Malcolm Harris, New Republic: What If Stalin Had Computers?
A new book contemplates the end of capitalism (again)—it's a nice story, but a terrible plan
When will capitalism end? It’s not a new idea, and even the capitalists suspect it will happen. After all, every other mode of production has fallen, and capitalism isn’t a steady-state system. It simply isn’t built to stay the same. As firms incorporate new technologies, capacity increases per-capita, and jobs change, so too does the nature of commodities and consumption. It happened with the assembly line, and it’s happening again with information technology. In 1930, John Maynard Keynes famously predicted these trends would reduce everyone’s daily toil to part-time by now, while Karl Marx thought the same developments would compel workers to seize the whole system and abolish wage-labor in general. But the system still lives.
Update: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't. -- Megan McArdle, Bloomberg
WNU Editor: My father .... who lived under Stalin and Communism through much of his life .... summed it up best to me after living in the West in the last part of his life .... "Son, there are more Communists in the West than in the entire Soviet Union". This New Republic post only reinforces what he said.
