Was Hegel right? Capitalism and the Creative class

Everything that exists has a germ of its own destruction in its very birth (Eastern wisdom)

Summary:

• Capitalism as an intermediate link between economic formations within itself brings the reason to move to another formation.
• The success of capitalism accelerates its “final” (move to other formation), but not a crisis, as Marx thought.
• The next formation after capitalism is the cooperative (‘employee-owned companies’) economy, not the communism, as Marx thought.
• The driving force of the transition is the creative class, created by capitalism itself, and not the working class, as Marx thought.
• The creative class cannot satisfy higher-level needs of Maslow’s Pyramid within the capitalist corporations and needs new motivation, that can be provided by employee-owned companies.

Full statement:

1. How is the development performed by Hegel
• There is a certain phenomenon - thesis.
• Thesis’ activities generates its opposite - antithesis.
• The struggle of thesis and antithesis.
• Solution of this struggle is in the new phenomenon - synthesis of thesis and antithesis, which combines the properties of both.
• The synthesis becomes the new thesis, and the cycle begins again.

2. Thesis: perfect competition and individual producers
• A new branch begins with the perfect competition of individual producers.
• Each producer is both the worker and the owner of his business.
• Production takes place without the use of hired labor.
• Individual producer is not a “capitalist” because he receives income only from his own labor, not the capital.

3. Antithesis: Successful producers hire workers and become “capitalists”
• More talented individual producers displace competitors and hire labor.
• Prior to the stage of hiring workers, individual producer does not know what a “capital” is.
• “Capitalist” begins to generate income not only from his own work, but also from the work of others on his “capital”.
• Individual worker-owner forks on the individual owner and the collective worker within the same firm.

[b]4. The struggle of thesis and antithesis: “holy war” of trade unions and shareholders

Trade unions:[/b]
• Hatred of the “capitalists” and the desire for revenge for the exploitation.
Objective: to get more “freebies” of the social package, even at the expense of the company.
• Opposition to innovation and increased productivity.
In case of victory: unprofitable business and society of dependents.
Capitalists:
• Neglecting to workers and the desire to use them.
Objective: to use cheap labor to maximize profits.
• Opposition to improve working conditions and social security.
In case of victory: increase of wealth inequality and social protests.

5. Institutional framework for the synthesis: successes of postindustrial capitalism
• Capitalism meets the basic needs of the people (physiological and safety)
• Capitalism creates conditions for the personal development of the general population:
1. The quality of education. Capitalism is the “customer” of the highly educated workforce, which service high-tech means of production.
2. Availability of information. Capitalism has started mass production of Internet, television, radio, paving the way for self-education.
3. Development of сommunications. Mass production of vehicles and devices to communicate at a distance promotes personal development.


6. Maslow Pyramid: capitalism offers not enough motivation for the creative class
Intangible needs are not met because:
• Alienation from the profits and overall success of the company (belonging to a company);
• Non-involvement in the decision-making process (belonging to a company, the need for respect and self-realization).
Result: The creative class, working in corporations, does not consider these corporations as its own, do not identify with corporations’ successes and sees them as antagonists.

7. Definition of the Creative class
Creative class is part of post-industrial society as its intellectual and cultural level formed on the basis of success of capitalism in the fields of education, information technologies and communications, but it cannot fully succeed in capitalist system due to lack of motivation of higher level: ability to satisfy needs of belonging, respect and creativity within capitalist corporations.
• The more capitalism reaches success, the more growing the share of the creative class, which becomes a “foreign body” for capitalism and makes new demands to the economic system.
• Reaching the critical number of the creative class (which previously was the proletariat) leads to a qualitative change in the economic system.

8. In order to meet the higher level needs the ownership is needed
• The alienation of the worker from the company overcome by giving him the ownership of it.
• Worker-owner, along with the ownership, gets a voting right in issues of the company’s activities, a voting right to elect the top-management of the company and has a guaranteed share of the profits.
• The voting right on the company’s activity is the right to self-realization, that is creativity. Everyone can express his opinion and offer new ideas as an equal partner.
• The work in such an atmosphere becomes interesting, it starts to bring pleasure, and motivation is restored.


