Monthly Archives: April 2022

Political ideology and movement opposed to capitalism

Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, usually some form of socialism or communism. Another manifestation of anti-capitalism is barter.

Socialism advocates public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals, with an egalitarian method of compensation.[1][2]

Socialists argue that the accumulation of capital generates waste through externalities that require costly corrective regulatory measures. They also point out that this process generates wasteful industries and practices that exist only to generate sufficient demand for products to be sold at a profit (such as high-pressure advertisement); thereby creating rather than satisfying economic demand.[4][5]

Socialists argue that capitalism consists of irrational activity, such as the purchasing of commodities only to sell at a later time when their price appreciates, rather than for consumption, even if the commodity cannot be sold at a profit to individuals in need; they argue that making money, or accumulation of capital, does not correspond to the satisfaction of demand.[4]

Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to inaccessible economic decisions that result in immoral production, unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis of overproduction. According to socialists, private property in the means of production becomes obsolete when it concentrates into centralized, socialized institutions based on private appropriation of revenue (but based on cooperative work and internal planning in allocation of inputs) until the role of the capitalist becomes redundant.[6] With no need for capital accumulation and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is perceived as being an outdated form of economic organization that should be replaced by a free association of individuals based on public or common ownership of these socialized assets.[7] Socialists view private property relations as limiting the potential of productive forces in the economy.[8]

Early socialists (Utopian socialists and Ricardian socialists) criticized capitalism for concentrating power and wealth within a small segment of society,[9] and for not utilising available technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public.[8]

For the influential German individualist anarchist philosopher Max Stirner, "private property is a spook" which "lives by the grace of law" and it "becomes 'mine' only by effect of the law". In other words, private property exists purely "through the protection of the State, through the State's grace." Recognising its need for state protection, Stirner argued that "[i]t need not make any difference to the 'good citizens' who protects them and their principles, whether an absolute King or a constitutional one, a republic, if only they are protected. And what is their principle, whose protector they always 'love'? Not that of labour", rather it is "interest-bearing possession ... labouring capital, therefore ... labour certainly, yet little or none at all of one's own, but labour of capital and of thesubject labourers."[11] French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon opposed government privilege that protects capitalist, banking and land interests, and the accumulation or acquisition of property (and any form of coercion that led to it) which he believed hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. The Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Gimnez Igualada saw:[12]

capitalism [as] an effect of government; the disappearance of government means capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously...That which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing that is being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist. The fight, but of consciousness, is against the State.

Within anarchism there emerged a critique of wage slavery, which refers to a situation perceived as quasi-voluntary slavery,[13] where a person's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[14][15] It is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. The term wage slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops),[16] and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy.[17][18][19] Libertarian socialists believe if freedom is valued, then society must work towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. Libertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with direct democracy, voluntary federation, and popular autonomy in all aspects of life,[20] including physical communities and economic enterprises. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use,[21][22] Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines, while later American anarchist Emma Goldman famously denounced wage slavery by saying: "The only difference is that you are hired slaves instead of block slaves."[10] Goldman believed that the economic system of capitalism was incompatible with human liberty. "The only demand that property recognizes," she wrote in Anarchism and Other Essays, "is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade."[23] She also argued that capitalism dehumanized workers, "turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron."[23]

Noam Chomsky contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace.[24] Many libertarian socialists argue that large-scale voluntary associations should manage industrial manufacture, while workers retain rights to the individual products of their labor.[25] As such, they see a distinction between the concepts of "private property" and "personal possession". Whereas "private property" grants an individual exclusive control over a thing whether it is in use or not, and regardless of its productive capacity, "possession" grants no rights to things that are not in use.[26]

In addition to individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker's "big four" monopolies (land, money, tariffs, and patents), Kevin Carson argues that the state has also transferred wealth to the wealthy by subsidizing organizational centralization, in the form of transportation and communication subsidies. He believes that Tucker overlooked this issue due to Tucker's focus on individual market transactions, whereas Carson also focuses on organizational issues. Carson holds that "capitalism, arising as a new class society directly from the old class society of the Middle Ages, was founded on an act of robbery as massive as the earlier feudal conquest of the land. It has been sustained to the present by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege without which its survival is unimaginable."[27] Carson coined the pejorative term "vulgar libertarianism", a phrase that describes the use of a free market rhetoric in defense of corporate capitalism and economic inequality. According to Carson, the term is derived from the phrase "vulgar political economy", which Karl Marx described as an economic order that "deliberately becomes increasingly apologetic and makes strenuous attempts to talk out of existence the ideas which contain the contradictions [existing in economic life]."[28]

