> CB: ...Seems to me the cream of the crop, the top , the ritz,
> the point one percent, the monopoly bourgeosie, the men separate
> themselves from the boys, the tough who get going when the goings
> tough get tough , make their Biggest Killings in the Market in crises
> and crashes and Depressions. So, Carrol is correct. The capitalist
> economy is doing what it is supposed to do for Goldman Sachs, and
> Goldman Sachs knows to put on a frowning face mask for the public.
This implies that the inherent tendency to periodic political and economic crises of the system, such as the one we are in now, is not a subject of great concern to panicky capitalists and their political representatives which they are urgently forced to address; that the divisions between liberals and conservatives, Keynesians and Austerians, about how to fix the system are not real; that all capitalists benefit uniformly from a crisis and none are brought down by it; and that, for these reasons, workers and leftists need not pay attention to these phoney intra-class quarrels which do not affect them.
^^^^^ CB: This is a critical point. Marv. What I say implies or I explicitly state the exact opposite of "all capitalists benefit uniformly from a crisis and none are brought down by it" . This is my main point: Monopoly is created by "one capitalist always kills many" , as Marx puts it in his penultimate chapter of _Capital_ on the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation. That tendency is to _monopoly_ or concentration of wealth in the few at the expense of the many capitalists.
Here it is in a nutshell; Marx literally says "One capitalist always kills many". This is done in a big way in crashes, Depressions. On the contrary, I am very specifically saying that capitalists do _not_uniformly benefit from crises and that "many"_are_ brought down by crises. The expropriation Marx refers to at this point in the text is capitalists expropriating other capitalists. That's why they are termed "expropriators" when he says concerning the socialist revolution stage that "the expropriators ( of other capitalists) are (themselves) expropriated. " This is a central insight of Marx concerning the historical tendency of the capitalist mode of accumulation: it tends to monopoly/centralization of capital and wealth. Lenin's thesis in _Imperialism_ is actually an empirical demonstration of the fulfillment of Marx's prediction in this chapter of _Capital_. Because there are fewer of them it is easier for the working class to expropriate them. As Lenin says in _Imperialism_, monopoly capital, like Goldman Sachs, is a precursor to socialism by monopolizing and centralizing capital and means of production:
Marx: "As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the labourers are turned into proletarians, their means of labour into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labour and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. _That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the labourer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many labourers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few_ (emphasis added -CB) develop, on an ever-extending scale, the cooperative form of the labour process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labour into instruments of labour only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labour, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. "
^^^^^ CB: Monopolization/concentration of wealth makes it easier for the working class to expropriate the expropriators:
Marx: "The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized property. In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people. [2]"
Marv: and that, for these reasons, workers and leftists need not pay attention to these phoney intra-class quarrels which do not affect them.
^^^^ CB: On the contrary, following Lenin, Communists and class conscious workers should pay attention to the intra-ruling class struggles to exploit them as divisions in the ruling class; and help in the strategy of expropriating the expropriators through divide and conquer.
^^^^
I know Carrol believes all of the above. Hard to believe Charles does also
^^^ CB: On the above point of monopolization, Marx believed it , too.