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Lenin defines Capitalism succinctly as
The most important aspect of Capitalism is that the individual bourgeois exploits the entire proletariat class, rather than a group of people. This doesn’t happen in any other economic system.
Think of a slave-owner. They can exploit only the slaves they own. However, this means that they have the interest to take care of them since a loss of a slave means the loss of labor.
Meanwhile, a landlord doesn’t care who their tenants are or whether they have money for food after paying rent. There is always someone outside waiting for one apartment to get vacant.
The individual bourgeois has leverage over an entire class, so you have no leverage against them. The only leverage against the bourgeoisie is when the proletariat class gets organized. One individual is hopeless.
So, I think I would summarize it without jargon as “Capitalism is the system which you have to auction your precious time in the market to the lowest available wage to people who don’t care whether you eat well because there is an entire line of people ready to take your spot.”
It’s a bit wordy, but I think it does the job. Every worker has some fear of getting replaced.
I’ve been thinking about verbosity/garroulessness for several months, since I tend to swing from that to being terse to the point it seems rude. With declining literacy and reading comprehension rates in Western societies, it would behoove us to find a middle ground, since attention spans are also in serious decline, for many varied reasons, not the least of which is physical exhaustion and mental/emotional overwhelm.
I’m struggling with how to find a way towards tercity and unintended rudeness. I need to also work on patience, since impatience fuels intentional rudeness.
Most people are capable of reading long texts as long as they are interested in them. Maybe we can focus on “stepping stones” in order to build this interest.
Informative memes and pamphlets can be used to agitate workers with false consciousness. If they become advanced workers, then they will be able to read The Capital or something.
At the end of the day though, most workers won’t reach advanced levels.
Interesting, thanks for the breakdown.
So with that in mind, here’s an attempt to simplify it a bit more in a way similar to the phrase I started with: “In the capitalist US, the capitalists force you to sell your labor power to the market in exchange for temporary relief from starving. In socialist China, organized labor power allows the market to exist in exchange for its consistent contribution to thriving.”
Heavier than the original in terms of “big words”, but maybe a better halfway point between jargon and “losing important distinctions”. What do you think? Better? Worse? Both?
Yeah, that’s great. The only issue I would have is that if you are mentioning the US, then your audience is probably Amerikans, who are very Sinophobic.
But considering that China is getting a lot of good rep, then I think it’s fine to use it as an example.
If you want to drive the point home, why not ask a concrete question like “how did China go from a nation of starving farmers to a global powerhouse in a couple of generations if it wasn’t socialism?” after your definition of Capitalism.
Fair point, I’ll try to keep that in mind. Could probably apply to imperial core audiences in general, asking a rhetorical question like that. Or elsewhere if somebody is being Sinophobic.
I think the phrasing is also general enough about the principles we went over concerning capitalism that “In the capitalist US” could be replaced with “In capitalist Canada” or EU or whatever and still be accurate. It might not land as hard if someone is in an area where unions are stronger, but my impression is that although organized labor is stronger in some parts of the imperial core than others, it’s also been in decline for a while, owed largely to it only having achieved buffer status rather than controlling the state.
That’s a good point.
Adding to your point, in a place with strong unions, maybe it’s good to question why things keep getting worse even with union protection. Unions in Capitalism is just delaying the inevitable (the tendency for the rate of profit to fall).
The Nordic countries are seeing this happen in real time.