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[...] Capitalist societies can always heave a sigh of relief and say to themselves: communism is finished since the collapse of the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century and not only is it finished, but it did not take place, it was only a ghost. They do no more than disavow the undeniable itself: a ghost never dies, it remains always to come and to come-back.
Unemployment, that more or less well-calculated deregulation of a new market, new technologies, new worldwide competitiveness, would no doubt, like labor or production, deserve another name today. [...] The function of social inactivity, of non-work or of underemployment is entering into a new era. It calls for another politics. [...]
So it has to be posited simultaneously that economic capital is at the root of all the other types of capital and that these transformed, disguised forms of economic capital, never entirely reducible to that definition, produce their most specific effects only to the extent that they conceal (not least from their possessors) the fact that economic capital is at their root, in other words--but only in the last analysis--at the root of their effects. [...]
[...] Thus the more the official transmission of capital is prevented or hindered, the more the effects of the clandestine circulation of capital in the form of cultural capital become determinant in the reproduction of the social structure. [...]
[...] Interest, in the restricted sense it is given in economic theory, cannot be produced without producing its negative counterpart, disinterestedness. The class of practices whose explicit purpose is to maximize monetary profit cannot be defined as such without producing the purposeless finality of cultural or artistic practices and their products; the world of bourgeois man, with his double-entry accounting, cannot be invented without producing the pure, perfect universe of the artist and the intellectual and the gratuitous activities of art-for-art's sake and pure theory. In other words, the constitution of a science of mercantile relationships which, inasmuch as it takes for granted the very foundations of the order it claims to analyze---private property, profit, wage labor, etc.---is not even a science of the field of economic production, has prevented the constitution of a general science of the economy of practices, which would treat mercantile exchange as a particular case of exchange in all its forms.
Von den Großen dieser Erde
melden uns die Heldenlieder:
Steigend auf so wie Gestirne
gehn sie wie Gestirne nieder.
Das klingt tröstlich, und man muss es wissen.
Nur: für uns, die sie ernähren müssen
ist das leider immer ziemlich gleich gewesen.
Aufstieg oder Fall: Wer trägt die Spesen?
Freilich dreht das Rad sich immer weiter
dass, was oben ist, nicht oben bleibt.
Aber für das Wasser unten heißt das leider
nur: Dass es das Rad halt ewig treibt.
Ach, wir hatten viele Herren
hatten Tiger und Hyänen
hatten Adler, hatten Schweine
doch wir nährten den und jenen.
Ob sie besser waren oder schlimmer:
Ach, der Stiefel glich dem Stiefel immer
und uns trat er. Ihr versteht: Ich meine
dass wir keine andern Herren brauchen, sondern keine!
Freilich dreht das Rad sich immer weiter
dass, was oben ist, nicht oben bleibt.
Aber für das Wasser unten heißt das leider
nur: Dass es das Rad halt ewig treibt.
Und sie schlagen sich die Köpfe
blutig, raufend um die Beute
nennen andre gierige Tröpfe
und sich selber gute Leute.
Unaufhörlich sehn wir sie einander grollen
und bekämpfen. Einzig und alleinig
wenn wir sie nicht mehr ernähren wollen
sind sie sich auf einmal völlig einig.
Denn dann dreht das Rad sich nicht mehr weiter
und das heitre Spiel, es unterbleibt
wenn das Wasser endlich mit befreiter
Stärke seine eigne Sach betreibt.
translation: The Song of the Waterwheel
Ancient tale and epic story
Tell of heroes' lives untarnished:
Like the stars they rose in glory,
Like the stars they set when vanquished.
This is comforting and we should know it.
We, alas, who plant the wheat and grow it
Have but little share in triumph or disasters,
Rise to fame or fall: Who feeds our masters?
Yes, the wheel is always turning madly,
Neither side stays up or down,
But the water underneath fares badly,
For it has to make the wheel go 'round.
Ah, we've had so many masters,
Swine or eagle, lean or fat one:
Some were tigers, some hyenas,
Still we fed this one and that one.
Whether one is better than the other:
Ah, one boot is always like another
When it treads upon you. What I say about them
Is we need no masters: we can do without them!
Yes, the wheel is always turning madly,
Neither side stays up or down,
But the water underneath fares badly,
For it has to make the wheel go 'round.
And they beat each other's heads all bloody
Scuffling over booty,
Call the other fellows greedy wretches,
They, themselves, but do their duty.
Ceaselessly we watch their wars grow ever grimmer,
Would I knew a way for them to be united.
If we will no more provide the fodder
Maybe that's the way all would be righted.
For at last the wheel shall turn no longer,
And shall ride the stream no more,
When the water joins to water as it gaily
Drives itself, freed of the load it bore.
Was sind das für Zeiten, wo
Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist
Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt!
Der dort ruhig über die Straße geht
Ist wohl nicht mehr erreichbar für seine Freunde
Die in Not sind?
[...]
Ihr aber, wenn es soweit sein wird
Dass der Mensch dem Menschen ein Helfer ist
Gedenkt unsrer
Mit Nachsicht.
second and last stanzas only. Translation:
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?
[...]
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do not judge us
Too harshly.
better translation from https://harpers.org/blog/2008/01/brecht-to-those-who-follow-in-our-wake/:
What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!
And he who walks quietly across the street,
Passes out of the reach of his friends
Who are in danger?[...]
But you, when at last the time comes
That man can aid his fellow man,
Should think upon us
With leniency.
So, even before Thomas Piketty’s book, the topic of ‘inequality’ had arrived in the economic mainstream, and with the following line of argumentation: inequality and poverty are no longer regarded so much as a consequence of capitalist economic growth, but rather as a brake on such growth and as a problem for stability. [...] What stands at the centre of attention are no longer the problems that the poor have with capitalism, but the problems that the poor pose for capitalism and its growth. The demand that follows from this is no longer a fundamental change of economic system, but merely a correction of the existing one – and not a correction of wealth to the benefit of the poor, but a correction of poverty for the benefit of wealth. The goal is not a better life for people – such a better life is only supposed to be a means of making economic growth smoother and faster. [...]
this is a v good assessment
[...] if all people owned an equal amount of wealth, all of them would equally profit from a strong growth of capital. In fact, however, wealth is unequally distributed, according to Piketty. He does not explain why that is. Rather, he assumes inequality as a given, and examines its development over time. This demonstrates, according to Piketty, that the strong growth of wealth in contrast to that of income exacerbates an inequality characteristic of all societies: those who have, receive (more). The rich become richer. According to Piketty, increasingly inequality is not a coincidence, but rather inscribed into economic development. Piketty says this is the case not only under capitalism, but also in other economic forms. However, Piketty does not wish for this diagnosis of growing inequality to be understood as a call to class struggle: ‘To be clear, my purpose here is not to plead the case of workers against owners but rather to gain as clear as possible a view of reality.’
p40 of Capital
[...] Only a few years afterwards, however, it underwent a drastic reduction. One reason for this was of course the loss of wealth in the form of ‘war damages’. A further reason was the devaluation of financial wealth in the form of government bonds: government bonds were already held in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in the course of war financing from 1914 on, their importance increased. After the First World War, these assets were devalued by inflation. In order to minimize the effects of inflation upon the general public and curb the price spiral, rent controls were also introduced, which reduced the returns on real estate. And finally, in their financial need, governments decided upon higher taxes upon inheritance and top incomes, which further eroded wealth – at least in France, Germany, Britain and the US.
This taxation was something new. Before the war ‘tax rates, even on the most astronomical incomes, remained extremely low … This was true everywhere, without exception.’