Another primary day has come and gone, and once again, the right wing crazies have unseated viable, electable Republican candidates for national office. Everybody's favorite, I am sure, is Christine O'Donnell, now anointed as the Republican standard-bearer for the Delaware senatorial seat vacated by Joe Biden. O'Donnell is of course most famous for her strong stand against masturbation. O'Donnell's opponent, eminently electable Republican Mike Castle, has apparently declined to endorse her. As one wag put it, "Mike told her to go f**k herself, which of course she won't do."
The assault by the Tea Partiers on the Republican establishment is a threat and an opportunity. The threat is that in this dismal off-year election, these troglodytes will actually get elected, and spend the next six years making Jon Kyl and Jeff Sessions look sane. The opportunity is that if we can mobilize our voters, we can defeat these appalling characters, hold onto the Senate, and maybe even hold on to the House as well.
But to do this, we must get off our collective bums and start campaigning. It is not necessary to change minds -- always difficult in door to door canvassing. There are enough safe Democratic votes out there to do the trick, if we can just get them to the polls and let their reflexes do the rest.
This is not the time to rehearse your disappointments with the Obama administration. If you think it is not worlds better than what is slouching toward Bethlehem waiting to be born, you are seriously deluding yourselves. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity."
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
NOTES FROM A RANK AMATEUR
Having plowed my way heroically through that enormous literary biography of Charles Dickens, I decided to turn to lighter fare, and read Gerald Elias' second detective novel, DANSE MACABRE. Elias is a professional violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony, former member of the Boston Symphony First Violin section, and the author of two murder mysteries whose main character is an irascible old blind violinist named Jacobus. The novels, needless to say, are filled with string instrument arcana [write about what you know about].
Somehow, the combination of reading the Elias novel and the completion of a variety of tasks that I had been attending to [the eleventh edition of a text book, etc.] produced an unexpected shift in my internal emotional economy. Two days ago, I did something I had not done for more than two years. I opened my viola case. The first thing I discovered, to my astonished delight, was that my viola was still in tune. I decided, very slowly, to return to the viola, trying to recapture some of the limited facility I had acquired in eight years of serious study and practice, and then perhaps seeing whether I could find like-minded amateurs in the area who wanted to play string quartets.
After tightening my bow and adjusting the chin rest, I tried playing a C major three octave scale, very slowly, one note on each long drawn out bow. I reminded myself to lighten up on the bow, allowing the sound to emerge naturally, rather than pressing too hard. I played the scale, up and down, several times, trying to improve my sound when I shifted to the third position on the D string. This accomplished, I decided to try a little game that I used to play to relieve the boredom of scales.
I put a new battery in my electronic metronome and set it for the slowest possible speed. Then I played the three octave C major scale again, one note on each bow, timing each bow stroke. up or down, to coincide with two ticks of the metronome. When I was satisfied with the sound, I started again, playing the same scale at the same bow speed, but this time two notes on a bow. This has the effect, of course, of doubling the speed at which I play the notes. Now I repeated the scale, with three notes on a bow, but with the bow moving at the same speed. This is a trifle tricky, because when you do this, you are playing three notes against two ticks, but it is not too hard to hear, or feel, in one's head. This was still slow enough, of course, so that actually playing the notes was no trouble.
Next came four notes on a bow -- an easy one because you are simply doubling the rate at which you play the notes -- two notes each time the metronome ticks, four notes on a down bow followed by four notes on an up bow. Fives, however, are really tricky -- hard to feel or hear -- and I cannot say I did too well matching the bow changes to the metronome ticks. I played all the notes, five on a bow, but I kept playing a little too fast or a little too slow. Sixes, on the other hand, are easy, because basically you are playing triplets, one triplet to each tick, two triplets on a down bow and two on an up bow.
Sevens, like fives, are very hard to coordinate with the metronome. They are also a little hard to count, but I cheat. I count a triplet followed by a four, then I change bows. If you play only quartets from the classical period, you never ever find yourself counting sevens, so that is all right.
Eights are getting to be pretty brisk, four for each tick of the metronome. In classical music, four-four time is quite common [indeed, it is called common time -- see the death bed scene in AMADEUS with Mozart dictating the great Requiem Mass to Salieri --at one point, Mozart says to Salieri, "common time"], so counting comes pretty naturally.
Nines are actually easy. You are playing three triplets, and it is rather like waltz time. One-two-three one-two-three one-two-three. By now, the notes are going pretty fast, so you have to be quite sure of what you are playing, in order to concentrate on the counting.
