{"id":2913,"date":"2020-03-01T14:36:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2913"},"modified":"2024-03-14T12:54:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T17:54:02","slug":"jobs-and-free-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/?p=2913","title":{"rendered":"Jobs and free stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chris Cutrone <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Platypus Review <\/a><\/em>124<\/a> | March 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE CURRENT POLITICAL POLARIZATION in the U.S. is not Democrat vs. Republican or the minorities of race, gender and sexuality against straight white men: It is between the politics of free stuff vs. the politics of jobs \u2014 demands for more free stuff vs. demands for more jobs.[1]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocratic socialist\u201d candidate for Democratic Party\nnomination for President Bernie Sanders has responded to charges that he is\nactually a communist with the assertion that the U.S. is already socialist, but\nit is a socialism for billionaires. The kernel of truth in this is that there\nis already government subsidy and other kinds of support for capital. The\nquestion is, why is this so? Corruption? Or rather is it actually in the\ninterest of society? Of course it is the latter \u2014 the general interest of\ncapitalist society, which both Parties serve (as best they can). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karl Marx observed that the productive activities of general\nsocial cooperation are a \u201cfree gift to capital.\u201d What did he mean? The social\nprocess of production is not at all reducible to the paid wage-labor of\ncapitalist employees, but includes the activity of everyone in society. As\nFrankfurt School Director Max Horkheimer wrote, in \u201cThe little man and the\nphilosophy of freedom,\u201d \u201cAll those who work and even those who don\u2019t, have a\nshare in the creation of contemporary reality.\u201d[2]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whether in terms of Andrew Yang\u2019s proposed \u201cfreedom dividend\u201d of free money for all in a UBI or free public education and health care for all, the question is not who\u2019s going to pay for it, but rather how can capital make use of it. These are not anti-capitalist demands but demands for the better functioning of capital. The question is, what are we going to do in our society with all the fruits of our production \u2014 with all our free stuff? How can we make it benefit everyone? Is it just a matter of better shaving off more crumbs? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang proposes that the invaluable but currently unpaid labor\nof mothers, inventors and artists should be supported by society. Marx called\nthis the communism of the principle of \u201cfrom each according to ability, to each\naccording to need\u201d in a society in which the \u201cfreedom of each is the\nprecondition for the freedom of all.\u201d We already live in capitalism according\nto this principle, but capital fails to fulfill it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democrats propose to make capital fulfill its social responsibility; the Republicans think it already does so as best as possible, and any attempts at government intervention to make it do better, no matter how well intentioned the reforms, will actually be counterproductive. The result will be stagnation and lack of growth, undermining society along with capital. Without people working there can be no greater social benefits of production; without jobs there can be no free stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the essential difference in U.S. politics or really\nin capitalist politics everywhere: progressive capitalism vs. conservative\ncapitalism. Not spendthrift vs. frugality or kindheartedness vs. cynicism or\nliberality vs mean-spiritedness, nor is it optimism vs. pessimism or idealism\nvs. realism. It is a division of labor in debate over advocating how to keep\npeople working and how to distribute freely the products of their labor. It is\nnot a difference in principle or one of honesty vs. deception: both sides are\nsincere \u2014 and both sides are self-deceiving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx observed that the free gift to capital is the \u201cgeneral\nsocial intellect.\u201d But that general social intellect has become the \u201cautomatic\nsubject\u201d of capital. How do we make it serve us, instead of us serving it? All\npoliticians in capitalism want the same thing. The problem is that capitalist\npolitics is not as intelligent as the society it represents. This is the true\nmeaning of socialist politics \u2014 to realize the general social intellect \u2014 which\ntoday unfortunately is inevitably just a form of capitalist politics, whether\nby Sanders, Yang or Trump. They all want to better serve us \u2014 which means\nbetter serving capital. | P<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a>\nSee my \u201cRobots and sweatshops\u201d as well as \u201cWhy not Trump again?,\u201d Platypus Review<\/em> 123 (February 2020); and\n\u201cThe end of the Gilded Age: Discontents of the Second Industrial Revolution\ntoday,\u201d PR<\/em> 102 (December 2017 \u2013\nJanuary 2018) and \u201cThe future of socialism: What kind of illness is capitalism?,\u201d\nPR<\/em> 105 (April 2018), available online\nat: <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2020\/02\/01\/robots-and-sweatshops\/>, <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2020\/02\/01\/why-not-trump-again\/>,\n<https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2017\/12\/02\/end-gilded-age-discontents-second-industrial-revolution-today\/>\nand <https:\/\/platypus1917.org\/2018\/04\/01\/the-future-of-socialism-what-kind-of-illness-is-capitalism\/>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>\nHorkheimer, Dawn & Decline: Notes\n1926<\/em>\u201331 and 1950<\/em>\u201369<\/em> (New York: Seabury, 1978), 51. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Cutrone Platypus Review 124 | March 2020 THE CURRENT POLITICAL POLARIZATION in the U.S. is not Democrat vs. Republican or the minorities of race, gender and sexuality against straight white men: It is between the politics of free stuff vs. the politics of jobs \u2014 demands for more free stuff vs. demands for more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,16,23,6,43],"class_list":["post-2913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-45","tag-marxism","tag-neoliberalism","tag-the-platypus-review","tag-trump-era"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2913"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscutrone.platypus1917.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}