Capitalism: an introduction

libcom.org's brief introduction to capitalism and how it works.

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Submitted by Steven. on May 15, 2011

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At its root, capitalism is an economic system based on three things: wage labour (working for a wage), private ownership or control of the means of production (things like factories, machinery, farms, and offices), and production for exchange and profit.

While some people own means of production, or capital, most of us don't and so to survive we need to sell our ability to work in return for a wage, or else scrape by on benefits. This first group of people is the capitalist class or "bourgeoisie" in Marxist jargon, and the second group is the working class or "proletariat". See our introduction to class here for more information on class.

Capitalism is based on a simple process – money is invested to generate more money. When money functions like this, it functions as capital. For instance, when a company uses its profits to hire more staff or open new premises, and so make more profit, the money here is functioning as capital. As capital increases (or the economy expands), this is called 'capital accumulation', and it's the driving force of the economy.

Those accumulating capital do so better when they can shift costs onto others. If companies can cut costs by not protecting the environment, or by paying sweatshop wages, they will. So catastrophic climate change and widespread poverty are signs of the normal functioning of the system. Furthermore, for money to make more money, more and more things have to be exchangeable for money. Thus the tendency is for everything from everyday items to DNA sequences to carbon dioxide emissions – and, crucially, our ability to work - to become commodified.

And it is this last point - the commodification of our creative and productive capacities, our ability to work - which holds the secret to capital accumulation. Money does not turn into more money by magic, but by the work we do every day.

In a world where everything is for sale, we all need something to sell in order to buy the things we need. Those of us with nothing to sell except our ability to work have to sell this ability to those who own the factories, offices, etc. And of course, the things we produce at work aren't ours, they belong to our bosses.

Furthermore, because of long hours, productivity improvements etc, we produce much more than necessary to keep us going as workers. The wages we get roughly match the cost of the products necessary to keep us alive and able to work each day (which is why, at the end of each month, our bank balance rarely looks that different to the month before). The difference between the wages we are paid and the value we create is how capital is accumulated, or profit is made.

This difference between the wages we are paid and the value we create is called "surplus value". The extraction of surplus value by employers is the reason we view capitalism as a system based on exploitation - the exploitation of the working class. See this case study on the functioning of a capitalist restaurant for an example.

This process is essentially the same for all wage labour, not just that in private companies. Public sector workers also face constant attacks on their wages and conditions in order to reduce costs and maximise profits across the economy as a whole.

The capitalist economy also relies on the unpaid work of mostly women workers.

Competition

In order to accumulate capital, our boss must compete in the market with bosses of other companies. They cannot afford to ignore market forces, or they will lose ground to their rivals, lose money, go bust, get taken over, and ultimately cease to be our boss. Therefore even the bosses aren't really in control of capitalism, capital itself is. It's because of this that we can talk about capital as if it has agency or interests of its own, and so often talking about 'capital' is more precise than talking about bosses.

Both bosses and workers, therefore, are alienated by this process, but in different ways. While from the workers' perspective, our alienation is experienced through being controlled by our boss, the boss experiences it through impersonal market forces and competition with other bosses.

Because of this, bosses and politicians are powerless in the face of ‘market forces,’ each needing to act in a way conducive to continued accumulation (and in any case they do quite well out of it!). They cannot act in our interests, since any concessions they grant us will help their competitors on a national or international level.

So, for example, if a manufacturer develops new technology for making cars which doubles productivity it can lay off half its workers, increase its profits and reduce the price of its cars in order to undercut its competition.

If another company wants to be nice to its employees and not sack people, eventually it will be driven out of business or taken over by its more ruthless competitor - so it will also have to bring in the new machinery and make the layoffs to stay competitive.

Of course, if businesses were given a completely free hand to do as they please, monopolies would soon develop and stifle competition which would lead to the system grinding to a halt. The state intervenes, therefore to act on behalf of the long-term interests of capital as a whole.


The state

The primary function of the state in capitalist society is to maintain the capitalist system and aid the accumulation of capital.

As such, the state uses repressive laws and violence against the working class when we try to further our interests against capital. For example, bringing in anti-strike laws, or sending in police or soldiers to break up strikes and demonstrations.

