Capitalism's Fatal Flaw, and the Way Forward: Seldon’s Sayings Series #6, The Dual Opposing Effects of a Single Cause.

Seldon’s Sayings Series #6, The Dual Opposing Effects of a Single Cause.

Dear Reader,

It is my pleasure to share with you, from time to time, selections from the seminal sayings, and writings, shared by him among we of F.E.D., by our co-founder, Karl Seldon [main site: www.dialectics.info].

Such is the following --

“Growth of social [re-]productive force resolves, locally, into increased productivity, e.g., as increased rate of output of a particular, [social-reproductively-]use-valuable product, per unit of human labor-time input.”

“Globally, [social-re-]productive force growth resolves into an impulse increase in the ‘self-productivity’ of humanity [of ‘human socio-mass’].”

“Growth of social productive force, as a cause of human-societal change [change of social relations of social reproduction] has dual opposing effects; opposite, but unequal reactions.”

“One of these two joint effects -- increase in the magnitude of “relative surplus-value” [Marx] produced [as an increment of profitability], augments potential net return on capital invested; augments ‘capital[-value] productivity’.”

“The other of these two joint effects -- technological obsolescence depreciation, and/or decreased replacement cost depreciation, of the historical cost/original cost/sunk value of “invested” capital equipment, which are both instances of productive-force-increase-induced capital-equipment depreciation -- augments, in a competitive context, write-offs of part or all of the historical cost/value of so-depreciated capital equipment, write-offs that accrue to losses, and that net out against gross income gains, typically also, in part, induced by productive force increase [increased “relative surplus-value production”].”

“This second-mentioned effect is weaker than the first-mentioned effect, in terms of its impact on capital[-value] accumulation, in the earlier history of capitalist development.

As you can imagine, the exposure to this depreciation effect is relatively small when workers use hand tools, rather than machines, in production.”

“This dominance of the first effect over the second effect creates, shapes, and defines the ‘‘‘ascendance phase’’’ of the capital-relation-dominated epoch of human [pre-]history, and largely coincides with the epoch of the ‘‘‘formal subsumption of labor under capital’’’ [Marx].”

“The second effect becomes stronger than the first effect, in terms of its impact on capital[-value] accumulation, later in the history of capitalist development, as the core reaches of ruling-class owned concentrated industrial capital become dominated by heavy fixed capital plant and equipment -- by the accumulation of capital-value in the form of “fixed-capital” value.”

“This dominance of the second effect over the first effect, and the ruling class response to their growing perception of it -- which arrives far earlier in the core ruling class than does the perception of this effect among the working classes -- creates, shapes, and defines the ‘‘‘descendence phase’’’ of the capital-relation-dominated epoch of human [pre-]history, the phase which largely coincides with the ‘‘‘real subsumption of labor under capital’’’ [Marx].”

The “organic composition of capital” [Marx], and the related “technical composition of capital” [Marx] -- of the capital-value of, e.g., an “individual capital” [single enterprise], of an industry capitals-aggregate, or of the aggregate or total social capital of a nation-state, or of the world market totality -- can serve as proxies/approximate metrics for the degree of exposure of that capital or capitals-aggregate to productive-force-increase-induced depreciation.”

“The ‘‘‘descendence phase’’’ of capitalist civilization, of a civilization which is, at the very least, a ‘‘‘political-economy’’’, not just an “economy”, is not a matter of any merely mechanical breakdown in any economic-only dynamics of the capitals-system.”

“That is a key reason why Marx’s critique of capitalist civilization is a “critique of political-economy”, not just a “critique of economy”, or of “economic mechanics”.”

“The cause of capitalist ‘‘‘descendence’’’ is a pre-eminently psychohistorical cause.”

“This cause is rooted in the collective, ideological reaction of the capitalist ruling class, as already constituting a ‘‘‘class-for-itself’’’, when and after the leadership of that ruling class comes to an -- ideologically warped -- awareness of the mortal threat that later, high and growing productive force capitalism poses to the continued rule of that ruling class.”

“Later productive force growth threatens to obliterate core, ruling-class owned capital itself.”

“Think of what fusion power would do to core ruling class petroleum capital.”

“The New/Final Dark Age tendency of late, ‘‘‘descendence phase’’’ capitalism is a psychohistorical tendency, driven by late-capitalist, anti-productive-forces ideologies, and pursued by the ruling class by means that majorly include politics.”

“The psychohistorical reaction of the core capitalist ruling class to their alarmed awareness of the social reproductive force increase causation of the economic threat to their capital, and, thus, to their socio-political power, induces that ruling class to create the horrific ideologies -- e.g., “eugenics”, fascism, and ‘humanocidal’, “People Are Pollution” ‘‘‘exterminationism’’’ -- and creates the horrific societal consequences -- vicious Police States, World Depressions, World Wars, mounting Genocides, both overt and ‘‘‘stealth’’’ -- that constitute the ‘‘‘descendence phase’’’ of the capitalist epoch full-blown, as we have already seen, and, with even greater horrors to come, UNLESS OR UNTIL A REVOLUTIONARY WORLD WORKING CLASS REALIZES WHAT IS HAPPENING TO IT, AND INTERVENES IN ITS OWN DEFENSE.”

“The common objective of all of these ruling-class-engineered ideologies, created to delude and to disarm the working class, and of the strategies behind these ideologies, is to cripple and then to reverse the historic growth of the human-social forces of production, including, especially, to reverse the core reality of all of those forces of production: the growth of human population itself.”

For more information regarding these Seldonian insights, please see --

www.dialectics.info

For partially pictographical, ‘poster-ized’ visualizations of many of these Seldonian insights -- specimens of ‘dialectical art’ – as well as illustrated books by the F.E.D. Press, see --