Tens, like fives, are hard to coordinate with the metronome. Counting them is a matter of counting five twice, but I have an edge. When I do my morning power walk, I very often count the number of paces from one point in the walk to the next [a pace being left-right], so I am quite accustomed to counting by tens.
Elevens are the most unnatural number in the entire sequence, but there is one really nifty thing about elevens. An octave has eight notes, [C D E F G A B C], so you would think a three octave scale would have twenty four notes, but the last note of the first octave is also the first note of the second, and likewise for the second and third, so there are really twenty-two notes in a three octave scale, and twenty-two is exactly twice eleven. That means that on the way up, one down bow and one up bow is all you need to complete the entire sequence. [On the way down, there are twenty-one notes, because you do not repeat the top C].
And so we come to twelves, which are sets of four triplets. These are really easy to count, although the breaks between up bows and down bows are not natural, as with elevens.
Finally, I finish up this little game by playing the entire run going up on one bow, and the entire run coming down on another. [If I try really hard, I can actually play the whole six octave run, up and down, on one bow, but it sounds godawful. I do not have the kind of superb bow control required to make that sound like music.]
Yesterday, I did the whole thing all over again, this time with a C-sharp major three octave scale. Today I will do it with a three octave D major scale. I will keep progressing up by half-tones, day by day, until I have played all the possible three octave major scales.
Now, here is the neatest fact. In a one octave chromatic scale, there are exactly twelve notes [C C-sharp D E-flat E F F-sharp G A-flat A B-flat B]. So, if you match each note to a different number of notes on a bow, you can on the same day play a series of twelve major three octave scales, each using a different number of notes on a bow. When I was deep into my study of the instrument, I used to do that as a kind of mental test, keeping track simultaneously of the speed of the bow, the intonation of the notes, the key signature of the scale, and the number of notes on a bow. If you do this, you end up reacquainting yourself each day with every note on the instrument that you are ever going to have to play. It is a way of saying "Good morning" to the viola.
Somehow, the combination of reading the Elias novel and the completion of a variety of tasks that I had been attending to [the eleventh edition of a text book, etc.] produced an unexpected shift in my internal emotional economy. Two days ago, I did something I had not done for more than two years. I opened my viola case. The first thing I discovered, to my astonished delight, was that my viola was still in tune. I decided, very slowly, to return to the viola, trying to recapture some of the limited facility I had acquired in eight years of serious study and practice, and then perhaps seeing whether I could find like-minded amateurs in the area who wanted to play string quartets.
After tightening my bow and adjusting the chin rest, I tried playing a C major three octave scale, very slowly, one note on each long drawn out bow. I reminded myself to lighten up on the bow, allowing the sound to emerge naturally, rather than pressing too hard. I played the scale, up and down, several times, trying to improve my sound when I shifted to the third position on the D string. This accomplished, I decided to try a little game that I used to play to relieve the boredom of scales.
I put a new battery in my electronic metronome and set it for the slowest possible speed. Then I played the three octave C major scale again, one note on each bow, timing each bow stroke. up or down, to coincide with two ticks of the metronome. When I was satisfied with the sound, I started again, playing the same scale at the same bow speed, but this time two notes on a bow. This has the effect, of course, of doubling the speed at which I play the notes. Now I repeated the scale, with three notes on a bow, but with the bow moving at the same speed. This is a trifle tricky, because when you do this, you are playing three notes against two ticks, but it is not too hard to hear, or feel, in one's head. This was still slow enough, of course, so that actually playing the notes was no trouble.
Next came four notes on a bow -- an easy one because you are simply doubling the rate at which you play the notes -- two notes each time the metronome ticks, four notes on a down bow followed by four notes on an up bow. Fives, however, are really tricky -- hard to feel or hear -- and I cannot say I did too well matching the bow changes to the metronome ticks. I played all the notes, five on a bow, but I kept playing a little too fast or a little too slow. Sixes, on the other hand, are easy, because basically you are playing triplets, one triplet to each tick, two triplets on a down bow and two on an up bow.
Sevens, like fives, are very hard to coordinate with the metronome. They are also a little hard to count, but I cheat. I count a triplet followed by a four, then I change bows. If you play only quartets from the classical period, you never ever find yourself counting sevens, so that is all right.
Eights are getting to be pretty brisk, four for each tick of the metronome. In classical music, four-four time is quite common [indeed, it is called common time -- see the death bed scene in AMADEUS with Mozart dictating the great Requiem Mass to Salieri --at one point, Mozart says to Salieri, "common time"], so counting comes pretty naturally.
