marxism for real

Capital in General Part 1

Marx

A commodity is both useful and has a price. Price in part reflects the labor time on average used in making it. Real time is averaged out, some workers work faster than others. When sold the commodity will not sold exclusively at the cost of labor time congealed in making it. It is but small factor in shaping the price. But it is a long-term trend in determining that price and better reflects the sociological relations between worker and owner.

In every historical economic system people interact within nature and socially with each other to produce what they want and need to live.  From this we can say that people in order to eat must set up culturally specific labor relations.

Under the system of wage labor, then there is a separation between tools and materials on one side and labor. The Capitalist owns and controls the former, and the worker the second. Wages becomes to the capitalist the cost of getting the work done. To the worker it means survival.

The more a set of workers create in a hour the cheaper the over all cost of labor, assuming of course everything made sells at the desired price. If not then there arises economic problems.

In this way only by comparing prices can we compare two different commodities.  Prices are defined in terms of universal money. Money remains independent of things bought with money.

In traditional society cattle are used as a bride price, brass rods spiritual items and cowry shells can be spent only in the market place outside of town and only on market day. These three types of monies are not equivalent.

In our economic system money has no other meaning than as a means of exchange. Labor time in making a specific commodity remains secondary. It can have meaning only when it can be compared to the labor time needed making a different commodity. We can by contrasting two opposing commodities quantify labor time. But, remember we are comparing average labor time necessary at that particular time and place.

Direct exchange would become much too difficult. Prices become a simplified code for exchange. But, labor time changes radically over time given a certain set of external circumstances. Any Producer who gets an advantage gains extra profit in the short run, but loses it because of competition. This is further complicated by the twin crisis of over production or glutting the market and falling rates of profit or more and more expensive technical innovations in order to stay in the game. It only is fair to say these are tendencies not truths, there are always counter balancing trends that change the facts.

This constant disruption is the engine of further progress. Both causing unnecessary suffering and much needed technological innovation. Driven by contradictions, revolution both technological and social becomes a way of life under capitalism. In doing so we need to look at how much the economic structure forms the world of ideas, and in turn the world of ideas shapes the economics. In this setting class struggle is always there. Sometimes hidden quietly beneath the surface, sometimes out in the open.

Circulation of Capital

An investor has the money necessary to begin the process of production. To this there needs to be a purchase of needed inputs needed to create something that can be sold at a later date. Machines, raw materials, power, buildings land, transport equipment and other things. But none of this has any value without workers who through their labor create something new that can be sold. Thus the investor must employ living labor to set the production process into motion. This adds something new in that adds value to the final product. The investor provides the money needed for both the inputs and the wages of workers up front. But no investor wants to simply break even. Then the workers need to add more value to the final product than simply their wage. To make employing worthwhile they must create a surplus we call profit. Thus labor creates all wealth.

The investor buys the inputs needed for this process to happen, up front. The puts are themselves the product of past labor and sold like any other commodity. Again labor creates al wealth.

This then creates the social relations of production. In puts once paid for has little room for elasticity and brokering.  Wages on the other hand are a continuous dispute, bargaining and contest. This changes the focus from inputs to labor. Thus when new inputs are purchased it is with the goal is ultimately cheapening the wage bill in the long run.

But the investor is the one with the money. Money being that universal is something that can be if you have enough spent on anything. By buying the inputs necessary for production, makes the investor the master of manufacture. But, the investor as a capitalist is also a consumer. He buys consumes commodities created by laborers employed by another capitalist who sells his product for a profit. Once the investor buys these inputs, he is no longer consumer but now becomes a capitalist. The worker can support herself only if she gets a job. She is dependent on the employer for a job.

If labor is the source of profit for the capitalist then the division between wages and profits is the driving force of history. Then the issue of a fair wage and a reasonable profit is not at all simple. In fact the question of an acceptable salary for the worker and a sensible return for the employer is an after the fact justification for the winner of this struggle, or at best a provisional negotiation.  Wages on average are so low after they are spent by a single worker on just staying alive at the current standard there is little left over. While the money produced collectively by several workers employed by a single firm this provides the capitalists as a class not only enough to live at a more luxuriant life style but surplus to reinvest at making even more money.

The process begins and ends with money, but production id founded upon labor paid in wages. Money to buy tools, material and other inputs are added to the cost of wages. From this process is set into motion to create items to be sold to purchasers in the future. Technologies, instruments of labor, resources, fuel, shops, property, transportation, and inputs are owned and controlled by the

Investors. But labor is the only thing that can put the process of production into motion.

The investor invests in anything that will return more money than invested. Speculating into real or gambling on forthcoming possibilities or real assets remains unimportant. The genuine importance is return. Profits are the motor of history under capitalism.

This includes producing things to sell. The capitalist must be able to buy inputs needed in production.  But, nothing makes sense unless inputs are changed into something that will sell at a higher price than money already invested. For this to work requires labor power of living workers. Even robots require someone to run them. The worker sells her labor for a wage. The capitalist is the one with the money. The capitalist buys the labor power as wage labor. The capitalist not only is the one with the money, but he owns all the materials need in production.

However, it is the worker who changes all this into a commodity. It is only the worker who can change costly petty confusion into something costly and is lucrative. But, the worker owns only her potential to work. The capital owns the money and the resources needed for production. Because of this the capitalist owns the final product. Once the wages are paid any further claim by the workers is terminated. The future now rests with the capitalist. If he can sell the product for more than he invested the profit is his. If he cannot than he takes a loss. But, future manufacture is down sized and workers are laid off. The capitalist still own existing resources and savings accounts and will survive. The workers are not so lucky the surplus is thrown out in to the streets to fend for them.

The future belongs to the winners.  If the capitalist can muster the resources to start the next round, the owner will only need enough input and labor-power to show a profit on his next investment. If the cost is too great the comeback will be slow. He has time on his side the worker does not. Thus, it is the capitalist who takes the risk is a flawed argument. This faulty point of view is the moral foundation of capitalism. The worker has no fall back other than political struggle.

Fixed capital is investments in fixed assists. Fixed capital then is capital which finances prepared resources. Machines, buildings, raw materials, energy sources that are necessary before production can take place are fixed.

Circulating capital are investments in production and distribution that is constantly being used up and replaced. This constant replenishment of money invested is distinguished fixed capital only in the time it takes to be used up.

Circulating capital includes of course labor power and other monies needed for labor maintenance. This part of the cost is a subjective element, because it is living labor. Physical capital that is apart of production are both fixed and circulating depending on their life span. Both are inputs that are the products of past labor or workers in the past.

