Summary

Now that I have set out most of the main premises of my Marxist worldview, which I will be elaborating in future posts, probably with more attention to specific current events, I thought it would be a good idea to summarize the ideas I have presented so far before moving on.

• Accumulation of wealth, in general, occurs through relationships of exploitation and the limitation of competition (often via use of state mechanisms).  Accumulation of wealth is always a redistribution of wealth, and as such, it strains the very system by which it occurs, rendering it unsustainable for any particular individual or corporation in the long run.
• Power is not a "thing" that one "has" but a characteristic of relationships (acting upon another's actions).  Most forms of power are decentralized and present in any type of social relationship.  Sovereignty is a more centralized form of power that adheres between an institution wielding legitimate use of violence and enforcement of law, and those upon whom the legitimate violence and rule of law are exercised.  Nominally, the former is "the state," although the state is actually a tool employed by the dominant groups of society.

• The primary defining characteristic of capitalism is wage labor.
• Wage labor allows for large-scale organization of production and investment in technology that creates "economies of scale."
• When production occurs at such a large scale and is simultaneously oriented only toward profit-making goals rather than the actual societal need, over-production is the inevitable result.
• To overcome crises of over-production, capitalists must create demand (results:  excessive marketing and advertising, constantly outmoded technology and outdated fashions, a consumerist lifestyle, state deficit spending, extension of credit, increasing public and personal debt).
• However, the ultimate result of over-production is decreasing profitability of the manufacturing sector and economic stagnation, as well as waste on a large scale.
• For example, as we have all seen, U.S. deficit spending and the stock-market and housing bubbles created by extension of credit were not ultimately able to overcome the global crisis of over-production and economic stagnation that emerged in the late 1960s.  It only postponed the inevitable and made the fall much more drastic.
• Since the late 1960s, any period of economic growth in one country has been accomplished primarily through the manipulation of exchange rates and other monetary policy (rather than resolving the global crisis of over-production) and, thus, has occurred directly at the expense of all the others.

• Under capitalism, the condition of wage labor constituting the basis of value provides a point of intersection between sovereign power (self-interested, territorial, focused on wealth and resources) and governmental power (oriented toward the management and cultivation of the life, productivity, and health of populations).  Governmental power relationships have greatly expanded, encompassing more areas of life, and have been appropriated to a limited degree by the state.  Simultaneously, life itself has come to constitute a basis of sovereignty, whereas previously people were only encountered as objects of secondary importance to territory and resources.
• Thus, under capitalism, life itself has become a grounds of political struggle and power.  (For example, the issue of abortion and defining when life begins.)

• The profitability of capitalist enterprise requires cheap inputs.
• This was initially provided by the emergence of a class of landless, unemployed peasants (dispossessed of their land) whose labor could be exploited.  This was followed by the large-scale use of slave labor in the American colonies.
• Later, capitalists were forced to turn their attention toward procuring cheaper raw materials.  This was achieved via colonization of the rest of the world where these resources were located.
• More recently, there has been a swing back toward the pursuit of cheap labor, as well as cheap "light" manufactured goods as inputs for more "value-added" industry.  This is accomplished by using "neocolonial" relationships of exploitation to open the markets of formerly colonized nations to multi-national corporations.  This also serves the purpose of creating additional markets for commodities in the face of global over-production.
• These are the relationships of exploitation that characterize capitalist accumulation of wealth.
• The end result is an increasing gap between the wealthiest nations and the poorest.

• These realities are concealed from popular awareness by a number of ideologies that uphold the social order.
• Social contract ideology promotes the belief that states have a power of their own, apart from dominant groups, and by consent of all the citizens.  In so far as states are seen as the real locus of power, rather than dominant groups, all attempts to limit or combat power are errantly directed at the state, such as trying to "reduce the size of government."
• Social contract ideology also encourages people to view economies as nationally bounded, and to assume that state policies (or lack thereof) are the root cause of economic growth and recession.  Thus, economic crises are not seen as resulting from inherent flaws in a global system, but as something which can be "fixed" and permanently avoided through the proper state action (or inaction, depending on one's perspective).
• Neoliberal ideology supports the belief that the system is fair, the playing field is level, and any inequalities result from "natural" inadequacies and moral deficiencies.  Thus, poverty is accepted as the just due of the unworthy.  It is not the consequence of exploitation or an inherently unjust system.