Staten Skaber Kapitalen.

Enhver systemkritik af kapitalismen, som er andet end blot overfladisk, må tage udgangspunkt i en analyse af hvad der overhovedet muliggør kapitalismen. Kapitalismen opstod ikke i et tomrum, men var fra første færd – og fortsætter med at være – indlejret i statslige strukturer. Det er derfor vigtigt, at man ser på hvilken rolle staten spiller i kapitalismen dvs. på hvordan eksistensen af staten hænger sammen med kapitalismens eksistens.

En bærende søjle i kapitalismen er den (oftest forfatningsbaserede) private ejendomsret. En ejendomsret der ikke blot garanteres juridisk men også fysisk af statens monopol på legal voldsanvendelse. Den private ejendomsret formuleres i moderne tid juridisk i kontekst af borgerskabets revolutioner i Frankrig og De Forenede Stater. I sidstnævnte tilfælde lagde man kimen til kapitalismen ved skabelsen af denne bærende ejendomsretslige søjle, idet ejendomsbesiddende (og ofte slaveholdende) hvide mænd, skabte en forfatning hvori den private ejendomsret indgår som et centralt element.

Ligeledes central er idéen om det frie marked. Det er dog mestendels blevet ved idéen, da markedet som kapitalismen fungerer indenfor, aldrig har været egentlig frit. Det har derimod altid været indlejret i statslige strukturer som gennem lovgivning og voldelige former for magtpraksis har gjort begrænsende indgreb i markedet, ganske ofte til kapitalisternes fordel. Allerede ganske tidligt i De Forenede Staters historie indførte man således protektionistisk lovgivning, idet man allerede under den første amerikanske præsident, George Washington, indførte The Tariff Act (1789), der havde begrænsning af import og således beskyttelse af den hjemlige produktion, som sin underliggende logik.

To af måderne hvorpå staten har virket som støttehjul for kapitalismen er altså protektionisme og den forfatningssikrede ejendomsret. Sådanne ejendomsretslige juridiske tiltag er senere blevet mere mangfoldige, hvorfor vi nu kender til fænomener som intellektuel ejendomret, herunder lovgivning som giver nogle patenter og ophavsret og forbyder andre at krænke disse. Som den amerikanske intellektuelle Kevin Carson så rammende har formuleret det, er staten “jernnæven bag den usynlige hånd.”

I begyndelsen var ejendomsretten noget mere håndgribelig end i retten til idéers tilfælde (læs: intellektuel ejendomsret), idet der typisk var tale om ejerskab af noget langt mere fysisk, nemlig land. I det nordamerikanske tilfælde var der som oftest tale om ejendom man havde fået fingrene i, ved massemorderisk fortrængelse af den indfødte befolkning og/eller gennem slaveriets udbytning af ufrie menneskers arbejdskraft. Den forfatningsgaranterede private ejendomsret var således intet mindre end en legtimering af udplyndring og udbytning, skrevet af tyvene selv. Det er derfor også ganske rammende, at ordet privat - i begrebet privat ejendomsret - har sine sproglige rødder i det latinske ord privare som kan oversættes til berøve.

Også i England spillede staten en central rolle i den centralisering af magt som affødtes af, at nogle gjorde indhug i den nedarvede fælles ejendom (jorden). Mellem 1760 og 1844 vedtog man over 4000 enclosure acts som på mindre end hundrede år forvoldte, at omkring halvfems procent af jorden i England faldt på en lille minoritets hænder. Den arbejdende landbefolkning blev frarøvet muligheden for at operere på de tidligere fællesejede åbne enge, idet disse nu var på private hænder. Dette var blandt hovedårsagerne til, at bønderne fandt sig tvunget til at flytte til byerne for at finde arbejde i fabrikkerne. Statsmagten skabte således det juridiske grundlag for en omfattende berøvelse og udbytning af arbejderklassen, samt grundlaget for industrien, qua den forsyning af arbejdskraft til de kapitalistiske fabrikker, som fulgte i kølvandet på indhegningen og privatiseringen af den fælles ejendom.

I sit essay “English Enclosures and Soviet Collectivization: Two Instances of an Anti-Peasant Mode of Development” beskriver den libertarianske historiker Joseph R. Stromberg hvordan denne legalistiske udplyndring af den fælles ejendom fandt sted:

“The political dominance of large landowners determined the course of enclosure….[I]t was their power in Parliament and as local Justices of the Peace that enabled them to redistribute the land in their own favor.

