here is the basic argument more details at http://www.condition.org

1 – ‘Democracy is an artifact of (thus-far) intellectual development’ -a fact of biological and anthropological sciences.
2 – Genetic imperative drives the life-form to ‘live as long as possible as a life-form’ -human in particular here -a same such fact.
3 – Science (and mathematics), therefore, is ineluctably ‘stuck’ as the only agency of such doing -destined therein.
4 – All ‘government and economics’, then, will inevitably come to be reconstituted about science-and-mathematics toward that heuristic end -Democracy included.

(-from the very short-
How We Came to ‘Democracy -The Best Form of Government’
Why It Isn’t -and Where It’s Going
)

http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/06/12/capitalisms-immortality-a-fantasy-but-what-will-outlive-it/

also i have a question, can Kevin, or someone, provide sources which elaborate on this line of argument?:

“one reason for the growth of the FIRE economy from the ’90s on was that the export of industrial capital had reached its limits as a strategy for solving the crisis of overinvestment.”

my understanding has always been that the flight of industry from the Global North was largely in response to higher labor costs, i.e. the welfare state, and the US was able to remain dominant largely BECAUSE of the financialization of its economy. i’m not clear on what you mean by “crisis of overinvestment”.

didn’t the US, Europe and Japan consuming vaster and vaster quantities satiate the crisis? if so i’m not sure this strategy ran into significant problems until the drastic price-rise of the past few years (caused by oil shortage). if what we’re seeing now is a “crisis of overinvestment” because consumption and prices have collapsed, then what was the crisis when consumption was high and markets hungry?

i might be twisting your words but i am seriously interested in clarification of the role of industrial flight and globalization and how this relates to the crisis that is capitalism.

thanks, please respond to [email protected]

alex
[email protected]
endofcapitalism.com

I believe that we must use money and markets in building the new society
in the shell of the old, I do not however hold them as an ideal.

I fully believe that specialization of labour implies exchange, however exchange does not need to be money-denominated itemizedi, transactions, but can be significantly more fuzzy.

Until Capitalist social relations where imposed on society, money and
markets functioned quite differently than they do today. Actual specie
was rarely used in “market” transactions, even though money has existed
as long as writing, it’s use was mostly limited to paying tribute and
for prestige (usually imported) goods. Most other goods where either
traded on account or ad-hoc, this is certainly exchange and certainly
reciprocial, but the valuation was not done on each item and not
denomonated in money, but rather value was attributed to the
relationship, not the transaction or the item. Markets formed on
periphery of communities, not at their core, to dispose of surplus.

The more distant the relationship the more formal the accounting of the
transaction, ad-hoc for close relations, on account for more distant
relations, and actual negotiated trade of specie or good for other goods
only when there is no relationship, whith distant trading partners or the
State.

It is neither nuetral or natural to have markets central to communities,
to have all sharing transformed into itemized transaction, but rather
these social relations where imposed as a prerequisite of Capitalism,
and are a symptom of the degree to which Captalism has destroyed human
community, now limited only to the “Nuclear” family, and even this
paltry and normalized vestige of human community is breaking down.

The uquiqity of money and markets is very much a feature of capitalism
that was, like the rest of system, systimaticaly and forcefully imposed.

I agree with Kevin that Markets do not cause exploitation, but feel that
the degree to which they permeate communities is a symptom of
exploitation, and thus money and markets may, once again, play a vastly diminished role in the new society, once broken out of the shell of the old.

After some consideration, I’ve decided that the post-capitalism talk is largely Utopian fantasy:

1. Current financial assets are considerably more than all non-cash assets in the world. Over the counter derivatives alone in 2007 were over 600 trillion USD. (that’s trillion with a T). The innovation that has been financial markets goes on strong and the wealth created is anything but fictitious.

2. The total global gross product (GDP of the world in 2007) was about 47 trillion USD (almost 14 trillion of that in the USA). So far in the recession/depression, it has sunk globally by about 2% and certainly not more than 4%. Total stock market valuations were 51 trillion in 2007 and are perhaps slightly less than that now.

3. Most of Africa and large portions of Asia including China are still growing.

4. There are real signs that the green capitalism is starting to take off. Last year there was more increase in alternative energy production in the US than in all other forms of energy production (including nuclear power.)

5. Venture Capital has spent 29 billion without production on Web 2.0 companies and there have been no bankruptcies.

6. The majority of US banks will soon be nationalized (along with those in the UK and Germany) with very little immediate impact.

7. Unemployment in the US is just reach 10% where it has been sustained for years in other nations like Germany.

8. Capitalism in Asia and Africa is taking off considerably. The potential for growth is probably only bound by climate change issues.

9. There are no serious labor movements in the US, China nor India.

10. Japan, China and India have no debt and can sustain negative growth for at least a generation.

11. There are no function democracies that are non-market oriented. There are increasingly few nations that are moving sharply to the left. Many that have, including Argentina (formerly) and Venezuela (now) are emerging from or headed toward bankruptcy. Venezuelan foreign reserves are falling faster as a percentage of total than any other nation’s.

12. Even with a collapse of the dollar, oil exploding to several hundred dollars a barrel (both of which are reasonably feasible), there is little to suggest that this would be more than a hiccup for markets and capitalism.

13. While the nation state may be in decline for financial reasons, there is no sign (anywhere) if disintegration. Even where hollow states are the norm, continual processes of rehabilitation suggest that few believe a non-state solution is seriously feasible in the near term with any reasonable standard of living.

That said, I think P2P is exciting, vital and an excellent tonic to excesses of capitalism and markets. However, I am convinced the main issue is climate change. If there is an Achilles’ heel of capitalism, it is climate change. That places those who are anti-capitalist in a strange place–to advocate most effectively against what they dislike they must align to a degree with what is the greatest threat to humanity overall. I seriously doubt that in the next 50 years there is much threat to capitalism from any non-coercive process. If this was even the first wave of a massive crisis 10x the scale of the current, capitalism and markets could easily endure it in most of the globe and probably all of the globe that has significant production.

For these reasons, I believe decoupling P2P research and advocacy from supposedly associated advocacy against markets would tend to advance the legitimacy and contribution of P2P theory to be more productive in a reasonable time frame.

My own thought is that market anarchism is a realistic evolutionary development for many backwater geographies of capitalism (central England, mountain districts, Central Africa, rural Europe (especially Eastern Europe and Southern Europe)–where it already shows signs of developing into a characteristic peripheral mode of operation. It will not be relevant in the increasingly powerful city-states/small states of tomorrow like Singapore, Switzerland, Austria, London, Sidney, Jakarta, New York, Shanghai etc. Those areas will continue as highly industrialized market-oriented trading entities with banks, capital, financial markets, etc. for the distant foreseeable future.

I am for sustainable wealth by the best means. I am for as much freedom as is possible. But I am also for not advocating unrealistic Utopias that simply are not going to matter.

Ryan Lanham