The "ideal" type of state under capitalism at the present time is liberal democratic, however in order to continue capital accumulation at times different political systems are used by capital to do this. State capitalism in the USSR, and fascism in Italy and Germany are two such models, which were necessary for the authorities at the time in order to co-opt and crush powerful working-class movements. Movements which threatened the very continuation of capitalism.

When the excesses of bosses cause workers to fight back, alongside repression the state occasionally intervenes to make sure business as usual resumes without disruption. For this reason national and international laws protecting workers' rights and the environment exist. Generally the strength and enforcement of these laws ebbs and flows in relation to the balance of power between employers and employees in any given time and place. For example, in France where workers are more well-organised and militant, there is a maximum working week of 35 hours. In the UK, where workers are less militant the maximum is 48 hours, and in the US where workers are even less likely to strike there is no maximum at all.

History

Capitalism is presented as a 'natural' system, formed a bit like mountains or land masses by forces beyond human control, that it is an economic system ultimately resulting from human nature. However it was not established by 'natural forces' but by intense and massive violence across the globe. First in the 'advanced' countries, enclosures drove self-sufficient peasants from communal land into the cities to work in factories. Any resistance was crushed. People who resisted the imposition of wage labour were subjected to vagabond laws and imprisonment, torture, deportation or execution.

Later capitalism was spread by invasion and conquest by Western colonial and imperialist powers around the globe. Whole civilisations were brutally destroyed with communities driven from their land into waged work. The only countries that avoided conquest were those - like Japan - which adopted capitalism on their own in order to compete with the other imperial powers. Everywhere capitalism developed, peasants and early workers resisted, but were eventually overcome by mass terror and violence.

Capitalism did not arise by a set of natural laws which stem from human nature: it was spread by the organised violence of the elite. The concept of private property of land and means of production might seem now like the natural state of things, however we should remember it is a man-made concept enforced by conquest. Similarly, the existence of a class of people with nothing to sell but their labour power is not something which has always been the case - common land shared by all was seized by force, and the dispossessed forced to work for a wage under the threat of starvation or even execution.

As capital expanded, it created a global working class consisting of the majority of the world's population whom it exploits but also depends on. As Karl Marx wrote: "What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers."


The future

Capitalism has only existed as the dominant economic system on the planet for a little over 200 years. Compared to the half a million years of human existence it is a momentary blip, and therefore it would be naive to assume that it will last for ever.

It is entirely reliant on us, the working class, and our labour which it must exploit, and so it will only survive as long as we let it.

More information

Comments

Steven.

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on May 15, 2011

One thing we would like suggestions on is if anyone can suggest a better picture for this article!

schalken

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by schalken on May 15, 2011

Clarify that "private ownership of the means of production," as used in the first paragraph, doesn't mean ownership by private individuals, but rather the ownership of the means of production by something other (and smaller) than society as a whole. As Bordiga wisely pointed out (and on which more can be found in Adam Buick's article on Bordiga, which is on Libcom) all property is private:

"Even from the point of view of terminology, property can only be conceived of as being private. For land this is more obvious in view of the fact that the flagrant aspect of this institution is a fence surrounding an estate which cannot be crossed without the consent of the owner. Private property means that the non-owner is deprived of the possibility of going into it. Whoever exercises this right, whether a private person or a group, the character of 'deprivation' remains for all the others."

And as we've seen, whether property is owned privately by individuals, by the state, or even by workers' cooperatives, capitalism still exists. Capitalism isn't a form of property ownership.

Another shortcoming is use of the word "corporation" in place of "capitalist enterprise." Complaining about corporations is leftist tripe; all profit-seeking enterprises are equally driven to exploit workers, ravage the environment, etc., regardless of whether they're big or small, corporations or whatever.

Other than that, this seems to be heading in the right direction.

Harrison

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Harrison on May 15, 2011

i submitted this rather stupid image

if you ever do one for state capitalism, you should definitely use

or any other bit of money with Marx's face ironically minted onto it

duvinrouge

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by duvinrouge on May 15, 2011

To improve it somehow you need to get across the fact that it is a transitory system.