Constant capital and variable capital is used to support surplus value. The theory of surplus value is the sociology of economics, or the relations between the classes. But, the motion of capital needs a different formula. How money moves Fixed and circulating capital hides social relations. But, it does explain nicely investment decisions. Where surplus value does not. Theory of surplus value is a powerful sociological tool, but seen as flawed by pro-capitalist economists. First constant and variable capital is significantly different from fixed circulating capital. Capital can be used up rapidly or slowly. This is an important distinction. Capital used up in a single turn over time has to be replaced continuously.   Wages are no different that than other types of circulating capital. Fixed capital may need to be replaced only after many years. Second value and price only rarely coincide as competition and the drive for increasing earnings is constantly driving capital to increase profits. Labor theory does not need to try to explain this in specific detail to powerfully explain the contesting encounters over wages, working conditions and the politics of the job site. The theory of surplus value is sociology and important to both Marx and Weber coming from different point of view. Polanyi and the economy being embedded in social relations found it could be tweaked to explain a lot of history.

Surplus value is sociology of capitalist history. Polanyi agreed saying capitalism was the only true revolution. Polanyi changed this for non-capitalist societies to the economy being embedded in social ethics and their social relations. Fixed and circulating capital is how rapidly or slowly capital is used up. Social relations are irrelevant. Labor is but one factor in circulating capital it is just another cost. The social relations between capital and labor are secondary. It is important only when calculating the fluid costs of safety, power sources, and materials used up daily and of course wages.

But, for the socialist surplus value is central because it reveals the dependence of capital on labor. Quarterly earnings i.e. profits is totally dependent on labor past and current. The money to hire workers is the product of the workers. Surplus value can give socialists information on where capitalists are the most vulnerable.

The job is to find the relationship between labor theory of value i.e. surplus value and circulation of capital i.e. fixed, circulating capital and profit.  This much of what was covered in Capital volume II. This is important because the capitalist and the socialist live in different worlds. But, the labor theory of value gives strength in understanding the history of the transformation of society. It also helps understand the theory of circulating capital that is missed by the economists of that theory. That is how these trends affect real people. The capitalist is right to say the labor theory value is flawed because they are not interested in sociology.  But, this is their flaw because this gives us power over the capitalist. She understands him but he does not understand her.

To make things more difficult wee add to the relations between fixed and circulating capital a further complication by issues like savings, depreciation of equipment and technical innovation. When sells are down money is taken out of production and amassed. Also machines are expensive thus there are real disincentives to innovate. But, competition between capitalists provides powerful incentives to innovate. This directly affects the relations between capitalists this indirectly affects the relations between capital and labor. This circuitously anticipates the labor theory of value because only labor creates profits.  More money is spent on constant capital to increase the overall absolute surplus going to the capitalist. But, the overall rate of surplus goes down because it takes more money to increase those profits. The inputs cuts into the ratio between total costs of production and total profits; this is the falling rate of profit.  Through speed-ups and increases in production gross profits are greatly increased leading to overproduction. These two types of emergencies out line Marx’s theory of economic crisis.

To the capitalist decision weighing the relative merits depreciation of the worth of fixed capital vs. competitive advantage is vital as is cheapening labor costs and dependable and low-cost sources of resources. Thus, as you can see the time frame for Marxists are decades at a minimum.  The capitalist time frame is turnover. They operate yearly or even shorter frames. Profits are reported yearly, quarterly, and monthly and stocks go up and down daily.  Marxists are historian as well as activists. Struggles between wage and surplus or the shared profits by the group of capitalist’s involved deal with classes not individuals leading Marxists to focus on evolution of historical epics and revolutionary transitions. Marxists study economic booms and crisis set in an ongoing perception.  Economic collapses followed by innovations or revolutions over entire eras. Capitalist are concerned with turn over time, investors one day at a time.

The capitalist class includes investors, manufactures, merchants, and financers, transport and so on but their profits are shares of surplus value. Each of these businesses sees others as costs of doing business. Workers look upon them as different faces of a single capitalist. What to the capitalist seems real, to the Marxist is a wall that hides the changing weather of history. Why was there an earthquake? Is it tensions between tectonic plates or the anger of God?

Marxist as historical sociologist is a creative guide for a social movement. But, also economics as an academic discipline becomes an isolated specialty with few connections across campus. Weber debated with the ghost of Marx and Durkheim was the line of defense against Marxists’ scholars.  Non-Marxist sociology is born out of Marx.  Karl Polanyi an economist who stood Marx on his head, by studying the economy embedded in the superstructure. Substantivist economists, historical modes of production anthropologists like Eric Wolf

The capitalist class includes investors, manufactures, merchants, financers; transport capitalists and so on but their profits are shares of surplus value. These each see each other as costs of doing business. Workers look upon them as different faces of a single capitalist. What to the capitalist seems real, to the Marxist is seen as wall that that hides the changing wall of history.  Why was there a recent earthquake, tensions between tectonic plates or the anger of God?

The capitalist class orientation through history shifts between production, finance, and merchant capital in a back and forth manner. Often even the same individuals. In the end capital has different elements, but it is a single class. Any individual capitalists will have interests in all of the above.

In the early 21st century this became even clearer. Investing in futures is a derivative market of speculating on actions that have not happened yet. Hedge Funds deal with possibilities that have yet to be defined. By leveraging risks by betting on both winners and losers Hedge Funds manager to more than speculate, they actively intervene in markets. Failed banks offer a chance to buy up assets at a reduced cost. Short selling by paying less than the worth of the shares in trouble is normal. Hedge funs offer opportunities to buy cheap making shares more profitable independent of any reality including, production for the market. Other peoples money including retirement accounts becomes money to be played with creates opportunities to make profits for a very few investors independent of any productive reality. Hedge fund managers get paid victory or defeat, thus they have nothing to lose.

Hedge Funds are the use of advanced investment strategies in derivatives, leveraged investments. This is unregulated and unprotected selling securities from a third party, buying the assists and selling them back to this or another third party. In order to borrow heavily then to buy still more shares to sell them at a profit.  A firm with more debt than equity is leveraged. Buying up bad mortgages in the hopes some one will buy you out, or the government will bail you out. Use of junk bonds that sells below investment grade because of failure in hopes you can sell them at a profit or be bailed out.