Nines are actually easy. You are playing three triplets, and it is rather like waltz time. One-two-three one-two-three one-two-three. By now, the notes are going pretty fast, so you have to be quite sure of what you are playing, in order to concentrate on the counting.
Tens, like fives, are hard to coordinate with the metronome. Counting them is a matter of counting five twice, but I have an edge. When I do my morning power walk, I very often count the number of paces from one point in the walk to the next [a pace being left-right], so I am quite accustomed to counting by tens.
Elevens are the most unnatural number in the entire sequence, but there is one really nifty thing about elevens. An octave has eight notes, [C D E F G A B C], so you would think a three octave scale would have twenty four notes, but the last note of the first octave is also the first note of the second, and likewise for the second and third, so there are really twenty-two notes in a three octave scale, and twenty-two is exactly twice eleven. That means that on the way up, one down bow and one up bow is all you need to complete the entire sequence. [On the way down, there are twenty-one notes, because you do not repeat the top C].
And so we come to twelves, which are sets of four triplets. These are really easy to count, although the breaks between up bows and down bows are not natural, as with elevens.
Finally, I finish up this little game by playing the entire run going up on one bow, and the entire run coming down on another. [If I try really hard, I can actually play the whole six octave run, up and down, on one bow, but it sounds godawful. I do not have the kind of superb bow control required to make that sound like music.]
Yesterday, I did the whole thing all over again, this time with a C-sharp major three octave scale. Today I will do it with a three octave D major scale. I will keep progressing up by half-tones, day by day, until I have played all the possible three octave major scales.
Now, here is the neatest fact. In a one octave chromatic scale, there are exactly twelve notes [C C-sharp D E-flat E F F-sharp G A-flat A B-flat B]. So, if you match each note to a different number of notes on a bow, you can on the same day play a series of twelve major three octave scales, each using a different number of notes on a bow. When I was deep into my study of the instrument, I used to do that as a kind of mental test, keeping track simultaneously of the speed of the bow, the intonation of the notes, the key signature of the scale, and the number of notes on a bow. If you do this, you end up reacquainting yourself each day with every note on the instrument that you are ever going to have to play. It is a way of saying "Good morning" to the viola.
Monday, 13 September 2010
TINY TIDBITS FROM THE NY TIMES
This morning, as I do every morning, I went to the Carolina Cafe, on the first floor of my condo building, for a decaf coffee and poppyseed muffin and the opportunity to spend a few quiet moments doing the NY TIMES crossword puzzle. But the Monday puzzle is always dead easy [it gets harder as the week progresses], and I had finished it even before eating the first half of my muffin. Casting about for something to occupy myself with while I ate the second half, I turned to the Op Ed page. Douglas Copeland, a playwright, had a silly little column of made-up words about this and that, one of which, however, really enchanted me: "Rosenwald's Theorem: The belief that all the wrong people have self-esteem."
Then I plowed through Paul Krugman's column, which managed to make me angry about the US Government's lack of response to China's manipulation of the renimbi [I can't even pronounce "renimbi."] But at the bottom of the column was this absolutely lovely piece of Found Art: "Ross Douthat is off today." My heart swelled. I thought to myself, Ross Douthat is off every day! How wonderful that the NY TIMES has finally recognized that fact.
These are hard times. You take your pleasures where you find them.
Then I plowed through Paul Krugman's column, which managed to make me angry about the US Government's lack of response to China's manipulation of the renimbi [I can't even pronounce "renimbi."] But at the bottom of the column was this absolutely lovely piece of Found Art: "Ross Douthat is off today." My heart swelled. I thought to myself, Ross Douthat is off every day! How wonderful that the NY TIMES has finally recognized that fact.
These are hard times. You take your pleasures where you find them.
Sunday, 12 September 2010
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
I tried, in a sober and non-confrontational fashion, to respond to C's comment about my atheist rant. I wrote a long reply, and clicked on "publish." The Binary God who inhabits cyberspace chose to mock me by posting my reply three times ["What I say to you three times is true."] Those who are alert to such signs may make of this what they will. My faith in reason is shaken but not destroyed.
