Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Capitalist production
Message-ID: <532@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 09:18:37 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.532
Posted: Thu Mar 21 09:18:37 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Mar-85 02:33:22 EST
References: <370@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: /usr/exptools/lib/netnews/myorg
Lines: 44

> 
> Because he *owns* the machines and factories?  But a factory doesn't
> need to be owned in order to produce -- it just has to exist and be
> operated by people.  And the people who brought it into existence are
> the workers who built it, the engineers who designed it, the
> inventors who invented the machines -- i.e., the people whose labor
> of various kinds brought the factory into being.  (The capitalist qua
> capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he
> works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.)  To call
> capital productive is to attribute a human quality to something that
> is dead, an animate quality to something inanimate (Marx termed it
> "fetishism").  It is PEOPLE who do things:  who build machines, who
> invent machines, who discover scientific knowledge, who, in short,
> create new wealth, and who are therefore productive.  Capitalism,
> however, cannot tolerate this truth, since it undermines the
> rationale for profit-making.  
> 
> Richard Carnes

Your articles are magnificent logical expositions, Richard, and in general
I am in total agreement.  However I think that you cannot neglect one
aspect of the "Capitalist" which *is* important-that is the degree to
which the entrepreneur and some capitalists do contribute organization
to the productive enterprise whatever it is. Organizing all the elements
of machines, labor and planning is a very important function-without somebody
or some group of people to pull these all together nothing will get
produced.  Of course there is nothing to say this organization has to be
either inspired ,motivated or organized in a capitalistic fashion.
Being a member of several coops I know that it took a certain entrepreneurial
spirit to get them started and organized.  However that spirit was collective
and democratic in nature: decisions of all the coops I have been in have
always been made democratically. NOT by some "owner" who dictates the
organization to those below.  Moreover with the separation of ownership
from control and management of modern corporations, one may legitimately
ask how much an absentee jetset owner who has inherited stock in a
corporation (more likely numerous corporations to diversify their portfolio:
done most likely by a stockbroker hired to make smart investments)
contributes to the organization or management of the corporation.  The
answer is undoubtedly precious little.  But people like Andrew Carnegie,
Rockefeller who built up their own companies did do much organizational
work in the process of accumulating their industrial empires.
Encouraging and allowing entrepreneurship is very important to a
productive socialism.
           tim sevener  whuxl!orb