Late Stage Capitalism
A place for for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
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Nope you have it backwards. You wouldn't have any production without consumption. If no one burned coal there would be no coal miners. Companies capture their consumption because that's the only power the worker has, and when they're forced to buy from the company they work for then the company has absolute power over them.
No. I don't have it backwards. We're using two different definitions of power.
Power, in the physical sense, comes from converting fuel to energy. In this sense you are correct. Physical power comes from consumption.
However, polticial-economic power OF THE WORKING CLASS comes from production, not consumption. This is because the rich ALSO need to eat but they do not farm. If the working class stopped farming, they would starve all people on the planet. That's political-economic power.
Company towns capture the consumption of their workers because the company has political-economic power over the workers that precedes the worker in that the power the company wields today is based on wealth accumulation that occurred long before the worker was born. Because the company has this power, they can capture the consumption of the worker. This is how we know that consumption is not political-economic power because if it were the company town would not be able to capture it without some kind of consuming contest with the worker. Instead, because workers must eat to survive and die if they do not, consumption is a political-economic vulnerability and production is political-economic power.