A typical round of enclosure began when several, or even a single, prominent landholder initiated it … by petition to Parliament.… [T]he commissioners were invariably of the same class and outlook as the major landholders who had petitioned in the first place, [so] it was not surprising that the great landholders awarded themselves the best land and the most of it, thereby making England a classic land of great, well-kept estates with a small marginal peasantry and a large class of rural wage labourers.”

Idéen, at nogen kunne eje jorden på samme måde som man kunne eje en hestesko man selv havde smedet, blev allerede tidligt kritiseret af en af oplysningstidens mest markante intellektuelle. I sin Afhandling om Oprindelsen og Grundlaget for Uligheden Mellem Mænd (Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) kaster filosoffen Jean-Jacques Rosseau sig ud i en sønderlemmende kritik af denne idé:

“Den første, der indhegnede et område og fandt på at sige: Dette er mit, og fandt nogen, der var dumme nok til at tro på ham, var den sande grundlægger af det borgerlige samfund. For hvor mange forbrydelser, krige, mord, for hvilke ulykker og rædsler ville ikke den mand have sparet menneskeslægten, som havde fjernet grænsepælene eller fyldt grøften op og råbt til sine fæller: Lyt ikke til denne svindler; I er fortabte, hvis I glemmer, at jordens frugter tilhører alle og jorden ingen.”

I et interview med den amerikanske systemkritiske intellektuelle Derrick Jensen i bogen Resistance Against Empire, forklarer den demokratiske økonomiske teoretiker J. W. Smith, hvori den fortabthed som Rosseau omtaler, består:

“If someone were born into our culture with the fully developed intelligence of an adult, but without our social conditioning, one of the first confusing realities she or he would face is that all of the land belongs to someone else. It’s a crazy situation. Before this person could legally stand, sit, lie down, or sleep, much less gain sustenance, she or he would have to pay whoever owned that piece of land. Now it’s one thing to own something that you’ve built—a chair, perhaps, or a table, or shoes—but land, air, and water are entirely different categories. They nurture life, are necessary to life, and were here before we were born (meaning they’re not our creation). Depriving others—all living beings, not just humans—access to land is to have the ability to kill them.” [min kursivering]

Kapitalister som ønsker staten afskaffet er der ikke mange af. Selv neoliberalister som ønsker et minimum af statslig indblanding i markedets virke ønsker ikke selve staten afskaffet. Årsagen er den simple, at staten også i det neoliberalistiske tilfælde spiller en central rolle. Den britisk-amerikanske marxistiske forfatter David Harvey beskriver statens (begrænsede) rolle i neoliberalismens tidsalder, i sin bog A Brief History of Neoliberalism:

“Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. The state has to guarantee, for example, the quality and integrity of money. It must also set up those military, defence, police, and legal structures and functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets. Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution) then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because, according to the theory, the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and bias state interventions(particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.” [min kursivering]

Når staten ofte opfattes som et bolværk imod kapitalismen er årsagen med stor sandsynlighed en manglende forståelse af, at staten, snarere end at forsvare os imod kapitalismen, faktisk er blandt de væsentligste årsager til, at kapitalismen overhovedet har kunnet opstå - og stadig består. Uden den centrale rolle som staten spiller i kapitalismen er det svært at se, hvordan kapitalismen skulle kunne fortsætte med at eksistere som global økonomisk orden. Kampen mod kapitalismen må derfor af nødvendighed også være en kamp imod staten.

Michael Parenti: Democracy and the Pathology of Wealth.

Forbes udgiver liste over 400 rigeste amerikanere.

By Tom Eley 24/09/08 "WSWS"

Even as the US careens into its greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression, the financial aristocracy whose parasitism and criminality has brought on the crisis has held its own—and then some.

The recently released Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans shows that the combined wealth of the aristocracy has increased 2 percent, even amidst the financial breakdown and recession of the economy. “In this, the 27th edition of the list,” Forbes glumly notes, “the assembled net worth of America’s wealthiest rose by $30 billion—only 2%—to $1.57 trillion.”

Readers will be forgiven for tripping over the word “only” in relationship to a $30 billion increase in wealth for 400 spectacularly wealthy individuals. This “modest” figure—the increase in wealth for the oligarchy in a bad year—is only slightly less than the federal government has budgeted for unemployment insurance for all of 2008.

The overall wealth of the 400 richest Americans is staggering. There are no multimillionaires on the list; a minimum of $1.3 billion being required to gain admittance, while the average net worth is $3.9 billion.

The combined wealth of the richest 400 individuals is $400 billion more than the entire discretionary spending budget for the federal government. It is more than $300 billion larger than the combined 2008 outlay for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It is more than 15 times the combined appropriations for education and highways and mass transit.

