Date: Fri, 6 Mar 98 3:39:35 EST From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com> Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Red pom-poms (was POCMPPMP) C. Doug, As you know, while shareholding *derives* from a tradition of direct control by owners, it specifically denies owners' direct control. Similarly, the Soviet system derived from a tradition of direct control by workers but specifically denied workers' direct control. Of course, this says to me that vanguardism is inherently untenable, but we can come back to that. In the case of capitalist shareholding, most Marxists dismiss your important observation that shareholders don't actually have the control to which ownership theoretically entitles them. It's a shame because it explains the transition capitalism has undergone, starting in the 80's. Before the LBO became popular, managements could shelter themselves from shareholders by conglomerating to the point where *accumulation* was insufficient to provide the money needed to effect real corporate power. >From a Marxist perspective that is a very interesting state of affairs. Then capitalists developed the LBO and developed the credit markets to the point where no LBO that was too big to do. If conglomeration meant that ownership itself was no longer sufficient to effect control, the LBO meant that *real* ownership - control by dint of ownership - was and is ownership *plus* access to credit. Money isn't enough any more. You have to have credit-money to be a player. Marx saw credit as a way for a capitalist to increase his power. Now credit is power. In that we are trying to develop a system wherein workers have the greatest and most direct control over the means of production, and in that credit is understood - even now, even under capitalism - to have its basis in the "full faith and credit" of democratic governments, can we afford to ignore credit's possible importance in forming socialism? I don't think it's reasonable to suppose that the evolution of capitalism should not affect the way socialists intend to free the working class. I don't think it's reasonable to think that the agenda was set in the 1850's or 1920's, and that Marxists should simply pursue that agenda without giving a thought to revising it. I don't see why - and I believe that you don't either - Marxists should be afraid of commerce, or the rule of law, or even the market. Your questions are completely reasonable. I don't think that Marxists can afford to dismiss them, or fail to consider them. peace --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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