[p2p-research] Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish

Fri Jun 5 07:08:52 CEST 2009

publishing ryan's original with kevin's reply on the 7th,

Michel

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/27/09, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > After some consideration, I've decided that the post-capitalism talk is
> > largely Utopian fantasy:
>
> Well, a lot of it depends on what you mean by "post-capitalism," and
> hinges on just how much things would have to deviate from the current
> model of corporate capitalism before it qualifies as fundamentally
> different.  I believe that within a generation we're going to see a
> radical shortening of supply and distribution chains from Peak Oil, a
> combined relocalization of most production and an explosion of LETS
> and barter networks as official money and wage employment dry up for a
> major part of the population, and a collapse of the old corporate
> proprietors in the culture and software industries.  I believe
> there'll still be some long-distance trade (albeit a fraction of the
> present value), and things called stock markets and corporations will
> still exist (albeit at a fraction of their present importance in the
> overall economy); if this means that "capitalism" will exist in your
> terminology, well and good.
>
> > 1. Current financial assets are considerably more than all non-cash
> assets
> > in the world.  Over the counter derivatives alone in 2007 were over 600
> > trillion USD.  (that's trillion with a T).  The innovation that has been
> > financial markets goes on strong and the wealth created is anything but
> > fictitious.
>
> The growth of the financial sector compared to physical assets is a
> major symptom of the problem.   Given corporate capitalism's chronic
> tendency toward overproduction and overinvestment, you can't invest
> the surplus in plant and equipment that will generate even more goods
> when people can't consume existing output.  So you pile up the surplus
> investment capital in a FIRE sector that only works until the ponzi
> scheme collapses.
>
> > 2. The total global gross product (GDP of the world in 2007) was about 47
> > trillion USD (almost 14 trillion of that in the USA).  So far in the
> > recession/depression, it has sunk globally by about 2% and certainly not
> > more than 4%.  Total stock market valuations were 51 trillion in 2007 and
> > are perhaps slightly less than that now.
>
> The U.S. stock market valuations a couple of months ago were about 50%
> of their 2007 high, and still less than two-thirds.  Real estate
> prices have plummeted as well.
>
> > 7. Unemployment in the US is just reach 10% where it has been sustained
> for
> > years in other nations like Germany.
>
> When adjusted realistically for underemployed and discouraged workers,
> it's more like 15% or 16%, which is about the equilibrium FDR managed
> to achieve in the late '30s, and would probably have continued
> indefinitely had not WWII saved corporate capitalism.  That's not a
> very high bar for success.
>
> > 8. Capitalism in Asia and Africa is taking off considerably.  The
> potential for growth is     > probably only bound by climate change issues.
>
> That's a big "only."  First of all, one reason for the growth of the
> FIRE economy from the '90s on was that the export of industrial
> capital had reached its limits as a strategy for solving the crisis of
> overinvestment.  China is saturated with more industrial capital than
> there is a market for.  And second, there's not much future in
> shipping goods overseas from Chinese factories when fuel costs two or
> three--or more--times what it did this time last year.
>
> > 12. Even with a collapse of the dollar, oil exploding to several hundred
> > dollars a barrel (both of which are reasonably feasible), there is little
> to
> > suggest that this would be more than a hiccup for markets and capitalism.
>
> This is hard to believe.  Had oil stayed at its summer 2008 prices
> indefinitely, some 20% of airline routes would have shut down and a
> comparable percentage of long-haul trucks left the market.  And this
> was indeed a "hiccup" compared to what we can expect from Peak Oil in
> the future.  Even a supply shortfall of a few percent can cause prices
> at the pump to double.  What can we expect when supply falls by half
> or two-thirds over the next generation?  I expect we'll see a total
> collapse of intercontinental supply chains except in vital minerals,
> and an order of magnitude of reduction of continental supply chains
> for most manufactured goods.  The factories in China and Vietnam will
> become useless for anything but producing goods for people in--well,
> in China and Vietnam.  Production of spare parts and modular
> accessories will grow massively at the expense of production of new
> goods, and the growth in such production of spare parts and modular
> accessories will occur mainly in flexible manufacturing nets in
> relocalized industrial economies.  In-season produce will be almost
> entirely relocalized by backyard gardening and market gardening, and a
> much larger percentage of our diets will be either in-season or canned
> local stuff.
>
> We're barely two years into the real crisis:  two years from when real
> estate prices began to slide, a year from when Peak Oil first became a
> household word, and nine months since inventories and employment began
> a free-fall.
>
> To say "everything's OK so far" this early in the process is IMO about
> like saying, immediately after Alaric's first repulse from the gates
> of Rome, "Well, the system's still got a lot of life in it."  Or the
> old joke about the optimist who fell off a 100-story skyscraper and
> shouted to the people on the 99th floor, "OK so far!"
>
> > That said, I think P2P is exciting, vital and an excellent tonic to
> excesses
> > of capitalism and markets.  However, I am convinced the main issue is
> > climate change.  If there is an Achilles' heel of capitalism, it is
> climate
> > change.
>
> Well, yeah.   But that's a biggie.  The whole export-oriented pattern
> of growth you keep appealing to in China, and possibly in Africa in
> the future, was becoming increasingly untenable even with oil at
> $140/barrel last year, when McKinsey Quarterly was running articles
> about corporations looking to shorten their supply chains from China
> to Mexico.  What happens to that "warehouses in container ships"
> distribution model when oil is $1000/barrel?  My guess is the ships
> will be rusting, the shipping containers will serve as houses, and the
> industry in China will be redirected to the Chinese domestic market if
> it survives at all.
>
> To say that things look good for capitalism except for Peak Oil is a
> bit like saying your uncle is just like your aunt except for his
> testicles.
>
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
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