'expropriate'?1 Wow! Such strong, emotional language... are you talking about some sort of slavery, where people are being forced by other humans to work for them?
Expropriate
3. to take (something) from another's possession for one's own use: He expropriated my ideas for his own article.
What's emotional about that? If I were emotional, I would have said 'steal'.
PROFIT determines 'useful' - how 'useful' any particular good or service is, can ONLY be determined by each individual actually 'using' it. For instance, a ladder has a certain usefulness to me, but isn't worth much to someone in a wheelchair. That one was easy, this one explains why NOTHING can be determined through an outside perspective: How useful is a dozen roses? Depends if you like roses, have an allergy to them, have a significant other, are courting another, etc, etc, etc. Now, 'profit' is only garnered on the free market if people are willing to pay a certain price, which corresponds to their desire to 'use' the product. If I tie a few sticks together and attempt to sell the resulting contraption, I will receive no profit if no one sees any value in it. On the other hand, if the sticks are arranged in a certain fashion, say a 'chair', then perhaps I might make money depending on what others thought of it. Or, the sticks could result in something that has no 'tangible' use, but rather some vague, artistic value (which obviously cannot be measured by others). Don't be scared of PROFIT or MONEY which come at us in the form of PRICES, it contains information within which gives the consumer a relative index which fits uses human valuations of the resources used to produce the product versus all other possible resource uses.
No, no, no!
There is a difference between USE VALUE and EXCHANGE VALUE.
A piece of bread has use value in that one can eat it to assuage hunger.
At the same time, it has exchange value in that you can sell it for a profit.
In a capitalist society, exchange value not only precedes use value, it undermines it completely. If no one buys the piece of bread, it rots on the shelf - hence its use value is destroyed needlessly and profligately.
What is truly reprehensible is the phenomenon of a market glut that happens periodically in capitalist economies. Employment of technology makes it possible to produce vast quantities without regard for its use. Hence overproduction occurs. In it, goods are deliberately destroyed in an effort to control price and the capitalists' profit.
again, China's current 'economic miracle' so completely due to the liberalization of its markets and restriction of its government into the market which has brought it about.
Nothing in 'market liberalization' can explain the abundance of cheap goods it produces.
A market-oriented economy simply means extensive trade. Nothing in communism prohibits trade with other nations. It is one of the most fundamental economic activity. It has nothing to do with HOW goods and services are produced - which is what communism is addressing.
The most liberal markets in the world can be found in the third world. That is why the industries in the third world can't developed - they are forced to compete with the technologically advanced industrial west.
So you see, market liberalization couldn't have been the sole cause of china's economic performance.
Profits and prices are the ONLY way to understand the relative quantity and abundance of ALL resources, including human labor - if someone is spending their labor towards one end (say accounting) they cannot simultaneously put their labor towards another end (say, making hospital beds).
I was talking about finite, natural, non-renewable resources. The exploitation of these resources must not be entirely dependent on the unrestricted pursuit of ever-increasing profits - which is the motto of capitalist production.
for ever and ever as long as the government or other coersive forces are not allowed to intrude.
From above, it is clear that the pursuit of profit is NOT sustainable.
so-called 'common ownership' is perfectly compatible with capitalism: there is nothing about the workers owning the company where they work as being prevented or somehow hamstrung by capitalism. Fact is, capitalism is the only system which does not need or require governmental force to make work: socialism and communism REQUIRE its citizens to participate, and in extreme circumstances, these governmental types will restrict the possibility of people to 'opt out'. Shorthand restated: there can easilly be 'socialist enclaves' in capitalism... there cannot be a capitalistic enclaves in a socialistic government controlled nation.
I agree completely.
That is why I do not quite agree with the revolutionary reconstitution of society happening in a fortnight. The inherent contradictions in capitalism must become apparent before the necessity to change it comes about.
The point I'm making is that there are inherent contradictions in capitalism, as marx pointed out. It is these incongruities which would ultimately cause its demise - hence self destructive.
