Because I’ve talked to people who say things like that and it just makes me lose my faith in humanity a little yea

But I have to remind myself that this tagline is some western Marxist (or maybe socdem?) verbal diarrhea and isn’t common among the people who matter

    • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      24·
      7 days ago

      It’s the kind of argument made by someone who only learns socialism from non-expert sources (breadtube etc) where theoretical precision is sacrificed for popular appeal. If you only ever listen to those people, and never read Marx directly, you are likely to end up with the most confused ideas.

      This particular idea might have originated with Richard Wolff, who I’ve previously complained about so I’m not surprised if it did start with him.

      Understanding capitalism in terms of workplace relationships differs from how others define capitalism. […] Using my definition instead, the last century’s epic struggle was not between capitalism and another economic system. That is because both capitalism and 20th century socialism relied upon basically the same employer-employee relationship for their workplaces’ organization. The difference was who the employers were: private persons in capitalism versus state officials in socialism.

      This is why no one should listen to Wolff.

      • woodenghost [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        6 days ago

        That might have contributed to his split with David Harvey, maybe? Harvey is not good about imperialism either. Vijay Prashad called him out on describing imperialism (and not too badly), but completely avoiding the actual word “imperialism”, dancing around the issue. But at least Harvey centers capital as “value in motion”. A socialist state with central planning is clearly fundamentally different from a society, where a huge mass of capital spirals economy into worse and worse crisis on the quest for profitable investment. The socialist state doesn’t need growth or rising profits or any profits to reproduce itself. A specific bureaucracy might be inefficient or even corrupt, but it doesn’t need to be to reproduce itself. Capitalism causes crisis necessarily.

        I think Wolff is reaching some people in a positive way, but only as a stepping stone. I used to listen to him a lot, but my understanding developed further. Eg he has a good take on inflation as basically class warfare. But he can’t explain some important crisis tendencies without understanding capital.