Monday, October 29, 2018

Capitalism and Contradiction

Simultaneous Excess and Deficiency is tautological if two parties are involved, but contradictory if attributed to a single entity.  Thus, the fundamental Contradiction of Smith's system is his promotion of both behavior that creates an Excess-Deficiency combination, i. e. the Profit-motive, and a unitary Economic entity, i. e. a Nation.  In other words, it promotes both Zero-Sum transactions and a non-Zero-Sum goal.  Now, Exploitation can be conceived as simultaneous Excess and Deficiency.  But, studying it as such, Marx misses casting it as a Contradiction, i. e. by attributing it to a Whole, and, hence, as systematically related to Dialectical Materialism.  Similarly, subsequent Capitalists have avoided the potential internal Contradiction by simply de-emphasising the holistic component of Smith's system.  Accordingly, the American resistance to the presumed inevitability of Socialist Revolution that has stymied some Marxists, is due to the relative lack of such a holistic component in a relatively new society that is too young to develop any entrenched common tradition, resulting in an unusually resilient Individualism.

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