Karl Marx saw capitalism as a historical stage, once progressive but which would eventually stagnate due to internal contradictions and would eventually be followed by socialism. Marx claimed that capitalism was nothing more than a necessary stepping stone for the progression of man, which would then face a political revolution before embracing the classless society.[29] Marxists defines capital as "a social, economic relation" between people (rather than between people and things). In this sense they seek to abolish capital. They believe that private ownership of the means of production enriches capitalists (owners of capital) at the expense of workers ("the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer"). In brief, they argue that the owners of the means of production do not work and therefore exploit the workforce. In Karl Marx's view, the capitalists would eventually accumulate more and more capital, impoverishing the working class, and creating the social conditions for a revolution that would overthrow the institutions of capitalism. Private ownership over the means of production and distribution is seen as a dependency of non-owning classes on the ruling class, and ultimately a source of restriction of human freedom.

Originally posted here:

Anti-capitalism - Wikipedia

The conversation about reparations for slavery entered a new stage earlier in 2021, with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee voting for the creation of a commission to address the matter.

The bill, H.R. 40, has been introduced every Congress since 1989 by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and John Conyers, until his death in 2019. But this year marks the first time that its request to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans has cleared the committee stage.

Calls to redress the lasting impact of slavery and racial discrimination have been amplified recently following further evidence of the impact of systemic racism both through the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the Black community and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of U.S. police.

To many, the question going forward is not so much whether or not reparations are in order, but what kinds of reparations might be appropriate.

Most of the conversation to date has focused on reparations in terms of payouts of some form. Prominent author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a powerful argument for reparations, said payments must be made by white America to Black America much as Germany started paying Israel in 1952 to compensate for the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.

As a scholar who has written on economic justice and the labor movement, I agree that reparations must have economic substance, because the impact of racism is inherently linked with power and money. But my research suggests another model for reparations: If one of the most significant aspects of slavery even if not the only one was a massive disruption of labor relations, then a crucial part in the reparations discussion could involve reshaping the labor relationship between employers and employees today.

I believe such a reshaping of the labor relationship would substantially benefit the descendants of enslaved people in the United States. Labor, as my research has argued, has implications for all aspects of life and labor reform would, I believe, address many of the problems of structural racism as well. In addition, reshaping the labor relationship would also have positive effects for all working people, including those who still experience enslavement today.

Labor relations can be considered distorted when one party profits disproportionally at the expense of another. In other words, it is a departure from a fair days pay for a fair dayss work a concept that forms a bedrock demand of the labor movement, alongside good working conditions.

This is not just a matter of money but also of power. Under the conditions of slavery, the distortion of labor relations was nearly complete. Slave owners pocketed the profits and claimed absolute power, while slaves had to obey and risk life and limb for no compensation.

Black Americans continue to be disadvantaged in the labor market today. As CEO compensation soars, the number of Black CEOs remains remarkably low there were just four Black CEOs at Fortune 500 companies as of March 2021. In general, the wage gap between Black and white employees has grown in recent years. Fueling these disparities, as well as building on them, is the structural racism that reparations could be designed to address.

Unionization can be a tool to rebalance labor relations and can diminish this racial gap, studies have shown. But union membership in general and among Black workers in particular has declined in recent decades. And a weaker labor movement is associated, studies show, with greater racial wage disparity.

Another tool to rebalance labor relations is worker-owned cooperatives, which have a long tradition in African American communities as economist Jessica Gordon Nembhard has noted. From early on, she points out, African Americans realized that without economic justice without economic equality, independence and stability social and political rights were hollow, or actually not achievable. Gordon Nembhards work also shows that such cooperatives were often fought and ultimately destroyed because they were so successful in empowering African American communities.

Some in the labor movement are beginning to link reparations with union rights. Labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan has suggested that the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill before Congress that would strengthen workers rights and weaken anti-union right-to-work laws, should be viewed as a practical form of Black reparations. He argued in an article for The New Republic that wealth redistribution through union membership is more permanent and lasting than a check written out as Black reparations, however much deserved, and far more likely to get a return over time.