9. The worker-owner is a synthesis of thesis and antithesis of capitalism
• Confrontation of collective employee and individual owner-shareholder ends in the face of the collective worker-owner of the company.
• Worker-owner cannot complain about the owner, because he is the owner, and cannot exploit workers, because he is the worker.
• Absolute power of the individual owner is distributed to the members having equal rights.
• Instead of economic authoritarianism comes economic democracy.

10. Example: Mondragon Corporation – the world leader of cooperation (mondragon-corporation.com/eng/)
• More than 12.5 billion. Euros gross income;
• Offices in 41 countries;
• Sales in more than 150 countries;
• 15 technology centers;
• 74 thousand workers (84% are the members and real owners);
• 103 cooperatives;
• Co-operative Bank;
• University of Mondragon: 11 master’s and 3 doctoral programs.

Video of how it works: youtube.com/watch?v=zaJ1hfVPUe8
Read more here: creatorsociety.org/index.php … ifesto-eng

I have to say that it is a step in the right direction, but the decision making mechanism makes all of the difference. And that mechanism isn’t revealed and is very often and easily flawed such as to allow for such a corporation to become something very evil quite easily in a global competition. Basically, it is too big for its head, getting closer to being communistic (in the future). But being employee owned is definitely headed the right direction (capitalistic compromise).

Take that same corporation, break it up into groups/corporations of from 10-40 people (also employee owned) handling the exact same market and products, with the right decision making mechanism, and you have a much more enduring and stable cooperative, resistant to very high level strategic political attacks and destine to become the world.

As far as I understand, you mean, that the big co-op corporations have a risk to become a corporation, where worker-owners have no real influence on the management and ‘economic democrasy’ is only on paper. I agree, that such a risk exists. And creating some departments with 10-40 people, that would have self-government or autonomy, within the co-op corporation is the right way.

Even if we see of what is the structure of the democratic state, it has central governmant and local authorities, and all of them elected in democratic way. So the co-op corporations can be organised in similar way. And, in fact, as far as I know, Mondragon Corporation has already such structure, and it’s divided into more the 100 cooperatives.

Btw, I wanted to mention that this following excerpt from your SCM page is extremely important and true in governing people;

By reading a little more concerning the make up of Mondragon, I can see that the priest that started the effort had understood some critical fundamental concerns that are commonly left out - would that I could speak to him back then.

I believe in a SAM corporation/group that seems very similar to Mondragon and the SCM incentive, although perhaps more exactly defined through its individualized constitutions, “CRH”. When understood properly, I am certain that such groupings would have more certainly, harmoniously, and economically maintained the Imperial Cities of Europe, causing their design to spread throughout the world.

I am curious though as to what, in the SCM scheme is to cause any creative initiative after its establishment. I am getting the impression that such creativity is suppose to just appear and be sustained for no reason. From exactly where is the inspiration to create to stem?

Yes. Hegel was right. Hegel is right. Hegel will be right.

That is - of course - also right.

Hegel should have been right,but he didn’t turn out that way. Did he? he should have, but he was not. course, the future will really be the absolute adjudicator of that, right?

I am very pleased that you are interested in CSM manifesto)

About SAM corporation I haven’t heard yet, but i will read about it, its very interesting, as well as “CRH”. Since I am Ukrainian, I want to Ukraine was built on the model of Mondragón, and then another countries (not only single cities ) would be inspired by the example of Ukraine.

About the inspiration to create, I think it given to us by God. :slight_smile: And it could be different terms, that stimulate person to create, as falling in love or mental stress for any other reason. But as you rightly said, there may be no reason. A person can just wake up in the morning with a desire to create. And that’s OK, because a direct function of man is to create. It would be strange if he did not want it.

The dialectic process as Hegel’s method is pretty fundamental. One can not deny it. It is true. It is true in the sense that Hegel meant.

The dialectic was not uniquely Hegel’s method. Dialectic is an ancient method.According to Hegel, Pythagoras and particularly Zeno is credited in originating it. So it’s a formal, logical system of indirect proof, meaning , it cannot be arrived from within the formal system itself. This implies, that, meaning is not exclusively self referential.

Hegel’s dialectic was, is, and will be Hegel’s dialectic, Hegel’s method! Of course! That’s logical, even tautological.

Pythagoras’ dialectic or others’ dialectic, thus also Kant’s dialectic, are not like Hegel’s dialectic.

