Yes a balance found with the trade-off between the minimization of rent-seeking/market power and the idea that market companies tend to perform better by having stronger incentives to innovate and understanding consumer needs better. This of course relies on competition. So where there are only one or few market actors, the trade-off will be in favor of public ownership.
Sometimes it’s the lack of laws or institutions that prevent competition. For example, social media companies have huge market power because every user that wants to switch has to convince their friends to switch too. This is because these companies have made it difficult to switch out of their ecosystem. Europe is trying to build laws that means that friends can be automatically transferred or that you can chat to WhatsApp users from another app. We need to think better about how we can promote competition. Look at YouTube. If the government had a website where you could upload your videos and check off every YouTube alternative you wanted to upload it to, then it would be much more likely that the same videos could be found on for example PeerTube, making it a more competitive alternative.
With other companies like rail, ports, power, water, and other utilities, you cannot promote competition without losing economies of scale. And these are also not areas with a lot of benefits of privatization (innovation, consumer understanding), so these have a big benefit of being public.
Capital is not going to get unchecked increasing power as long as there is enough competition.
Competition kills itself over time, by the mechanisms you describe, and government can’t truly be a meaningful check on business unless it’s a proletarian government, which requires proletarian control of the base. Competition cannot exist forever.
Based on analyzing wealth concentration, and how much large firms control over smaller ones. Marx explains why it happens in Capital, but an easy way to think of it is because large firms have more financial power to create large and complex chains of production, lowering costs overall and outcompeting small firms.
Yeah that’s called economies of scale, these are not big in all industries and barriers of entry are also not big in all industries. So your argument is a good argument for why we have antitrust laws and why we need some companies and industries to be publicly owned, but this is not the case for every industry.
So what does your analysis of wealth concentration say? Has every capitalist country had increased wealth concentration? What type of wealth has increased in concentration?
Different industries and sectors gradually scale differently, but all move towards concentration. This is consistent and graduated. Every Capitalist country has regularly seen this gradual concentration over time, even if temporary shifts against this trend happen.
Again, without an analysis of political power and taking an agnostic attitude towards production, you have what can sound to liberals as a good idea but is ultimately not a real answer. If the Proletariat cannot wrest control, all regulations and taxes will be enacted in a manner that suits the Capitalists in control if you get far enough in the first place. Wealth will continue to accumulate, as the entire M-C-M’ circuit is based on growth in scale of profit, not steady cashflow.
The Marxist position isn’t that moving towards full public ownership immediately is a practical solution, but that this is a gradual process that starts with the proletariat siezing control. I recommend you actually engage with Marxist theory.
I already know these theoretical arguments you’re presenting, but they are not worth as much when there’s no empirical proof. You didn’t answer my more empirical questions, which are the main source of the counter arguments. Why are there capitalist countries that don’t see a rise in inequality? Where is housing in your analysis, which makes up more than 50% of all wealth (up from 15-20% 100 years ago). Why is the capital to income ratio not rising when housing is taken out of the equation? Why is every productivity gain in society accompanied by equally rising housing rents?
There’s absolutely empirical proof of steady monopolization and concentration of production in fewer and fewer hands, it happens in all countries as industry develops. Growing larger and more complex is a necessary aspect of lowering supply chain costs, and thus chasing profits. As for your specific questions:
Why are there capitalist countries that don’t see a rise in inequality?
These don’t exist. There are countries where large influxes of concessions from Capitalists have lowered inequality temporarily, but there is still rising inequality over time.
Where is housing in your analysis, which makes up more than 50% of all wealth (up from 15-20% 100 years ago).
I don’t even agree with your numbers, if you could source them that would be great, but even if we take them at face value as true, rent and land are key aspects of Marxist analysis. Land is finite, as population grows and supply is constrained, monopoly prices can be extracted. It’s usury, landlordism is parasitic. The land factories are on also plays a part in the cost of finished goods, rent is tied to commodity pricing.
Georgists seem to think they are the only ones to have noticed the problems with private land ownership, but the truth is that Marxists have a more comprehensive understanding of it. See China, Cuba, and other countries run by Marxists to see what Land Reform under Marxists looks like. I think you’ll probably like the PRC’s model.
Why is the capital to income ratio not rising when housing is taken out of the equation?
Citation needed, and you need to narrow the scope. You need to take Imperialism into account as well, workers in the Global North are paid “bribes” won by international plundering.
Why is every productivity gain in society accompanied by equally rising housing rents?
It’s not always equal, but often is. Worker wages are largely depressed to the cost to reproduce them, and rents rise accordingly. Productivity isn’t coupled with wages in Capitalist countries as a rule, the landlords and Capitalists swallow all of the gains up.
Overall, you seem to think you have a grand insight into land. You’re certainly above the average liberal, who sees no real problem with it, but Marxists have a more multi-sided understanding of land, and have regularly enacted successful land reform. Georgists also have no real way to implement their policies without adopting a revolutionary stance, where they are far outnumbered by the Marxists and Anarchists.
Georgism is more correct than standard liberalism, but is too focused on one aspect of the failures of Capitalism, too one-sided, too insufficient even if it were enacted, and has no path to actually be enacted. Marxism has none of those faults.
