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Showing posts with the label "surplus-value"
Empiricism, because it takes its evidence from the existing order of things, is inherently prone to accepting as realities things that are merely evidence of underlying biases and ideological pressures. Empiricism, for Marx, will always confirm the status quo. He would have particularly disliked the modern tendency to argue from ‘facts’, as if those facts were neutral chunks of reality, free of the watermarks of history and interpretation and ideological bias and of the circumstances of their own production . The financial system in its current condition poses an existential threat to Western democracy far exceeding any terrorist threat. No democracy has ever been destabilised by terrorism Marx and 'capitalism' by John Lanchester
Ian Wright [Open University, UK] dismisses the mainstream causes of rising inequality: namely, unequal distribution of profits and wages or lower taxes on the rich; or automation driving down wages relatively for those not working in ‘knowledge-based’ industries.  Instead, the causes of rising inequality must be found in the very nature of the capitalist mode of production.  As Wright puts it,  “capitalism is a system in which one economic class systematically exploits another. And its economic exploitation — not housing, tax policies or low wages — that is the root cause of the economic inequality we see all around us.” Inequality and exploitation
Michael Roberts replies to the Financial Times' "Activist Manifesto" Recent empirical work on the US class division of incomes has been done by Professor Simon Mohun .  Mohun analysed US income tax returns and divided taxpayers into those who could live totally off income from capital (rent, interest and dividends) – the true capitalists, and those who had to work to make a living (wages).  He compared the picture in 1918 with now and found that only 3.8% of taxpayers could be considered capitalists, while 88% were workers in the Marxist definition.  In 2011, only 2% were capitalists and near 84% were workers.  The ‘managerial’ class, ie workers who also had some income from capital (a middle class ?) had grown a little from 8% to 14%, but still not decisive.  Capitalist incomes were 11 times higher on average than workers in 1918, but now they were 22 times larger.  The old slogan of the 1% and the 99% is almost accurate." From communism to activism? ...
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