Financial institutions expand rapidly growing ever larger as they loan out more money. As expansion continues as financial investments grows rapidly. These financial institutions themselves will barrow money from other financial institutions. Debts of all kinds become very profitable. Soon investments in financial institutions become it’s own ends. Financial institutions continue to expand even when production stagnates. Profits from debt-financed transaction do not put people back to work. Profits lead to still more investments in non-productive speculation. Until a collapse or a crisis the economy is not tied to anything that benefits people. Schemes like leveraged buy-outs, hedge funds and credit derivatives. This leads to quick increase in worth of stocks and dividends production continues stagnate. Production becomes less important than profits. Financial sector debt is the largest debt sector of the economy and is also the fastest growing part of the economy.

Credit derivatives are privately held negotiable bilateral contracts that are used in managing exposures to credit risks by transferring a credit risk to some one else. This a bet that one can make money before the investment fails.

Collateral Debt Obligation (CDO) this credit protection allows selling of bad credit. Failure leads to super profits if you buy debts at a fraction of their original worth sell them still below their original value put at profit. The last guy standing will be bailed out buy the government. Either giving you loans at such low interest rates that when things turn around you own assets now worth more than what you paid or government insures your losses.

The leverage barrowing of large amounts of money to buy up large amounts of stocks to be able to resale them at a profit before loans are paid back. Instead of paying back the loans, this becomes collateral for new loans adding to the over all world debt. This becomes a search for quick profits without thinking about long-term consequences.

Structured Investment Vehicle (SIV) are used to buy up CDO’s in which money is barrowed to make payments in installments, where the lender with Government backing will make up any payments the barrower cannot make.

On top of all this Banks pooled mortgage loans to generate mortgage backed securities.

Large investors place investments in a wide diversity of holdings through hedge funds and when all else fails there will be government bailouts.

The need for profits on investment means there is a continual search new source for this surplus generating investments.

Expansion of production is replaced by capital accumulation through expanded investments independent of production.

Politics of government intervention is the only thing keeping this mess going.

Financial institutions expand rapidly growing ever larger as they loan out more money. As expansion continues as financial investments grows rapidly. These financial institutions themselves will barrow money from other financial institutions. Debts of all kinds become very profitable. Soon investments in financial institutions become it’s own ends. Financial institutions continue to expand even when production stagnates. Profits from debt-financed transaction do not put people back to work. Profits lead to still more investments in non-productive speculation. Until a collapse or a crisis the economy is not tied to anything that benefits people. Schemes like leveraged buy-outs, hedge funds and credit derivatives. This leads to quick increase in worth of stocks and dividends production continues stagnate. Production becomes less important than profits. Financial sector debt is the largest debt sector of the economy and is also the fastest growing part of the economy.

Currency becomes a most wanted speculative investment. Traders leverage large amounts of money taking risks in order to win big. Again having nothing to do with creating firms that make things that put people to work.

Marxist sees economics then as part of sociology. Marxist as historical sociology creates a guide for a social movement. But, also economics as an academic discipline becomes an isolated specialty with few connections across campus. Social economics was the birth of sociology. This leads to those who read Marx and then to those who read Weber and Durkheim. In Anthropology this leads to Karl Polanyi and economic anthropology (substantivist economics). In Historical Sociology and Diachronic Anthropology are most workers who owe a heavy debt to Marx, even among non-Marxists.  The substantivist economists i.e. George Dalton, materialist anthropology i.e. Leslie White and Julian Stewart, modes of production historical anthropologists i.e. Eric Wolf, and the articulation of modes of production of post war French anthropologists all carried on a dialogue with Marx. Economics as an academic discipline is a closed world. Marxism is a dynamic force. History, economics, political science, social anthropology, and sociology are but a single discipline.

Marx as a historian outlined the transition from royal mercantile monoplane of Europe to global industrial capitalism as but one period in history. The father of historical sociology was Marx.

Marxists now can outline the fairly rapid changes capitalism goes through in dealing with economic crisis and the rebirth of a new capitalism. Marx, Weber, Polanyi or Sweezy write from a particular time, but with a historical imagination they can see the trends that are modifying and undermining current trends. Money flows where returns are better.

Within circulation stabilization is always a long-term trend. This tendency as a continuing objective is repeatedly being destabilized. Because classical economics lacks a grounding in historical sociology

It often lacks an environmental social and cultural understanding of the trends in the circulation of capital. Because capital flows where returns are highest until the well dries up other economic needs often go unmet. As new demands are created are created those who get there first will often do well. Those following often fail and undermine the revenues of the already established leading to a crisis. Without a map of the larger society this can come as a surprise. Because there is no single centralized authority for capitalists, not only competitors, but also capitalists in unrelated industries by looking out for themselves pollute each other’s estates. Crisis follows crisis and to save the free market regulatory intervention become necessary to save capitalism. FDR save capitalism and changed capitalism. This is the stuff of sociology.

Marxists by looking at the rising dissatisfaction rising from the failure born from these conflicts, we can give a voice to the growing frustration. As circulation of capital fails to meet our daily needs, the capitalists’ production, circulation and distribution still need labor. Whether capital is expanded or restricted the worker is still in charge. The capitalist monopolizes power only so far as he controls the state. Both the production of surplus value and the realization of surplus value are in the hands of the workers.

Capitalists live in their own world. Their ethics reflect this. Stocks are capitals founded on interests. Loan money is on interests. Making interests both independent of, but subordinate to production.  Interests come from what one capitalist pays to another. Seeming it is independent of production. Yet the social relations between investments and production is defined not only by law, but also a cultural acceptance built on a social relation that at some point must be tied to production.

In other words money is borrowed and is repaid with interest. In fact it is real only because we believe it to be real. At another time plunder was acceptable, but usury was not.

Interests or usury something is assumed to exist in relation something that is real. That is borrowing money to retool and making your production more efficient. Reasonable rate of interest are of course defined in a historical setting.  In another time only real men plunder, but plunder requires real things to steal. Production is always both real and necessary. The rest is culturally specific. Loan vs. usury, or conquest vs. theft depends on the time frame.

Profit’s division of among capitalists are set in away that conflicts arise. One, small example is the question between reinvestment and dividends going to shareholders. Money brings them together the investor and manager. Conflicting uses of these earnings creates a baseline. Shareholders want a return, while managers need operating capital.

Money as a commodity eliminates distinctions between various types of capital. Money borrowed is paid back with interest. The conflict between reinvestments or dividends is not the only conflict, but an important one. Why invest? Expand profits. Profits nonetheless.

It takes money to make money. Money is attractive because when spent it provides the owner a life of luxury. The money market is the brains and central nervous system of capitalism; Production is the circulatory system carrying nutrients to capitalism as a whole.

Money is loaned to the capitalist producer. The interest rats set by the ender becomes important and is set in the frame of how much profit is necessary to justify this type of production. The producer needs to cover costs of production including interests on loans, plus enough profit to make the effort worthwhile.  There is no upper limit on acceptable profit, but the lower limit has both an objective and subjective component.