Saturday, 11 September 2010
AN ATHEIST LETS OFF STEAM
My first father-in-law, James Griffin, was a self-made man. Although he never finished high school, he worked his way up the corporate ladder to the Vice-Presidency for Public Relations of Sears Roebuck and Co. Griffin was what I think of as a social Catholic. During the almost thirty years that I knew him, I never spotted in him the slightest suggestion of genuine religious belief or sentiment, but he had been made a Knight of Malta by the Pope for his fund-raising prowess, and was, at one point, head of the Catholic Boy Scouts of America. Since my plan to marry his daughter, Mary Cynthia, was a "scandal to the faithful" in Shaker Heights, where the Griffins lived, Cindy and I had to be married in Appleton Chapel in Harvard Yard by a compliant Episcopal priest. I still remember Jim Griffin, at the reception, chatting amiably with David Riesman as though he knew who Riesman was and shared his progressive view of the world.
Griffin was considered a "good Catholic," but of course he was really no sort of Catholic at all. That is to say, he did not take with life-altering seriousness the spiritual and doctrinal message of the Roman Catholic faith. In that way, he was as one with many other Americans whose Catholicism or Protestantism or Judaism does not interfere with their secular pursuits.
All of these essentially secular Americans, who turn up in Gallup Polls as church-goers and believers, stand in stark contrast to the smaller, but still enormous, number of Americans who take their religion really seriously, and actually attempt to live their lives as their faith teaches them to do. I have in mind the wacko preacher in Florida who conceived the brilliant idea of burning some Qu'rans, and the Senatorial candidate who is opposed to masturbation as "lust in one's heart," and the Creationist evolution-deniers, and the ever helpful American Protestants who have been encouraging their African co-religionists to kill homosexuals.
Book burning is, of course, an old Christian custom, not at all some weird Fascist aberration invented by over-enthusiastic Nazi Gauleiters. The Inquisition was as likely to burn a heretical book as a heretic, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Chinese, in this as in so much else, stole a march on the West. "Following the advice of minister Li Si, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin — beginning in 213 BC. This was followed by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals who did not comply with the state dogma."
We in the West look on in horror, and properly so, at the stoning to death of women in Iran. But they are here merely following the law laid down in Leviticus 24, a book which all good Muslims accept as prophetic. If, as scores of millions of Americans claim to believe, that Book is the Word of Almighty God, then it is for us to obey it, not to interpret it until it conforms to our modern sensibilities. Now, those with a smattering of biblical learning will of course quote Jesus, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." But let us recall that Jesus himself said, in Matthew 17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
The simple fact is that the religious beliefs of serious Jews, Christians, and Muslims are vile, absurd, and totally incompatible with even the least evolved secular moral sensibility. To excoriate the Reverend Terry Jones for his proposal to burn a collection of Qu'rans, and then insist indignantly that President Obama is a Christian, as though that were a quite acceptable thing for a modern man or women to be, is rank hypocrisy. It is the book burners, the woman stoners, the homosexual killers, who are truly religious. Theirs is the real face of religious faith.
Griffin was considered a "good Catholic," but of course he was really no sort of Catholic at all. That is to say, he did not take with life-altering seriousness the spiritual and doctrinal message of the Roman Catholic faith. In that way, he was as one with many other Americans whose Catholicism or Protestantism or Judaism does not interfere with their secular pursuits.
All of these essentially secular Americans, who turn up in Gallup Polls as church-goers and believers, stand in stark contrast to the smaller, but still enormous, number of Americans who take their religion really seriously, and actually attempt to live their lives as their faith teaches them to do. I have in mind the wacko preacher in Florida who conceived the brilliant idea of burning some Qu'rans, and the Senatorial candidate who is opposed to masturbation as "lust in one's heart," and the Creationist evolution-deniers, and the ever helpful American Protestants who have been encouraging their African co-religionists to kill homosexuals.
Book burning is, of course, an old Christian custom, not at all some weird Fascist aberration invented by over-enthusiastic Nazi Gauleiters. The Inquisition was as likely to burn a heretical book as a heretic, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Chinese, in this as in so much else, stole a march on the West. "Following the advice of minister Li Si, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin — beginning in 213 BC. This was followed by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals who did not comply with the state dogma."
We in the West look on in horror, and properly so, at the stoning to death of women in Iran. But they are here merely following the law laid down in Leviticus 24, a book which all good Muslims accept as prophetic. If, as scores of millions of Americans claim to believe, that Book is the Word of Almighty God, then it is for us to obey it, not to interpret it until it conforms to our modern sensibilities. Now, those with a smattering of biblical learning will of course quote Jesus, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." But let us recall that Jesus himself said, in Matthew 17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
The simple fact is that the religious beliefs of serious Jews, Christians, and Muslims are vile, absurd, and totally incompatible with even the least evolved secular moral sensibility. To excoriate the Reverend Terry Jones for his proposal to burn a collection of Qu'rans, and then insist indignantly that President Obama is a Christian, as though that were a quite acceptable thing for a modern man or women to be, is rank hypocrisy. It is the book burners, the woman stoners, the homosexual killers, who are truly religious. Theirs is the real face of religious faith.
