ISS 220 Cannibal capitalism

What is the core problem in cannibal capitalism?

Most lack a developed conceptualization of capitalism

What is the argument in cannibal capitalism?

capitalist production & accumulation depends on the marginalization and degradation of capitalisms BACKGROUND conditions: social, environmental, political, and radicalized order.

Institutional divisions

Become the “boundary struggles” of social unrest and social transformation

Marx’s view of capitalism (economic front story)

Surplus value, primitive accumulation, free labor, self expansion, capitalist markets

Surplus value

When workers are exploited by being paid less than their value.

Where Marx says how profit is made in capitalism

Primitive Accumulation

(original accumulation, where it starts0

starts at the dispossession of people from their land (eliminating the commons in the 15th century, making them market dependent

“Free labor”

First, in terms of legal status (not enslaved, able to enter into a labor contract)

Second, free from access to means of subsistence and means of production, including from use rights of land and tools.

Can sell their labor, and are free from the land yet forced into economic coercion.

Marx says it is necessary for capitalism

Self expansion

Accumulation upon accumulation of capital, endless growth

Capiatlisms 3% growth is exponential, world’s economy doubles every 25 years

Capitalist markets

According to Marx, all amjor resources are commodifeid (land, labor, capital)

Tendency under capiatlist social relations to commodify everything (such as water)

The surplus is redistributed into commodity production by dominant dynamics

background conditions of possibility (Fraser)

Economics of capitalism (production, accumulation, consumption) are dependent on non-economic conditions and relations.

Fraser claims there is too much focus on economic conditions

Conditions of Possibility: Capitalisms four contradictions

Commodity production dependent on social reproduction

Economy dependent on environment

Economy dependent on polity (politics)

Exploitation dependent on expropriation

Commodity production dependent on social reproduction

Women’s unpaid labor in households is equivalent to 1/3 of the US economy

Focus at work is at the expense of social reproduction

“work-life balance” is commodity production exhausting social reproduction

Social reproduction has become more commodified (surrogacy, education) which leads to rises in cost. Social reproduction becomes class-related

Economy dependent on environment

Unpaid work of nature is more than double the value of the world economy

capitalism externalizes the costs of production in nature

Economy dependent on polity (politics)

capitalism will always need the “state” (governments support)

there has never been a free market

The state facilitates profit making in the form of business tax breaks (subsidies) to reduce production costs & expand profits

Government protects private property, and without government support capitalism falls

Private Power Vs Public Power

Private power has dominated public power (such as government)

Elites have influenced policy for the empowerment of private wealth, at the expense of public power

The state has to maintain stability & legitimacy to avoid social unrest and stabilize relationship with capitalism (overwhelmingly favors private power)

Exploitation dependent on expropriation

Workers are exploited, and under social relations you have labor protection, legal recourse. gives you some benefits

Expropriation is those who are severely underpaid or not paid at all (prison labor, slaves), enables capitalisms ability to exploit

There is a hierarchy is capitalisms international appropriation of labor

The globe’s wealthy (global north) experience exploitation

The developing countries deal with expropriation

invisible nature of labor