Capitalist as a class is directed by finance capital. This moves the center of struggle for the socialists from the shop floor to the international money markets. Factories can be shut down and moved.

Industrial capitalist are managers. They are often dependent on money markets in the long run, and shareholders in the short. Top managers are bought off by giving either controlling share or very large amounts in the companies they run. The daily movement of monies from one set of shares to another has a direct effect. The above conflict set a narrow operating time. Long range planning is undermined. The monies reinvested are supplemented through borrowing.

Surplus Value

Value is added by the employment labor time used up in production.  But, profit is driven by the additional desire to get as high a price as possible. To sell the final product above its value is necessary.  That the employer employees work if than they can bring in more money than what it costs to employ them.  If the added value created by labor time is to close to the cost of production, why the employee anyone? This is profit. Profit is downward limits, however subjective. Its upward limits is determined by market forces, therefore what the seller can get away with. By relative competitive advantage, increasing speed and length of work in relation to pay, advertisement to create demands above supply is just a few of the ways this us done. The goal then is always to create a profit above its relationship to value.

Wages are what worker receives for her labor time. Assuming there is always modest unemployment at best wages can be kept close to what seen as necessary to live.  Under the best of circumstances workers create more value than what they get paid this surplus is the issue. Everything other than labor is seen a fixed capital as is must be paid for regardless of how much the workers add through their labor.

Labor power creates surplus value, or a value greater than the value workers produce to cover their wages. This is the foundation between the workers and the capitalists. All other in puts are given and do not add value.

The cost of all inputs including wages going to the workers is the cost of production for the capitalist and thus must be supplemented by an addition to make it worthwhile for the capitalists. Only living labor by working beyond the time necessary to cover the cost of her wages can provide the capitalist with this surplus. The value of the new product is equal to the money spent on the means of production and the newly created value. This recently generated worth in part covers the income of the workers plus the revenue going to the capitalist. Inputs of the non-human type are a necessary cost of production and is paid for outright and ads nothing to he profit and are simply overhead.

Labor on the other hand is different, because it creates additional value. But, this developed extra value pays both the worker in wages and the capitalist in profit. To the capitalist wages are parts of the overhead. This creates a problem however, unlike other inputs wage are negotiable. This defines the relationship between employee and employer. The more the capitalist gets the less the workers gets and vise versa.

Labor is the dynamic force allowing capital to exist as a separate entity. Like federalism or slavery under capitalism is the true foundation of the economy.

The wealth of any economy being a product of labor becomes the social foundation of not social estrangement, but also real alienation. The wasting of autonomy, inspiration, self and community is the source of alienation. By cutting labor costs profits are increased, thus, workers are both the best friend and worst enemy of the capitalist, in the same way and at the sometime.

Given to completion between capitalists to stay alive, the war with the workers becomes a driving force. Workers through labor unions and capitalists through monopolies challenge this relationship only intensifying the war.

Labor creates additional value above what it costs to hire the workers. Unless prices of the final product increase, the higher the wages of the worker the profit must go down. All other inputs are given and remain constant once the production process begins. To the capitalist wages is a part of the cost of doing business like machines or raw materials. But, this is not quite true because employers employ because workers create more value than their wages. This paradox is the source of further contradictions. Technologies and resources used in production is continuous investment introducing no extra supplementary worth to the ultimate merchandise. The cost of wageworkers brings with it something different that is adding value to the product. Thus conflict between wages and profits begin with the fist minute and not the end of the pay period. The quest for profits requires either a rise of prices feeding intra-capital competition. Also labor conflict is a constant problem. The possibility of cheeping the cost of equipment and supplies will have to wait until the next production cycle.

Because wages are paid in money, the same money used to buy everything else, wage labor is a concept simplified and separated from any particular content. The reason for employment is the cost of wages and not loyalty to any specific workers. Profit is the unpaid for bonuses going to the capitalist and the reason for being in business.

For this to work, wageworkers must become independent of the materials necessary for work. This belongs to another and with out these resources no work is possible. Second, the workers become free from the work process, so, taking orders from those owning the necessary materials.

In this contest it is never equal. The owner controls access to the right to wage labor. The worker with only muscle and brains has nothing but time to sell, and that is what she does labor time which itself now belongs to the owner, The worker is always free to starve, the owner has his choice among workers looking for work.

 Surplus value as a social relation is not identical to profit, which can and does fluctuate around surplus vale, given market conditions. Surplus value born from the trade that happens with in production itself is between the capitalist who owns and controls the conditions and preconditions needed before labor can ever take place, and the workers who work for a wage because they really have no choice.

In fact after inputs are invested in the process of production, their costs already paid for adds nothing to the price of the final product and by itself leaves the worker without wages and the owner without profit. But it is the worker through her labor that provides the extra value to the final product.  From this comes wages and profit. Here the heart of the conflict. From the worker’s view only she add value i.e. surplus. From the capitalist view because he saves and reinvests part of his profits he is the one who deserves not only his much larger income but control over the final product its sell and distribution, the entire labor process including the work of the worker but the economic power he generates. Labor creates all wealth and thus entitled to all that she creates vs. it is the capitalist who creates the opportunity for work in the fist place.

Capitalists live in their own world. Their ethics reflect their stocks are capital founded on interests. Loan money is on interests. Making interest independent and subordinate to production is the on going contradiction. Interest is then what one capitalist pays to another. Yet the social relations between investment and production is defined not only by law, also a cultural acceptance on a social relation based on returns independent of production, but at some point must be tied to production.

In other words money is borrowed and is repaid with interest. In fact it is real only because we see it as real. At another time plunder was acceptable, but usury was not. Today interest on loans must be below a certain rate, but we have learned not really. Stealing is just wrong because we say so. In both cases something is assumed to exist in relation to something that is real. Today we as capitalists find okay and practical to borrow money to retool, making production more efficient. Bankers are needed. Only real men plunder or so was the norm in the seventh century Europe. To plunder you need real things to steal. Production is both cases are real and necessary. The rest is culturally specific. Loans vs. usury, conquest vs. theft is set in time.

Profits divisions are set up in a way that creates a conflict between reinvestment and dividends. Shareholders or managers even if they are the same person are in conflict. Conflicting uses of earnings creates a base line. Shareholders want a return, while managers need operating capital.

But, money is a commodity. As a commodity it eliminates distinctions between various types of capital.

Money borrowed is paid back with interest.  Thus, the conflict between reinvesting of dividends cash in to buy pleasure gets to the heat of the matter.

