A brief summary of capitalism's logic, its consequences, and our need to build an alternative

Just for fun, I jotted down a brief summary of capitalism's logic, its consequences, and our need to build an alternative:

Socioeconomic inequality

1. Capitalism is an economic mode of production that, on the most basic level, functions as a circulatory process in which money is utilized to produce commodities (e.g., goods, services, etc.) that can be sold for a profit within markets of exchange: money -> commodity -> money + extra, repeat ad infinitum.

2. Living human labour expended in the production process adds/creates much of the additional value that forms the profit realized in the exchange process.

3. Due to private property rights, capitalists own and control the means of production (e.g., factories, equipment, land, etc.), as well as the products of the production process and any surplus value created. As such, labourers are forced to relinquish their rights to control over the production process, the product of their labour, and the added value incorporated into and created by the production process. Workers, in turn, generally receive the value of their labour power and little else in the form of wages, ultimately alienating them from their labour and its products, and limiting the choices available to them in the sphere of their socioeconomic environment, hindering them from fully realizing themselves or their potential.

4. Capitalism itself has its beginnings in violence, oppression, and theft as well as innovations and industriousness. Countries with emerging mercantile markets enclosed local common land; colonized other lands; stole land, wealth, and resources; and exploited slave labour in what Marx called the process of 'primitive accumulation.' Then after the industrial revolution, those in power further forced their own people off of communal land and into the cities to work in the factories under new social relations, one in which they were forced to sell their labour power to someone for a wage, not fully realizing that the person who now owns that labour power owns the products of that labour and all the extra value added by their labour, and pitting them against one another for the jobs needed for their survival and comfort.

5. We now live under a predominantly capitalist, worldwide socioeconomic system in which a small minority own and control the means of production and the majority must work for a wage to survive, pitting competing capitals and workers across the globe against one another forming tiers of exploitation, particularly among members of the working class and poor.

6. The logic of this process leads to capital accumulation (i.e., the accumulation of wealth) on the part of capital as opposed to labour due to the former's ownership of the means of production and finance and the value created in the production process, creating and sustaining inequality.

7. The logic of capitalism tends to favour owners in that it seeks to increase the amount of profit extracted by capital while at the same time keeping the amount of wages received by workers as low as possible, as well as by giving the owners control over the production process, conditions of labour, labour hours, etc. In addition, workers as producers and consumers give of themselves twice to capital—first as what's conventionally viewed as unpaid labour and second as wages for commodities (as well as things like rent, etc.).

8. Capitalism contains within itself multiple contradictions that lead to unequal social relations between capital and labour and causes cyclical economic crises. For example, the logic of capital accumulation tends to lead to cyclical crises of overaccumulation that effectively causes the economy to stall by stopping the circulation of capital and preventing it from ultimately realizing profit, i.e., capital's own self-interest (accumulation for accumulation's sake) destabilizes the economy and creates things like violent economic crises, social and political inequality, unemployment, etc.

9. The logic of capitalism also depends upon the drive to continuously grow and the consumerism needed to feed that growth — resulting in negative impacts to the environment and compelling capitals and capitalist states to compete for markets, resources, cheap pools of labour, etc., often at the expense of the environment and workers — while simultaneously creating artificial scarcity to maximize profits. This generates privation for the dispossessed and national conflicts over land, raw materials, markets, labour pools, etc.

Political inequality

10. Money, as a representation of value and medium of exchange, is a form of social power. As a form of social power, money is also a driving force in the political process and the shape of states, whose access to and control of markets is important for their geopolitical success.

11. The more money one possesses, the more influence one potentially has in this socioeconomic system. The capitalist class, then, logically has a disproportionate advantage within this system, especially when it comes to influencing and shaping society, than the working class and poor.

12. Those in positions of power make the rules (i.e., laws and loopholes) and tend to do so with a view to their own preservation and well-being. Their own preservation and well-being depends upon serving the interests of capital and finance, who fund them and control key areas of the economy. Democracy is also often limited to voting in occasional elections, with most working-class people priced out of running, and almost completely absent in the workplace.

13. Due to owning the means of production (material as well as mental), the capitalist class has the ability to shape the dominant ideas and ethics of society as well as its material shape and social relations. So not only do they have an enormous amount of control over the strings of political and economic power, they have an incredible amount of control over the ideas that we're exposed to and consume — which serves to influence our perceptions of the world we live in and even one another — ultimately helping to "manufacture our consent" for the status quo.

Implications/Addressing socioeconomic inequality

14. It follows, therefore, that substantive changes in the political-economic arena that benefits the working class and poor rather than capital and finance needs to come from the bottom up, not the top down because their interests are diametrically opposed.

15. This form of political-economic opposition requires the working class, poor, and marginalized to expand their class consciousness, unite in common cause, and use their superior numbers and indispensable place in the capitalist mode of production to offset the disproportionate and essentially undemocratic influence of monied interests.

16. The greater the solidarity amongst the working class and the dispossessed, the greater the potential opposition to the power of capital (this is the power of things like unions and strikes). And the greater the opposition, the greater the potential for substantive, systematic change that favours the majority of the citizenry rather than the wealthy, ruling elite.

17. Radical change, then, necessitates a coordinated, working-class mass movement, particularly one geared towards more fully democratizing our economic system and institutions. As such, anti-capitalists (e.g., socialists, communists, etc.) seek alternatives to this logic and fight for revolutionary changes that'll help lay the foundation for a more egalitarian society by critiquing capitalism, attempting to expand working people's understanding of capitalism, and organizing them to challenge the capitalist mode of production and its logical outcomes. There have been both successes and failures in this historical struggle, with plenty of painful lessons learned as a result. But many of these failures have at their root a concerted effort by capitalist states and those who benefit the most from capitalist social relations to prevent alternatives to capitalism from emerging, let alone succeeding, through military and economic violence. And we shouldn't let these missteps and setbacks prevent us from continuing to try and assert our political autonomy, democratize the economy, and create a world in which all that we produce belongs to everyone and we're capable of providing for the needs of all.

Conclusion

Capitalism has undoubtedly helped us reach a point of technological advancement and innovation sufficient to achieve material abundance. But to fully realize that abundance, we must transition to something new, something characterized by the maxim: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."