The impression is things will carry on until we somehow find the collective will to bring it down & that this collective will rests entirely upon changing peoples minds & spreading the word.
We know that, "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness".
So just as Rosa Luxemburg emphasized that capitalism would inevitably breakdown & Marx allude to it in part 3 of Volume III of Capital (the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit), I think you need to get a few sentences in that make it clear that capitalism doesn't have a future.
Perhaps mention that capitalism must grow & that the planet is finite & that there's good evidence that supply-side barriers are being hit, e.g. peak-oil, putting downward pressure on the rate & profit & so attacks on working class conditions. Under such continuous attack workers will revolt.

posi

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by posi on May 15, 2011

Bosses call it profit, politicians economic growth.

This isn't right. What politicians call economic growth is growth in a measure of national income, such as GDP or GNP. Such measures are of the amount of spending done in a given period by all economic actors.

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with profit. At the moment, bosses want more growth to get more profits, but this isn't always true: e.g. in the '70s (during a crisis of over-accumulation), growth needed to be brought down because it was posing a threat to profit.

posi

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by posi on May 15, 2011

At its root, capitalism is an economic system based on wage labour, money and the private ownership of the means of production

Well, wage labour is certainly vital. Money, of course, existed before capitalism - even before feudalism - as did private ownership of the means of production.

What distinguishes capitalism, apart from wage labour, is production for the purpose of (profitable) exchange. Capitalism emerges in proportion to the growth of universal commensurability of commodities (including labour), that is, insofar as they appear as valued according to a common standard in economic decisions such as personal consumption and investment.

The article describes the consequences of this quite well (in the section on competition), but doesn't articulate it explicitly as defining capitalism, as it does.

It can't be emphasised enough how far this sort of universal commensurability was not a feature of feudalism, slave owning society, and so on. The profit motive was present at least 5,000 years ago, but didn't come to dominate social, political, and productive decisions until capitalism - with the 1648 peace of Westphalia seen by G. Arrighi as the moment when this takes on political significance in the interstate system. The growing economic-political influence of the profit motive goes precisely in hand with the expansion of commensurability, of which is both a cause and product.

AIW

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by AIW on May 15, 2011

The means of production are all those things necessary for survival - factories, machinery, farms, offices, etc.

Machines are only "Necessary for survival" under water or in space. I agree that they are often useful. How about:

The means of production are things like factories, farms, machinery and offices.

Of course, if corporations were given a completely free hand to do as they please, monopolies would soon develop and stifle competition which would lead to the system grinding to a halt. The state intervenes, therefore to act on behalf of the long-term interests of capital as a whole.

Thats bang on. The collapse of Capitalism is not inevitible; it is overted by State interventions such as wars and bailouts. Revolutions can overthrow the State but unless an equal society is organised and defended, new inequities inevitably develop.

Armchair Anarchist

12 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Armchair Anarchist on May 15, 2011

Public sector workers too face constant attacks on their wages and conditions in order to reduce costs and maximise profits.

I would consider deleting the bit in bold - the 'reduce costs' bit is obviously correct but there aren't any profits as such in the public sector, unless I'm missing something.

Submitted by Harrison on May 15, 2011

Armchair Anarchist

Public sector workers too face constant attacks on their wages and conditions in order to reduce costs and maximise profits.

I would consider deleting the bit in bold - the 'reduce costs' bit is obviously correct but there aren't any profits as such in the public sector, unless I'm missing something.

well in my sector (libraries), we charge massive amounts of money for fines, which is all deposited to a central office. local branches don't even get a look in. and i'm pretty sure some of it just goes straight back into the council's coffers as opposed to back into the library service.

also, private companies are involved in some contract deals, and money is often unfairly funnelled in their favour so they can make a profit.

Submitted by Steven. on May 15, 2011

Firstly, thanks very much for the feedback everyone, there are some very good comments here which we will try to incorporate. We definitely didn't think we would adequately cover a topic this big in our first draft.

Armchair Anarchist

Public sector workers too face constant attacks on their wages and conditions in order to reduce costs and maximise profits.

I would consider deleting the bit in bold - the 'reduce costs' bit is obviously correct but there aren't any profits as such in the public sector, unless I'm missing something.

what we actually meant it was profitability as a whole, as much of the public sector/welfare state is a cost to employers as a whole, so cutting costs can mean lower taxes on business and the rich and some more profits overall. So we will probably reword that.

Please keep the comments coming