It takes money to make money, but money is attractive because when spent it gives as a life of luxury. Workers are but expenditures in all this. The money market is the brains and the nervous system of capitalism. Production is the circulatory system carrying nutrients to capitalism as a whole. Workers are but one bothersome in out among many, but, without workers there is no capitalism.

Money is loaned to the capitalist producer. The interest rates are set by the lender and become important. As part of operating costs it must be met. But, also it is the role model it sets the frame of reference of how much profit is necessary to justify this type of production. The producer needs to cover this type of production.  Expenses including interests on loans and beyond that the rate helps define how much additional profit are needed to make therefore worthwhile. There is no upper limit on acceptable profit, the lower limit has both and objective and subjective component.

Capitalists as a class are directed by finance capital. Profits reinvested are supplemented through borrowing. This removes the center of the struggle from the shop floor to the international money markets. Factories can be shut down and moved. Thus industrial capitalist are in fact managers. They sometimes become dependent on money markets in the long run and shareholders in the short. Top managers are sometimes bought of by controlling enough shares to have real authority. As a shareholder he has still to deal with other shareholders. But, still the need for money to reinvests make production closely tired to money markets. Workers need a global alliance and perspective to fight back,

Double movement

The study of capitalism, society and culture is the study of private enterprise both its’ social order and way of life. The permanent crisis of capitalism is the enduring structure of contemporary existence.  The resulting economic and ecological disaster contributes to the social-cultural catastrophe destroying the larger global society. The current discipline of economics often fails to understand the basics of economics. Karl Polanyi as an economist was a key figure in the understanding of historical economics, the creation of economic sociology and the father of economic anthropology.

Traditionally markets were embedded in larger social institutions and subject to ethical norms of the rest of the society. Capitalism was the first and last true revolution, destroying the moral, social and cultural fabric of society.  Markets if unregulated are self-destructive and fall apart almost immediately.

This was the double movement. British Capitalism was the model of free markets. With free enterprise is born nearly simultaneously the need for crisis management. The problem was regulations were unavoidable, but they unregulated. Regulations were on the spot damage control, often without a long-term plan.

Those who claim that free markets were never given a fair chance to regulate themselves or the practicalities of free enterprise were not ever given a reasonable possibility are wrong.  In fact the irrationality of this utopian fantasy is so intense that once put into place social and cultural collapse was always immediate requiring regulations to prevent total collapse of social and cultural life.

Free enterprise is not based upon human nature, but a fantasy. This dream is impossible; Land, labor and money are capital input, but not really. Because they are not commodities produced for sale. Land is nature, labor is living human beings and the supply of money is by design and the controlling of it’s access by strategy, and is always regulated as a decided upon symbol that is real because we agree that is real. The gold standard, free silver token money or cattle, were all money at one time or another. But none the three were created for the market. But they are treated as if they were thus requiring external regulation of their supply.

Capitalism in fact was never the result of free markets. Government originally created capitalism politically through violence, the fiction of capitalism is and was more than a utopian dream it was forced upon society by its supporters politically, and administratively owing to coercion. Because of the liberal revolution that established free enterprise i.e. capitalism the debate today is not between socialism and capitalism, but socialism for the rich and socialism for the poor.

Culture often reflects the dominant justification for current power relations. Then to challenge the established power relations we need to add another way of seeing things. This different view open up for discussion things often missed by mainstream social science, conventional news sources, typical art and philosophy, and of course ordinary skilled dialogue and ways of life.

What is the alternative?

First we must understand what the issues in fact are.

The separation between ownership and wage labor is the first problem. Workers depend on employers for employment. Employer also needs the workers to make a profit. But, the relationship is not equal.  Fairness needs to be defined.  We need to give the workers more power over both the work place and their lives at home. But, before we go there we need a detailed study of the history of capitalism, its structure and its evolution over time to see the current social relations came about. This includes what works and what does not. This requires the crisis that have been met and how each one changed the face of capitalism. This requires a deep understanding what we call contradictions. Elements leading to the collapse of capitalism and how those crises met and resolved to save capitalism and how that changes forever capitalism, must be studied closely. Surplus value means that all workers bring in more money than just the wag. This helps us focus on how important workers are to the capitalist. Wages hide the fact work is central to all economies in the ancient past and today. Capitalism is only one type of economy. Some were very egalitarian for society as a whole. Others were brutally exploitive. Capitalism needs workers more than workers need capitalist. This is only the beginning of our study.

Liberal Revolution

Capitalism or Capitalisms, is described by profits for investors as private property. Most economic system democratic or autocratic is justified by an essential set of social ethics. Honor for the patrician despot or comradeship for the egalitarian community.

The investor invests in things that return more money than invested.

This includes producing things to sell. He buys the technology such as tools, raw materials, lands, buildings means of transport, power sources and etc. But, none of this makes sense unless inputs are changed into changed into something that will sell at a higher price than invested. This requires labor power. The capitalist has the money to set the whole thin into motion. Without this money nothing will ever happen. But, this is meaningless prattle without labor power. Production requires money of the investor and needs labor power of living individuals. Even robots require someone to run them.

The worker sells her labor for a wage. The investor has the money, and in his role as capitalist buys materials and labor.  This forms a highly dysfunctional marriage. As her secret lover I side with labor.

Through production the worker changes the material into something new called a commodity. But what is important is a social relation between people is what is real in this economic relation. Because the capitalist owns the original materials and in turn buys labor used up he owns the final product put on the market to sell. This goal is to end up more money than was initially advanced. Thus the

 “Capital” claims his right.

The owner of the money put up will only need enough input in means of production and labor power sufficient to show a profit on his investment. If the cost of either side of the equation can be lowered the he is properly compelled to get most for his buck. If makes a profit this is good if not, not so then the gambler feels his a righteous claim. The worker sees herself as central. Everything the capitalist owns and all his money is the product of past labor. With his new money he has nothing without new labor. This creates an extremely cruel affair.

Capital in General Part 1

Marx

A commodity is both useful and has a price. Price in part reflects the labor time on average used in making it. Real time is averaged out, some workers work faster than others. When sold the commodity will not sold exclusively at the cost of labor time congealed in making it. It is but small factor in shaping the price. But it is a long-term trend in determining that price and better reflects the sociological relations between worker and owner.

In every historical economic system people interact within nature and socially with each other to produce what they want and need to live.  From this we can say that people in order to eat must set up culturally specific labor relations.

Under the system of wage labor, then there is a separation between tools and materials on one side and labor. The Capitalist owns and controls the former, and the worker the second. Wages becomes to the capitalist the cost of getting the work done. To the worker it means survival.