Friday, 10 September 2010
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
I take my title today from the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns that put Clint Eastwood on the map. After making A Fistful of Dollars, he made A Few Dollars More [and then The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly]. Well, the discussion we have been having about capitalism has triggered some interesting replies and rejoinders, so I want to say just a few more things before we move on to other topics.
The central question under debate seems to be whether it is possible somehow adequately to ameliorate the oppressions, exploitations, and gross inequalities of capitalism without altering the fundamental structure of a capitalist economy and society, which is to say private ownership and control of the means of production, wage labor, and production of commodities for profit rather than production of goods for human consumption and use.
The very first question one must answer is, Who is doing the ameliorating? It is dangerously deceptive and self-deluding to talk about capital grants and redistributions and so on without asking who it is that is doing all of this. Who, in a capitalist economy and society, has the power to fundamentally alter the structure of ownership so that ownership of the capital of the society is equally shared among all of the members of the society? The answer, of course, is Those who now own the capital or control it. And what will motivate them to carry out such a redistribution of ownership and control? Nothing, so far as I can see.
But this question actually is a good deal less interesting than a more fundamental one. Our modern economy is built on large-scale integrated production processes. You may think [though I have my doubts about it] that industrial agriculture can be replaced by a vast number of small-scale farms and ranches without a loss of efficiency in food production, but surely no one imagines that automobile production can be efficiently managed by means of boutique automobile production, nor can modern hi-tech health care delivery be carried out without large expensive hospitals stocked with MRI machines et al. Even if you somehow persuade the owners of capital to pass out shares of stock in such a manner that each person in the America owns one three-hundred millionth of the total capital of all the enterprises in our economy [a fantasy truly heroic in its detachment from reality], the enterprises themselves will continue to be organized as they are now. If the owners -- which is to say the entire population -- now mandate that that capital be managed and used for the good of all the owners, i.e., the entire population, then what you have is socialism, and the revolution has been completed. Capitalism ceases to exist. [As one commenter pointed out].
Am I in favor of that? Hell, yes. But I have no illusions that it is going to occur, at least without a revolutionary transformation in the beliefs and the behaviors of the entire population.
Short of socialism, there are of course many, many ways in which the worst of capitalism can be ameliorated. Again, one of the comments pointed out that this would require the rebirth of the union movement. All one need do is carry out a cross-national comparison of the various mature capitalist economies in the world to see that what we have in the United States is on the very worst end of the spectrum. Other countries provide a more equal income distribution and a stronger social safety net, all within the structure of a capitalist economy.
So what is the advantage of capitalism, that would lead us to make any possible adjustment in it rather than get rid of it? Well, that is a long story, and I have written about that too at length. I am really not going to repeat here everything I have said elsewhere.
Let me conclude by saying that we are still in coconut territory. Postulating the passing out of "capital shares" without asking who is going to do the passing out and why, is as feckless as supposing that two people on a desert island passing coconuts back and forth are somehow going to tell us anything about capitalism.
The central question under debate seems to be whether it is possible somehow adequately to ameliorate the oppressions, exploitations, and gross inequalities of capitalism without altering the fundamental structure of a capitalist economy and society, which is to say private ownership and control of the means of production, wage labor, and production of commodities for profit rather than production of goods for human consumption and use.
The very first question one must answer is, Who is doing the ameliorating? It is dangerously deceptive and self-deluding to talk about capital grants and redistributions and so on without asking who it is that is doing all of this. Who, in a capitalist economy and society, has the power to fundamentally alter the structure of ownership so that ownership of the capital of the society is equally shared among all of the members of the society? The answer, of course, is Those who now own the capital or control it. And what will motivate them to carry out such a redistribution of ownership and control? Nothing, so far as I can see.
