“The rate of surplus-value is
therefore an exact expression for the degree of exploitation of labour-power by
capital, or of the worker by the capitalist.”
Karl
Marx.
Capital,
Vol I.
Pg.
326; Penguin.
In other words, it’s not uncommon
for contemporary leeches to speak of the role of the corporation as this alone:
to make money. It is not the business of business (as usual) to provide goods
and services for people, much less to concern themselves with the quality of the
goods and services which they happen to produce. They are a machine of exploitation;
their profits are theft.
Rand attempts to romanticize
this process by contesting that ONLY the capitalist produces goods and
services, by avenue of industry. Yet this ironically authoritarian variation on
what passes for libertarianism does more than to express a narcissist’s dismissive
contempt for those whom she depends upon. The capitalist effectively produces
NOTHING for society that is of any use to society; he lives to one-up his
fellows in the context of an arbitrary social system he (in many previous
lifetimes, if we might romanticize his tradition) created. Workers create goods
and services; they are simply stimulated by capitalism in the manner that
slaves fear the whip, though they forget their slavery to the extent that they
are afforded chains of gold. (I wish that this were hyperbolic, but there are
literally celebrities who are both descendants of slavery and proud owners of
golden chains. The irony and hidden meaning of their neurosis is lost on them,
apparently.)
Marx
had no way of knowing the extent to which dictators would take advantage of
human altruism in the twentieth century, but were he around today I doubt that
he would side with the Republicans. Instead, he would probably criticize the
communists for their failures, citing the same authoritarianism in those States
that he perceived in the capitalist system, arguing, as I have, that the
capitalists sabotaged the project repeatedly.
My contention is that people
allow themselves to be taken advantage of so long as they are compensated for
it at the expense of their own conscientiousness; in the absence of a system of
monetary incentives, it is not that people grow lazy, but it is rather their
heightened sense of community and work ethic which makes them more susceptible
to propaganda and manipulation by the few individuals who are so depraved as to
take advantage of kindness. But all that makes capitalism appear preferable is
that those kind souls which are likewise oppressed under capitalism are pathetically
few.
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
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