The more a set of workers create in a hour the cheaper the over all cost of labor, assuming of course everything made sells at the desired price. If not then there arises economic problems.

In this way only by comparing prices can we compare two different commodities.  Prices are defined in terms of universal money. Money remains independent of things bought with money.

In traditional society cattle are used as a bride price, brass rods spiritual items and cowry shells can be spent only in the market place outside of town and only on market day. These three types of monies are not equivalent.

In our economic system money has no other meaning than as a means of exchange. Labor time in making a specific commodity remains secondary. It can have meaning only when it can be compared to the labor time needed making a different commodity. We can by contrasting two opposing commodities quantify labor time. But, remember we are comparing average labor time necessary at that particular time and place.

Direct exchange would become much too difficult. Prices become a simplified code for exchange. But, labor time changes radically over time given a certain set of external circumstances. Any Producer who gets an advantage gains extra profit in the short run, but loses it because of competition. This is further complicated by the twin crisis of over production or glutting the market and falling rates of profit or more and more expensive technical innovations in order to stay in the game. It only is fair to say these are tendencies not truths, there are always counter balancing trends that change the facts.

This constant disruption is the engine of further progress. Both causing unnecessary suffering and much needed technological innovation. Driven by contradictions, revolution both technological and social becomes a way of life under capitalism. In doing so we need to look at how much the economic structure forms the world of ideas, and in turn the world of ideas shapes the economics. In this setting class struggle is always there. Sometimes hidden quietly beneath the surface, sometimes out in the open.

Commodities:

Commodity is something produced for sell for money.  All commodities must have use value, i.e. used for something specific. Non-commodities will also have use value. Thing that are to given away or traded directly one item for another are also contains use vales

Commodities produced for sale also have exchange value. The exchange rates are related to the labor time on average that goes into producing that commodity. Price and exchange value never perfectly match, however over the long term exchange value is one factor in determining price and consistently reflects the social relationships embedded in the exchange rates.

Supply and demand will in the short run may be more important than labor time inserted in the manufacture the item being sold. Over the long haul the economy moves in the direction of balance.  But the movement toward equilibrium is constantly being undermined by the quest for profit. Exchange value then is both a tendency and the map of social relations under capitalism.

For example the cost of a product also reflects the tools, raw materials and other in puts that the go into making that product all of which are the result of earlier labor times. Also wages in part reflect the relative bargaining strength of the labor  force. Given this wages reflect the price of labor time. Profits being the main reason for employment, means wages are constantly being negotiated.

Consumer is very interested in the use value, i.e. the use of the product. The worker cares mostly about wages, the capitalist is interested in profits. Thus, the cost of the product reflects the cost of raw materials and tools, wages for the workers, and the profits going to the employer. 

Pre-Capitalist economies

Generalized reciprocity refers to the altruistic dealings between people, the "true gift" marked by the indistinctness of the any requirement to return the favor, true welfare. Generally close relatives.

Balanced reciprocity is based on Symmetrical exchange concerning the direct exchange of traditional equivalents of worth directly face-to-face without any interruptions, and thus often seen as gift-exchange between equals. One must be about the same worth as the other to gain an advantage would unethical.  This forms long term relations between allies and distant relatives.

Raiding is the effort to get something for nothing without concern for the other..

Under the leadership of a headman or headwoman redistribution is a traditional system of economic exchange involving the centralized collection of goods from members of a group followed by dividing of those collected goods among those members of the community.

The centralized market day and marketplace, is once a week five day, six day or seven weeks does not matter.  Out side of the village a special place surpluses are exchanged through bartering to get the best deal possible. It is a party to let off steam.

Marx on Dialectics

            The real study of history begins with the material formulation of real people living their everyday lives.    This study begins with people’s relationship with nature (Marx 1947:42).  Thorough these relationship humans produce their own means of subsistence.  Each generation inherits and reproduces this means of subsistence, and then changes it to fit their changed needs  (Marx 1947:42).  This historically and culturally specific setting shapes individual human nature.  This means that how people are organized and interact is determined by production  (Marx 1947:42). 

            Production molds all other social relations.  This includes the relations of one nation to another, as well as the internal social structure of a single nation. With every new change in the forces of production there exists corresponding change in the relations of production.  These changes lead to changes in the division of labor.  With changes in the division of labor there are changes in the property relations of the nation.  Ultimately this means ideological changes as well  (Marx 1947:43).  

            The earliest division of labor is between the town and country.  Industrial and commercial interests are separated from agriculture.  With theses changes in the division of labor there are changes in property relations.  With private property restriction to the access to the resources of subsistence become restricted. Each type of stratified society is founded upon this unequal access to the needed resources.  Meaning each type of society has its own type of ownership and its own type of property relations.  With this develops historically specific relations between groups of people  (Marx 1947:43).

            The first type of property is tribal or communal.  This is known to have simple technology and an undeveloped stage of production.  The social structure is based upon the family and the extension of the family called kinship.  This evolves into the ancient communal or state ownership.  Private property in personal belongs develops, but remains subordinate to the communal property of the state.  With the development of an economic surplus the town or administrative center stands opposed to the countryside off of which it lives  (Marx 1947:44).

            Feudal ownership begins with estate ownership.  The economic foundation is the peasant serfs.  Property is organized through a hierarchical land ownership.  The nobles are an armed body of retainers.  In the city the guilds of master, journeyman, and apprentice copies the feudal relations of the country.  Landed property changes to meet the changes in production relations, with changes of the status of the serfs and the changing relations between the town and the rural aristocracy.  This is because the social relations continuously change.  The ideas of the age are the direct result of the real material life of the people.  People produce their ideas through their productive life  (Marx 1947:45 - 47).

            The first historical act is the production to satisfy material life.  Following the first historical act is the production of new needs that are the practical result of satisfying the needs of material life.  People reproduce themselves, their families and the their culture daily.  These acts of production and reproduction are given by the historical past of a people, but also this very activity changes both the people and their culture.  With the changes the needs of a people old needs are changed and new needs are created.  With theses expanding needs production of life is both is both social and natural.  Humans are both the animal creations of nature and the social creations of society.  With this each society creates its own social organization based upon its own historical mode of production. The nature of society is based upon the mode of production, and consciousness.  People’s relation to nature molds their relation to each other.  People’s relations to one another effect their relation to nature.  There is then production, human needs, population pressure, and change. With all this the family is the first social organization (Marx 1947:48- 51).