Recently approved post

Again from the SCM site;

Nothing could be more critically important to fully understand during these days than that one issue. There was one very essential issue almost entirely left out of the Jesus story. Jesus vaguely mentioned it and if given a few more years, would certainly have made it much more obvious (thus the resurrection was really only 98%). That is the issue of staying “hopefully busy”, momentously very busy maintaining the hope in living, not the threat of dying. Those very few who manage to keep their own few people very hopefully and momentously busy under the CRH will become not merely the savior of their people and country, but literally of the entire world of people from that day forward. If born in the Ukraine, the Ukraine would become the new center of the world, staving off all of Russia. But it doesn’t matter who starts it or where. Much like the Mondragon organization, it only takes a few and slowly, it becomes even greater than a dragon aspires to be. It, SAM, is the foundation of all that Man (or what remains of Man) is to become and forever remain. Aspire to be so creative as that.

If Hegel knew, he would not disagree (nor Kant, Aristotle, Jesus, Buddha nor any of them).

Philosophically said, the Marxistic communism, which is based on Hegel’s dialectic, says that the capitalism is the thesis, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the antithesis, and classless equality and equal happiness for all is the synthesis. But if is right that history is class struggle (war), then it is not - or at least only without history - possible to get a classless equality and equal happiness for all. Okay, Hegel already claimed the end of history, also Marx who was a Left-Hegelian, and many others (mostly Hegelians, some Nietzscheans, some others). So, as long as there is history there is no classless equality and equal happiness for all, so that the classes, the inequality, thus the class struggle (war) remain.

The problem of making an all inclusive mutual content of Marx and Hegel, is that in material dialectic, unlike with Hegel, there is no apex, a final synthesis, drawing upward the broad, complex redundant underbelly of confusing temporal human, all to human mass, instead in Marx the reverse is true, an ever widening ever complexive yet paradoxically entropically meaningless surge into appearing chaos.

This chaos is embraced only peripherally, and contradictory meshed with the hope for a deepening understanding.

That is the problem, when the two triangles are can not congrue , but tipped tipped to tip, hoping some kind of synergy to pass through them. The model presented above suffers this lack of synergy, through misalignment, misplacing the channels through which the elan may turn into synthesis.

By the way: One can try to apply the dialectic process to Hegel’s dialectic itself. If we say that Hegel’s dialectic is anti-analytic and the analytic philosophy anti-dialectic, then there are thesis and antithesis in two ways, but we do not really know which one of them starts at first as thesis. Starting at first is an advantage. So which one is the one with that advantage? If we will never know this, then we will have to state that both remain just opposites, because it would be unfair to say this or that one starts at first. But, in that case, it is also problematic to say what the synthesis is. The first one (thesis) with the advantage will always say that the second one (antithesis) is somehow “false” or “evil” , so that the first one will always make a major contribution to the synthesis.

Presumably, then, whichever comes first is the thesis.
But if either can be held to come first, then whichever comes first is the thesis.

Sounds like the cliche, 'who is on first, who is on third?

But in reality, this is precisely the problem Marx could not deal with in Hegel, for the question rests on the abandonment of duality by Marx. His understanding did not meets the level of this presumption, thus the eventual failure of Marxism.

My point is that it is not theoretically decidable who is on first, because, apparently, that decision is given by history (resp. evolution) itself, and that means by powerful people (resp. nature).

Dialectic processes are not nonsense, because they really happen. So they are, philosophically said, ontological, thus not only logical.

One of the most interesting questions is: What was first: war and disharmony or peace and harmony?

I’m sure an anthropologist could trace and/or ascertain that.

Did becoming sentient cause our warring nature, or was it already present and active before that time? They would need to study the first human civilisation settlements to answer that.

Perhaps it started once tribes joined forces and had strength in numbers… perhaps?

Another possibility is to give the advantage to the second one, the antithesis, for example to the dictatorship of the proletariat - as we know not only from history. Principally, everyone and not only egalitarianists like the communists, can “argue” in this way.

In this example, the (advocates of the) unproductives ones “argue” as if they were the (advocates of the) productive ones, and the (advocates of the) real poroductive ones argue in the same way: They are exploited. But only the productive ones are right, because they (and only they!) pay taxes, and, moreover, the unproductive ones are paid by this taxes. The taxpayers (and only the taxpayers) are exploited by those who do not pay taxes, and this are not only poor people but also very rich people.