But this question actually is a good deal less interesting than a more fundamental one. Our modern economy is built on large-scale integrated production processes. You may think [though I have my doubts about it] that industrial agriculture can be replaced by a vast number of small-scale farms and ranches without a loss of efficiency in food production, but surely no one imagines that automobile production can be efficiently managed by means of boutique automobile production, nor can modern hi-tech health care delivery be carried out without large expensive hospitals stocked with MRI machines et al. Even if you somehow persuade the owners of capital to pass out shares of stock in such a manner that each person in the America owns one three-hundred millionth of the total capital of all the enterprises in our economy [a fantasy truly heroic in its detachment from reality], the enterprises themselves will continue to be organized as they are now. If the owners -- which is to say the entire population -- now mandate that that capital be managed and used for the good of all the owners, i.e., the entire population, then what you have is socialism, and the revolution has been completed. Capitalism ceases to exist. [As one commenter pointed out].
Am I in favor of that? Hell, yes. But I have no illusions that it is going to occur, at least without a revolutionary transformation in the beliefs and the behaviors of the entire population.
Short of socialism, there are of course many, many ways in which the worst of capitalism can be ameliorated. Again, one of the comments pointed out that this would require the rebirth of the union movement. All one need do is carry out a cross-national comparison of the various mature capitalist economies in the world to see that what we have in the United States is on the very worst end of the spectrum. Other countries provide a more equal income distribution and a stronger social safety net, all within the structure of a capitalist economy.
So what is the advantage of capitalism, that would lead us to make any possible adjustment in it rather than get rid of it? Well, that is a long story, and I have written about that too at length. I am really not going to repeat here everything I have said elsewhere.
Let me conclude by saying that we are still in coconut territory. Postulating the passing out of "capital shares" without asking who is going to do the passing out and why, is as feckless as supposing that two people on a desert island passing coconuts back and forth are somehow going to tell us anything about capitalism.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
A BRIEF REPLY TO MIKE
Mike, this is a really large and complex subject, about which I have written two books and many articles, so I cannot hope to give an adequate reply in a blog post. Do read Marx's CAPITAL, volume One, at least the first eleven chapters or so.
Now, about those coconuts. This little story is what Marx called, rather charmingly, a "Robinsonade," meaning by that a fairy tale a la Robinson Crusoe [the protagonist of Daniel DeFoe's famous novel.] This is exactly the wrong way to think about capitalism. The right way, as Marx shows in CAPITAL [and following the lead of Adam Smith in this regard] is to study its historical growth and development. Briefly, Marx argues, what happened in England [and elsewhere] was that the peasant farmers were displaced from the land on which they had gotten their living, and forced to migrate to the cities, where, without any access to or ownership of the means of production [land, forests, mines, rivers, tools, etc], they had no choice but to sell their labor as factory workers. At the same time, production for use -- growing food to eat, making clothes to wear, etc -- was replaced by commodity production, which is to say production of things that could be sold at a profit in a market. Those who had taken control of the means of production were in a position to force down the wages of the workers, and regularly took for themselves ["appropriated"] the surplus, or profit, left over after they had paid for their inputs [including labor] and sold the commodities that the workers had made by their labor. Over time, the owners or controllers of capital grew richer and richer, while the workers were forced to keep struggling to stay alive. The workers were only able to raise their wages and live better when there was, for a time, a shortage of labor, or by organizing into labor unions and forcing the employers to raise wages and shorten the working hours.
This, not a fable about desert islands and coconuts, is the real story of capitalism, and it may help you to begin to understand what I find objectionable about it.
Now, about those coconuts. This little story is what Marx called, rather charmingly, a "Robinsonade," meaning by that a fairy tale a la Robinson Crusoe [the protagonist of Daniel DeFoe's famous novel.] This is exactly the wrong way to think about capitalism. The right way, as Marx shows in CAPITAL [and following the lead of Adam Smith in this regard] is to study its historical growth and development. Briefly, Marx argues, what happened in England [and elsewhere] was that the peasant farmers were displaced from the land on which they had gotten their living, and forced to migrate to the cities, where, without any access to or ownership of the means of production [land, forests, mines, rivers, tools, etc], they had no choice but to sell their labor as factory workers. At the same time, production for use -- growing food to eat, making clothes to wear, etc -- was replaced by commodity production, which is to say production of things that could be sold at a profit in a market. Those who had taken control of the means of production were in a position to force down the wages of the workers, and regularly took for themselves ["appropriated"] the surplus, or profit, left over after they had paid for their inputs [including labor] and sold the commodities that the workers had made by their labor. Over time, the owners or controllers of capital grew richer and richer, while the workers were forced to keep struggling to stay alive. The workers were only able to raise their wages and live better when there was, for a time, a shortage of labor, or by organizing into labor unions and forcing the employers to raise wages and shorten the working hours.
This, not a fable about desert islands and coconuts, is the real story of capitalism, and it may help you to begin to understand what I find objectionable about it.
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