Yes a balance found with the trade-off between the minimization of rent-seeking/market power and the idea that market companies tend to perform better by having stronger incentives to innovate and understanding consumer needs better. This of course relies on competition. So where there are only one or few market actors, the trade-off will be in favor of public ownership.
Sometimes it’s the lack of laws or institutions that prevent competition. For example, social media companies have huge market power because every user that wants to switch has to convince their friends to switch too. This is because these companies have made it difficult to switch out of their ecosystem. Europe is trying to build laws that means that friends can be automatically transferred or that you can chat to WhatsApp users from another app. We need to think better about how we can promote competition. Look at YouTube. If the government had a website where you could upload your videos and check off every YouTube alternative you wanted to upload it to, then it would be much more likely that the same videos could be found on for example PeerTube, making it a more competitive alternative.
With other companies like rail, ports, power, water, and other utilities, you cannot promote competition without losing economies of scale. And these are also not areas with a lot of benefits of privatization (innovation, consumer understanding), so these have a big benefit of being public.
Capital is not going to get unchecked increasing power as long as there is enough competition.
Competition kills itself over time, by the mechanisms you describe, and government can’t truly be a meaningful check on business unless it’s a proletarian government, which requires proletarian control of the base. Competition cannot exist forever.
Based on what evidence? Where I’m from, which is a capitalist country, inequality hasn’t risen and union membership has stayed strong.
Based on analyzing wealth concentration, and how much large firms control over smaller ones. Marx explains why it happens in Capital, but an easy way to think of it is because large firms have more financial power to create large and complex chains of production, lowering costs overall and outcompeting small firms.
Yeah that’s called economies of scale, these are not big in all industries and barriers of entry are also not big in all industries. So your argument is a good argument for why we have antitrust laws and why we need some companies and industries to be publicly owned, but this is not the case for every industry.
So what does your analysis of wealth concentration say? Has every capitalist country had increased wealth concentration? What type of wealth has increased in concentration?
Different industries and sectors gradually scale differently, but all move towards concentration. This is consistent and graduated. Every Capitalist country has regularly seen this gradual concentration over time, even if temporary shifts against this trend happen.
Again, without an analysis of political power and taking an agnostic attitude towards production, you have what can sound to liberals as a good idea but is ultimately not a real answer. If the Proletariat cannot wrest control, all regulations and taxes will be enacted in a manner that suits the Capitalists in control if you get far enough in the first place. Wealth will continue to accumulate, as the entire M-C-M’ circuit is based on growth in scale of profit, not steady cashflow.
The Marxist position isn’t that moving towards full public ownership immediately is a practical solution, but that this is a gradual process that starts with the proletariat siezing control. I recommend you actually engage with Marxist theory.
I already know these theoretical arguments you’re presenting, but they are not worth as much when there’s no empirical proof. You didn’t answer my more empirical questions, which are the main source of the counter arguments. Why are there capitalist countries that don’t see a rise in inequality? Where is housing in your analysis, which makes up more than 50% of all wealth (up from 15-20% 100 years ago). Why is the capital to income ratio not rising when housing is taken out of the equation? Why is every productivity gain in society accompanied by equally rising housing rents?
There’s absolutely empirical proof of steady monopolization and concentration of production in fewer and fewer hands, it happens in all countries as industry develops. Growing larger and more complex is a necessary aspect of lowering supply chain costs, and thus chasing profits. As for your specific questions:
These don’t exist. There are countries where large influxes of concessions from Capitalists have lowered inequality temporarily, but there is still rising inequality over time.
I don’t even agree with your numbers, if you could source them that would be great, but even if we take them at face value as true, rent and land are key aspects of Marxist analysis. Land is finite, as population grows and supply is constrained, monopoly prices can be extracted. It’s usury, landlordism is parasitic. The land factories are on also plays a part in the cost of finished goods, rent is tied to commodity pricing.
Georgists seem to think they are the only ones to have noticed the problems with private land ownership, but the truth is that Marxists have a more comprehensive understanding of it. See China, Cuba, and other countries run by Marxists to see what Land Reform under Marxists looks like. I think you’ll probably like the PRC’s model.
Citation needed, and you need to narrow the scope. You need to take Imperialism into account as well, workers in the Global North are paid “bribes” won by international plundering.
It’s not always equal, but often is. Worker wages are largely depressed to the cost to reproduce them, and rents rise accordingly. Productivity isn’t coupled with wages in Capitalist countries as a rule, the landlords and Capitalists swallow all of the gains up.
Overall, you seem to think you have a grand insight into land. You’re certainly above the average liberal, who sees no real problem with it, but Marxists have a more multi-sided understanding of land, and have regularly enacted successful land reform. Georgists also have no real way to implement their policies without adopting a revolutionary stance, where they are far outnumbered by the Marxists and Anarchists.
Georgism is more correct than standard liberalism, but is too focused on one aspect of the failures of Capitalism, too one-sided, too insufficient even if it were enacted, and has no path to actually be enacted. Marxism has none of those faults.