While there is considerable disagreement about the profits employers should be able to make from the labor of their employees, there is little disagreement about the wrongness of practices like outright wage theft which today takes the form of employers not paying part or all promised wages or paying less than mandated minimum wage. Even those who rarely worry about employers making too much profit would for the most part likely agree that wage theft is wrong. Agreement on this matter takes us back to slavery, which might be considered the ultimate wage theft.

Addressing the ongoing legacy of slavery and systemic racism requires not only economic solutions but also improving labor relations and protecting workers against wage discrimination, disempowerment at work, and violations such as wage theft that disproportionately affect workers of color.

Reparations that fail to pay attention to improving labor relations may not achieve economic equality. The reparations paid to Israel by Germany, for instance, have not helped to achieve economic equality the Israeli economy is still, alongside the U.S.s, among the most unequal in the developed world, with the richest 10% of each countrys population earning more than 15 times that of the poorest.

Simple monetary payouts are not, I believe, sufficient to solve the problem of racial inequality. Wage theft can again serve as the example here. While repaying stolen wages as New York state did in 2018 by returning $35 million to workers is commendable, repaying stolen wages does not in itself change the skewed relationships between employer and employee that enable wage theft in the first place. Greater empowerment of working people is needed to do that.

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So while redistributing money can be part of the solution, it may not go far enough.

Tying reparations to the improvement of labor relations which can happen through the empowerment of working people or the promotion of worker-owned cooperatives would not only help those most affected by wealth and employment gaps, Black Americans, it would also benefit others who have traditionally been discriminated against in employment, such as women, immigrants and many other working people.

Improving labor relations would address systemic racial discrimination where it is often most destructive and painful: at work, where people spend the bulk of their waking hours, and where the economic well-being of families and by extension entire communities can be decided.

Excerpt from:

Slavery was the ultimate labor distortion empowering ...

Domestic worker cleaning spongeI worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, without any rest. I worked like a slave and was treated like one.

They beat me regularly. The son of Madame tried to rape me several times. They always kept me locked inside the flat on the 13th floor.I couldnt go out for three years!

Fasika, Ethiopian former domestic worker in Lebanon.Read herfull story.

Domestic workis a sector which is particularly vulnerable to exploitation and domestic slavery because of the unique circumstances of working inside a private household combined with a lack of legal protection.

Domestic workers perform a range of tasks in private homes including: cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking care of children and the elderly and running errands. Some domestic workers also live in their employers homes and are often considered on call to undertake work for their employer 24 hoursa day.

The pay is often very low, with wage payments frequently delayed. Some domestic workers may not be paid at all or only receive payment in kind such as food or accommodation.

For some domestic workers, the circumstances and conditions of their work amount toslavery. This happens when employers stop domestic workers from leaving the house, dont pay wages, use violence or threats, withhold their identity documents, limit their contact with family and force them to work.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 67 million men and women work asdomestic workersacross the world, not including children.

Women and girls make up the overwhelming majority of domestic workers, around 80%. ILO estimates that more girls under the age of 16 work in domestic service than in any other category ofchild labour.

Somedomestic workersare migrant workers from other countries or regions, mainly from rural areas to the city. For many, domestic work is one of the very few options available to enable them to provide for themselves and their families.

Domestic workis poorly regulated and undervalued. In many countries,domestic workersare not considered workers but rather as informal help and are excluded from national labour regulations.

Often they do not enjoy the same protections as other workers, such as legal contracts, minimum pay, holidays, health care, social security and maternity benefits. In countries where domestic workers are covered by national labour laws, enforcement is poor and these protections have not been translated into practice.

Anti-Slavery International was one of the first organisations to highlight the issue of domestic slavery, particularly for child domestic workers and migrant women.

In 2011 ourHome Alone campaignplayed a big part in persuading the International Labour Organization to adopt a Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which secures the rights of millions of domestic workers across the globe.

Now we work with children in domestic work in Peru, in Tanzania and with women migrating for domestic work from Nepal and Bangladesh to the Middle East, as well as those migrating within India.

We also campaigned to protect domestic workers migrating to the UKto remove visa regulations tying them to only one employer.

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Domestic slavery: what is it? - Anti-Slavery International