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   RD (rd4anarchy@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Aug-2023 17:09:10 JST RD

   in reply to

   @SallyStrange @mmclark @pixelpusher220

   The private ownership thing gets emphasized a lot, especially in dictionary examples, but I've come to think it is not really essential at all; not a defining feature of capitalism.

   Consider the following description of capitalism from the book "State Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management" by Adam Buick and John Crump:

   "We shall suggest that, apart from being a class society, capitalism has the following six essential characteristics:

   1. Generalised commodity production, nearly all wealth being produced for sale on a market.

   2. The investment of capital in production with a view to obtaining a monetary profit.

   3. The exploitation of wage labour, the source of profit being the unpaid labour of the producers.

   4. The regulation of production by the market via a competitive struggle for profits.

   5. The accumulation of capital out of profits, leading to the expansion and development of the forces of production.

   6. A single world economy."

   The focus of this short book is to argue (very successfully IMO) that individual private ownership is not a defining feature of capitalism and that countries such as China, The Soviet Union (this was published in 1986), Cuba, Vietnam, etc, though they may identify as "socialist" and are called "communist" by many are in fact simply another form of capitalism called "state capitalism".

   In the process of making this argument, this book also became an excellent general reference for understanding what capitalism really is, how capitalist economics work, what socialism really is and isn't, and plenty of fascinating and clarifying historic context.

   free PDF:
   https://files.libcom.org/files/State%20Capitalism.pdf