Vanishing Marxism on LBO-talk

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  >The essence of capitalism hasn't changed since Marx's days, has it?
>  >It's the same old exploitation through the extraction of surplus
>  >value.
>
>Well, yes, up to a point, but just exactly how much analytical or 
>political use is a statement like that? Financial markets are much 
>bigger and more complex, governments are bigger, the joint-stock 
>company has largely replaced the proprietorships and partnerships of 
>the 19th century, and consumption is much more important culturally 
>and economically than it was 100+ years ago. All these changes 
>matter a lot for how the system works and how people perceive their 
>place in it. It's neither very historical nor very materialist to 
>ignore those changes in favor of a timeless eseence.
>
>Doug

The essence of capitalism is not timeless; it's historically specific 
to capitalism, not applicable to any society before the rise of 
capitalism or after the end of it.

Recognizing the essence of capitalism has one virtue among others: 
e.g., you'll see the material ground of the necessity of solidarity 
between "skilled" and "unskilled workers," both of whom suffer from 
exploitation by capital.  Other theories might (see Steve McGraw's 
opinions about "intellectuals" and longshoremen), in contrast to 
Marxism, tell you that "skilled" workers (or "professionals" or 
whatever) exploit "unskilled" ones, obscuring the fundamental 
relation between capital and labor.

Changes of the sort that you mention above fall into the purview of 
analyses of conjunctures ("thought"), rather than "theory."

Yoshie