The personal wealth of the top 400 Americans is more than twice the combined annual GDP of all of sub-Saharan Africa, home to nearly 800 million people, the vast majority of whom live in dire conditions. It is also several hundred billion dollars larger than the GDP of the world’s eighth biggest economy, that of Spain.

The club’s richest member is Microsoft magnate Bill Gates, whose net worth, $57 billion, is greater than the annual GDP of about 120 of the world’s 180 nations.

The year’s biggest winner is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose personal wealth increased by $8.5 billion to $20 billion, making Bloomberg the nation’s eighth richest individual.

On Tuesday, without a hint of irony—much less shame—Mayor Bloomberg proposed brutal across-the-board budget cuts for the city of New York. He is calling for cutbacks totaling $500 million for the current fiscal year, to be followed by much steeper cuts in the coming years. Meanwhile Bloomberg, in the course of just one year, pocketed 17 times what he is now demanding that millions of working people in New York City forfeit in terms of vital services and jobs. Only in America!

However, owing to the turbulence of the stock market, great fortunes were being both made and squandered even as Forbes published its list. “The Forbes 400 is a snapshot of estimated wealth on Aug. 29, 2008, the day we locked in prices of publicly traded stocks,” the magazine wrote. “Given how unsettled the stock market is, some of those on our list will become significantly richer or poorer within weeks—even days—of publication. Many, including AIG shareholders Eli Broad and Steven Udvar-Hazy, have lost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Becoming poorer is of course a relative process; we can be certain that none of the demoted oligarchs faces hunger.

Among this year’s biggest “losers”—and there is a degree of poetic justice in this—are casino moguls. Kirk Kerkorian has managed to squander $6.8 billion of ill-gotten social wealth, while the fortune of his rival Sheldon Adelson “has fallen $13 billion in the past 12 months—$1.5 million per hour.” Adelson has managed to lose more in an hour than most US workers will earn in a lifetime.

That the nation’s financial aristocracy continues to gorge itself even as the economy stagnates demonstrates the increasing parasitism of the elite. The wealth of the super-rich is no longer bound up with the growth of the real economy, as it was in the days of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford. Just the opposite is the case. The wealth of the aristocracy is based on the plundering and destruction of the real economy.

A perusal of the basis of the Forbes 400 members’ wealth illustrates the parasitic nature of US capitalism. The largest two categories on the list are “finance” with 65 members and “investments” with 51. Among the “sources” Forbes lists for these categories are “leveraged buyouts,” “investments,” “hedge funds,” “money management,” and “banking, insurance.”

The next largest category is “media/entertainment,” with 36 representatives among the Fortune 400, followed by the 35 members in the highly toxic “real estate” category. There are 30 members of the Fortune 400 who have reaped their fortunes from “technology,” almost all from Internet ventures or computer technology. Twenty-eight more are found in the “oil/gas” category.

Among the Fortune 400 there are 20 in the “retail” group, among them seven members of the Walton clan, owners of Wal-Mart, who collectively have assets of over $100 billion.

It has to be asked: Are there any members of the Forbes 400 actually associated with producing commodities or creating wealth of some sort?

There are only 19 members of the 400 in the category called “manufacturing.” However, upon inspection we see that this group is comprised of corporate raiders, oil refiners, inheritors, and controllers of holding companies. Only five members of this classification are actually associated with producing a commodity—and four of these produce light consumer goods.

Likewise, there are only 11 members of the financial aristocracy whose wealth has been associated with commodity production in the agricultural sector. But among these, nine are inheritors of the Cargill fortune. Of the other two, one has gained his fortune selling discount cigarettes; another by producing pesticides in Argentina.

There are nine members of the group in the “apparel” category, which is split between those whose wealth has come from retail sales, such as the owners of the Gap clothing stores, and those who have made windfalls by producing consumer goods in low-cost countries and selling the products for inflated prices in the US, such as Phil Knight of Nike.

There is only one member of the “construction/engineering” category, the 321st richest American, Alfred Clark, who has made his fortune by building sports stadiums. The “food” category, of which there are 21 members, is divided among retailers, inheritors, and the owners of single product lines, including the owner of the Slim-Fast empire. There are only three members of the “shipping/trucking/transport” category, and one member of “mining/lumber” (whose wealth came from overseas ventures).

In short, the incredible fortunes accumulated by the American elite have precious little to do with socially useful production. On the contrary, the financial aristocracy has reaped its obscene piles of wealth from the gutting of infrastructure, the shuttering of industrial production, and the impoverishment of working people, the broad mass of the population.