The end of capitalism has begun

[Ichingcarpenter]

snip


As with the end of feudalism 500 years ago, capitalism’s replacement by postcapitalism will be accelerated by external shocks and shaped by the emergence of a new kind of human being. And it has started.

Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. First, it has reduced the need for work, blurred the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages. The coming wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.

Second, information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system’s defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last. By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.



Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy. The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3bn a year in revenue...................................




more


http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun?CMP=share_btn_tw

[tech3149]

1. Interesting article but I think the author gets as many things wrong as he gets right

It would be nice if we could progress beyond capitalism.
With regard to people needing to work less, I've been told that since the 60's at least. I remember one of those weekly mags telling me that by 2000 I wouldn't have to work more than 10 or 15 hours a week. Well, that sure as hell didn't happen!
Every technological development in the age of man that made self support require less effort provided the means for making the labor of someone unnecessary. How do those people earn the means to support themselves? That excess of available labor makes everyone's labor less valuable.
One of the most informed statement he makes is that " our social structure cannot bear the consequences".
The other is pointing out that collaborative production, a cooperative economy is an option for hope. But where the hell does Wikipedia come into the picture? How does giving away my time and effort for no compensation pay my bills or buy my groceries?
Oh, Hell! Just ignore me. If I tried to respond to all the crap in this piece I would be writing a book. I guess since the article was in the "Economics" section it would be full of shit.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I thought it was a start on looking at

what is happening around us. But like you said its incomplete

[snot]

4. I found this one of the most interesting articles I've read in a long time.

Last edited Fri Jul 17, 2015, 07:53 PM - Edit history (1)

The reason we're not all working less for a higher standard of living is that the 1%'s figured out – at least temporarily – how to scrape off all the excess value we've created during the last several decades. They did this through regressive tax changes; the vitiation of labor laws; "free trade" agreements that ensured a race to the bottom w.r.t. wages, work conditions, and environmental protections; the repeal of Glass-Steagall and other regulations/enforcement that, for a while, had made various kinds of looting more difficult; and perhaps most importantly, through the acquisition of some 95% of traditional media worldwide; etc.

But there's nothing that says it has to remain that way.

And I think the author has interesting points in the ideas that information may be harder to possess and control than physical products and infrastructure, AND that there are an attraction inherent in the power of info-sharing, as well as exponential progress/gains created when information is freely shared . . .

and that the capitalist need to own/possess/control all that info-product is, in some sense, fighting the tide . . .

My main concern is that we've experienced similar flourishings when new info-sharing technologies were invented in the past (e.g., the Gutenberg printing press), and the results were indeed disruptive to the existing power structures . . . until eventually, the 1% got control of it.

And the 1% are doing everything possible to try to get control of the internet, and have already had considerable success.

[tech3149]

6. Absolutely right, they have figured it out but we let that happen.

In general terms I think it will take about 3% of us to start walking away from the existing systems and start living in an alternative economy. The fact that we face such a monumentally well funded and studied PR/propaganda mechanism makes it seem like we are facing an impossible task and that is part of the plan.
As a tired old fool, I can get by on very little but if I tried to put myself back into the system, I'd probably be broke till the day I die.

[passiveporcupine]

8. And Scott Walker proudly boasts of this

"the 1%'s figured out – at least temporarily – how to scrape all the excess value we've created during the last several decades. They did this through regressive tax changes; the vitiation of labor laws; "free trade" agreements that ensured a race to the bottom w.r.t. wages, work conditions, and environmental protections"

As if his constituents are behind him on this. Why do they keep voting for him, when it's so obvious he wants to reduce their standard of living. I will never understand this.

[snot]

14. That's what media control gets them.

Immersive p.r. overrides fact.

[jtuck004]

7. "I remember one of those weekly mags telling me" < they presume that having learned things we would

build on that, I suspect.

I rather doubt they considered what would happen to a nation that decided to breed people who thought stupid was desirable, or that others wouldn't just laugh in their face, instead of, in some cases, voting for them.

[tech3149]

10. I don't think we really breed a bunch of stupid people

I think it's more a matter of engineering an environment that distracts us from the truth and takes away every opportunity for us to learn to think.
I was never a major consumer of news and most of my 60+ years I was militantly apolitical. What posed for an education in civics was at best superficial. Even the election of Shrub wasn't enough to turn me around.
The run up to the invasion of Iraq was the breaking point. That's when I knew that the PTB felt no need to conceal their actions. That gave me a prime example of how deceptive and harmful our commercial "news" really is.
Since my turn around I absolutely stay away from US commercial media. All I know about the happenings in the world comes from independent, generally supported by the consumer or international outlets.

The biggest problem with the capitalist economy in its current configuration is that it is entirely too short sighted. They are working too hard to generate their own demise because they have corrupted the system to benefit those who provide the best payback as quick as possible.

Listen to John Prine "Turn Off Your TV" I probably won't throw away the paper but I won't pay for one that is nothing more than a fishwrap.

[jtuck004]

11. I don't either. We breed the same ones, but some choose to act as if stupid

is a desirable state. And we seem to have a newly rising segment of the culture that freakin' celebrates it.

They not only made a choice, they were, and are, supported in it by others.

I do think a part of this is the deliberate tinselization of information, as you said, to distract. But that couldn't happen to people who insisted on good info.

And, generally, people seem to be wanting to hear less all the time.

[tech3149]

12. I've been down this road with friends and relatives too often

The common thread is either they don't feel they have the time to make sense of it all or it's just too damned emotionally painful. I try very hard to cut them some slack but considering where I came from it is a bit hard. Since I don't have a life I can afford the time and effort to be more informed than most.
Choosing to be poorly informed is still a choice and to some extent I can understand the logic. I guess I'm the one who can't go back into Plato's cave.

[jtuck004]

13. We make citizens - in how we provide opportunity for their parents, and then the schooling

we put their kids through for 12 years.

So I am thankful for what I believe is a natural resiliency in humans. Else we would see more serial killers than we do.

[snot]

15. I'd just like to add,

the fun is in trying to figure out how to help all of us help all of us.

and

"Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight."
– "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett

[FlatBaroque]

3. KNR

[snot]

5. Peripherally relevant:

http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/did-the-feds-just-knee-cap-the-gig-economy.html

[nikto]

9. Any article like this ...

...That omits guillotines, does not seem totally realistic.


Just sayin'.

[eridani]

16. It certainly is realistic, considering that the French revolution was agains feudalism

Capitalism had barely begun.