissinger a capitalist? He owns a consulting firm, for sure, but that's not the source of his power. He has some investments, but probably less than many of his neighbors. He seems to have gotten promoted from intellctual and functionary to a member of the inner circle. He has an influence over state and corporate policies.
Maybe I'm just obsessing over terms, objecting to mixing up capitalists and members of a ruling class and the merely rich. But how is capitalist power exercised? Jackie O had nothing to do with determining the conditions of social labor or the deployment of US imperial power abroad. Senior executives, financiers, and helpful intellectuals do.
Doug