Who is a capitalist nowadays? (was Re: Negri on globo

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Jan 10 04:38:51 PST 2002



>John K. Taber wrote:
>
>>Based on purely personal, and therefore subjective experience, I
>>think the guy who owns a plastic plant in Tennessee, or something
>>similar in Houston, is more of a capitalist than the CEO of IBM.
>
>But the capital stock of the U.S. is mostly owned by the likes of
>IBM, and not small plastics plants in Tennessee. Does that means
>that the means of production aren't really under capitalist control?
>
>Doug

***** ...[T]he transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts and state property show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose [= for managing modern productive forces]. All the social functions of the capitalist are now performed by salaried employees. The capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange....

(Engels, _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_) *****

***** The greater part of modern property has been attenuated to a pecuniary lien or bond on the product of industry, which carries with it a right to payment, but which is normally valued precisely because it relieves the owner from any obligation to perform a positive or constructive function....

Hence the real analogy to many kinds of modern property is not the simple property of the small landowner or craftsman, still less the household goods and dear domestic amenities, which is what the word suggests to the guileless minds of clerks and shopkeepers, and which stampedes them into displaying the ferocity of terrified sheep when the cry is raised that 'Property' is threatened. It is the feudal dues which robbed the French peasant of part of his produce till the Revolution abolished them.

(R.H. Tawney, _The Acquisitive Society_) ***** -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list