            The division of labor begins within the family. After that within the rest of society the division of labor continues to evolve to become the division between mental and physical labor. With this division of labor is also an unequal distribution both quantitative and qualitative of property and its resources.  This leads to the development of private property.  Private properties are the result the activity of the property-less and its growth is the result of that activity.  Because of the division of labor developing there also develops the contradiction between the individual and the community  (Marx 1947: 51-53).

            With theses divisions between ownership and work, mental and physical labor, and between the community interests and particular deeds of labor property becomes an alien force and with it the alienation of the worker within society.  The tools, resources, and human activities appear to control people and not controlled by the producing people.  Through increasing specialization labor is imposed upon the individual as source of exploitation.  The job also appears to own the individual.  What we produce becomes an objective power over us.  These illusions take on a reality that frustrates our best-laid plans  (Marx 1947: 52 - 53).

            During all this the state develops as the community divorced from the realities of the individual.  The state becomes a community unto itself.  What cannot be forgotten though is the fact that the struggles within the state are class struggles.  These struggles are class wars for mastery of the political powers of the state, be they peaceful or violent.  Each class tries to conquer power in order to best represent the best interests of that class.  What cooperation that exists is determined by the division of labor of that particular mode of production, and the class that controls the state.  This cooperation is not for benefit of all.  The goal of cooperation is for the benefit of the property owners who control the power of the state.  The property relations, the cooperation and the state all change as a result of these class struggles.  Society changes and its culture itself change because of the changes brought on by this class struggle.  Because any kind of property relations that restricts access to the resources, brings about resistance by the people who have limited or no control over the property the work with to produce a surplus going to the non-producers. Any indigenous class struggle is always international class struggle, because to of the world market economy. International struggles are expressed locally  (Marx 1947:53 -55).

            Through property that restricts peoples access to needed resources, the direct producers become cut off from themselves.  Material and intellectual production as well as the producers themselves do not belong to the producers, but to the non-producing minority.  Until people are reunited with their creativity, work becomes a painful experience. When people become united with their own creativity activity theses same people then become capable for joy that life holds dear. Cooperation must be transformed from cooperation for the benefit of the few, into cooperation for the benefit of all for work and joy to be reunited.  With the universal development of the productive forces of a market economy, a contradiction between the world wide interdependent social economy and the private control of that economy for the benefit of the few is established.  Only a world revolution can resolve that contradiction  (Marx 1947: 51 - 56).

            Universal development of production of production means that most people will become property less around the world.  At the same time world history replaces local history.  Civil society is the result of historical development of a world new world system of production.  Civil society is seen as the material relations between people, people and nature, and the forces of production.  This civil society only comes about because of the rise of the bourgeoisie, and along with the evolution of the modern state, industrial production, world commerce, and professional bureaucracy (Marx 1947: 57). 

            History is the succession of economic systems, along with changing ideological traditions that change along with the changed circumstances.  History modifies old circumstances by changing activities.  The products of consciousness are the products of social life.  Ideas reflect material production and its social relations that are passed down historical.  Circumstances make people just like people make their circumstances (Marx 1947: 58-59).

            Humans in fact need each other for survival.  People cannot be free if they are hungry.  Freedom is a historical action and not a state of mind.   Freedom if it is to come about must have historical and technological foundations.  Because the world is altered by the changes in industrial production, it can either increase the alienation and exploitation of the direct producers or it can increase their freedom depending on who controls the means of production.  In the end society changes according to the changing needs of social production (Marx 1947: 60 -62).

            Human unity with nature exists through industry.  Social science must reflect this if it is to understand the deeper underlying connections between specific social actions and global trends.  In this Industry, commerce, production, and exchange establish distribution, which in turn give birth to ideological possibilities.  Along theses lines social-economic classes are determined by the mode of production.  The needs of every class society creates its own ideological support, with bourgeois society science develops to meet the needs of its mode of production.  This is possible because the ruling ideas of any class society are that of the ruling class.  Those who control the material forces of society, rule also in the ideas of that society.  Workers are subject to those ideas.  The dominant ideologies reflect the dominant material relations (Marx 1947: 62 -65).

            Division of labor begins with the separation of physical and mental labor.  Class antagonism soon develops, with the separation of control of the resources of production by the producers who become dependent on the non-producers.  The exploited classes become the revolutionary classes.  Each new ruling class in its turn represents its particular interests as the interests of society as a whole.  This means the class making the revolution speaks for the entire society as its new leader.  In the beginning the revolutionary class leads the opposition against the old ruling class.  The revolutionary class at this time is connected with the oppression of the other exploited classes.  Only once the new class gains control of the state and the new means of production do opposition to the new class fully develops out of the other exploited classes.  The old ruling ideas die with the new ruling class, and their new ideas become the dominant ideology.  A new opposition develops a new alternative ideology for a new struggle against the current ruling class (Marx 1947: 65-67).

            Nature is constantly altered through human labor.  After that nature become a product of human labor.  The separation between town and country develops with the separation of mental and physical labor, and this leads to the development of state society.  The class of non-producers controls the coercive powers of the state and the means of production.  With this private property develops out of the surplus created by the producers now without their own property (Marx 1947: 68 -69).

            In the middle ages the urban rabble controlled no resources, thus they were the most oppressed of all.  The Journeymen and apprentices were organized to meet the interests of the guild masters.  The peasants remained isolated and weak and controlled by the lords.  The fear of the rabble united the nobles, the masters, the journeymen, and the peasants against this element of the towns (Marx 1947: 70 -71).

            Separation of production from commerce comes with trade.  Merchants become the new class.  Manufacturing grows out this marriage of merchants and the guilds.  Merchant capital becomes moveable capital not tied to any town; the guilds needing the merchants become increasingly dependent.  The merchant free of the town can hire workers outside of the guilds for manufacturing.  With the new types of manufacturing unemployment becomes common (Marx 1947: 72 -73).

            With the rise of manufacturing the nation-state increasingly compete with each other.  Trade wars become common.  Within the nation the capitalist and the worker relate and compete with each other.  The big bourgeoisie comes to dominate the means of production, but not the state.  Commerce and navigation expand rapidly, making the national big bourgeoisie international in scope.  Navigation and colonial monopolies went together.  Protective laws sheltered the older bourgeoisie, making them dependent upon the state.  The colonial monopolies controlled the market, and at home the market was administered and protected.  Free trade was banned (Marx 1947: 74 -76).

            Competition came with big manufacturing.  Real private property began with moveable property.  Competition separates the bourgeoisie and the workers from their own classes.  Through private property the state becomes independent of other forces in society.  This is done even though the state organizes society for the general interests of the bourgeoisie.  Through the state individuals of the ruling class assert their common interests in spite of internal conflicts of the capitalist class.   This is done because the state mediates the larger common interests of the capitalist class.  There is a disintegration of natural communities with the evolution of private property, and the growth of civil law to defined private property natural interests (Marx 1947: 78 -80).

            Civil law defines property as if it were the general would of the people, not the property owners.  Slowly the bourgeoisie as a class absorbs the other propertied ruling classes as its mode of production becomes dominant.  The proletariat without property develops at the same time as the development of this capitalist class.  Industrial, financial and commercial property becomes the dominant theme that all forms of property are related too.  With private property limited access to necessary resources, those with access to theses necessities conflict with the non-producers who own the access to theses resources.  One class has conflicting antagonisms with another class.  One class position limits ones life changes, and defines the limitations and potential of every individual.  This division of labor creates a reality independent of the will of the parties involved.  Freedom can only be established on material grounds in a community in which the division of labor has been out grown. In the past economic reality acted independent of the will of the individuals of that society.  Class is a community who share a common interest.  Class is a condition of life and life style (Marx 1947: 81-85).

            Freedom is possible in resistance to oppression.  Communism overturns all earlier forms of relations of production.  Control over the needed resources returns to a community of individuals.  This struggle is shaped by the material life of the history of a people.  The conditions of real activity, which are the preconditions for the movements of a society, at a certain point, become a fetter to further movements of a people.  In this one type of material activity replaces another (Marx 1947: 86-87).

            Historical conflicts grow out contradictions between coexisting productive forces, and theses forces and the rest of a society.  The industrial capital of an advanced nation exports these conditions all over the world.  Big industry is social production while it is privately owned.  This type of private property is the result of the accumulated labor of others.  The division between ownership and labor is completed under capitalism.  Forces of production do not belong to those ho work with the tool of production, but they belong to the non-producers.  In modern industry the workers are separated from the tools, their work, the products the make, themselves, and their coworkers.  In addition the state loom over them as an alien power opposed to the workers as a class. The ruling class sets in motion forms of distribution that reproduce this inequality.  Revolution becomes the only hope of the oppressed and exploited (Marx 1947: 88 - 95).

The German Ideology 1947 International Publishers

Class

What is Class?

A common relation to the economic foundation to society characterizes class; this is the means of production and the socially organized patterns of distribution and consumption.  Class is a relation between groups of people, the place these groups occupy in the social division of labor with patterns of control over access to the means of production, and the appropriation of social surplus.  Class is also characterized by a cultural and social life.  Thus, members share a common life-style, educational background, kinship, consumption patterns, and common mythology, ideology and values.  Michael Joseph Francisconi

Class is defined as relations of production.  Relations of production are relationships of economic power or property.  Social relations with the same relations to production, property, and economic power are in the same class.  Class is the most important explanatory category in social science.  Class structures virtually all aspects of society, social conflict, and historical development.  Class positions permeate not only economic life, but also consciousness, culture, politics, and such ultimate things as life expectancy, sexual realizations, marriage, religion, and the very possibilities of happiness and mental health.  Al Szymanski

Liberal Revolution

Capitalism or Capitalisms, is described by profits for investors as private property. Most economic system democratic or autocratic is justified by an essential set of social ethics. Honor for the patrician despot or comradeship for the egalitarian community.

The investor invests in things that return more money than invested.

This includes producing things to sell. He buys the technology such as tools, raw materials, lands, buildings means of transport, power sources and etc. But, none of this makes sense unless inputs are changed into changed into something that will sell at a higher price than invested. This requires labor power. The capitalist has the money to set the whole thin into motion. Without this money nothing will ever happen. But, this is meaningless prattle without labor power. Production requires money of the investor and needs labor power of living individuals. Even robots require someone to run them.

The worker sells her labor for a wage. The investor has the money, and in his role as capitalist buys materials and labor.  This forms a highly dysfunctional marriage. As her secret lover I side with labor.

Through production the worker changes the material into something new called a commodity. But what is important is a social relation between people is what is real in this economic relation. Because the capitalist owns the original materials and in turn buys labor used up he owns the final product put on the market to sell. This goal is to end up more money than was initially advanced. Thus the

 “Capital” claims his right.

The owner of the money put up will only need enough input in means of production and labor power sufficient to show a profit on his investment. If the cost of either side of the equation can be lowered the he is properly compelled to get most for his buck. If makes a profit this is good if not, not so then the gambler feels his a righteous claim. The worker sees herself as central. Everything the capitalist owns and all his money is the product of past labor. With his new money he has nothing without new labor. This creates an extremely cruel affair.

Double movement

The study of capitalism, society and culture is the study of private enterprise both its’ social order and way of life. The permanent crisis of capitalism is the enduring structure of contemporary existence.  The resulting economic and ecological disaster contributes to the social-cultural catastrophe destroying the larger global society. The current discipline of economics often fails to understand the basics of economics. Karl Polanyi as an economist was a key figure in the understanding of historical economics, the creation of economic sociology and the father of economic anthropology.

Traditionally markets were embedded in larger social institutions and subject to ethical norms of the rest of the society. Capitalism was the first and last true revolution, destroying the moral, social and cultural fabric of society.  Markets if unregulated are self-destructive and fall apart almost immediately.

This was the double movement. British Capitalism was the model of free markets. With free enterprise is born nearly simultaneously the need for crisis management. The problem was regulations were unavoidable, but they unregulated. Regulations were on the spot damage control, often without a long-term plan.

Those who claim that free markets were never given a fair chance to regulate themselves or the practicalities of free enterprise were not ever given a reasonable possibility are wrong.  In fact the irrationality of this utopian fantasy is so intense that once put into place social and cultural collapse was always immediate requiring regulations to prevent total collapse of social and cultural life.

Free enterprise is not based upon human nature, but a fantasy. This dream is impossible, Land, labor and money are capital input, but not really. Because they are not commodities produced for sale. Land is nature, labor is living human beings and  the supply of money is by design and the controlling of it’s access by strategy, and is always regulated as a decided upon symbol that is real because we agree that is real. The gold standard, free silver token money or cattle, were all money at one time or another. But none the three were created for the market. But they are treated as if they were thus requiring external regulation of their supply.

Capitalism in fact was never the result of free markets. Government originally created capitalism politically through violence, the fiction of capitalism is and was more than an utopian dream it was forced upon society by its supporters politically, and administratively owing to coercion. Because of the liberal revolution that established free enterprise i.e. capitalism the debate today is not between socialism and capitalism, but socialism for the rich and socialism for the poor.