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KRLS 304 > Capitalism > Flashcards

Capitalism Flashcards

1
Q

Capitalism is an economic/political system in which …

A
  • the means of production of goods or services are privately owned and operated for a profit
  • a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state
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2
Q

Characteristics central to capitalism:

A
  • private property
  • capital accumulation
  • wage labour
  • voluntary exchange
  • a price system
  • competitive markets
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3
Q

Is Canada a capitalist nation? Why?

A
  • yes

- the Canadian government has divested itself of some crown corporations (Air Canada, Petro, Atomic Energy of Canada)

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4
Q

The individual capitalist will very accurately figure out how much ____ _____ and _____ are needed and how many ____ to ____ in order to have so much end _____, but they have no general plan for meeting the ____ of society. Their only goals are ____ and ____.

A
  • raw material
  • machinery
  • workers
  • exploit
  • product
  • profit
  • survival
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5
Q

Capital is not a thing, it is a ….

A

process in which money is perpetually sent in search of more money

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6
Q

Acceleration:

A

the faster the flow of capital, the higher the profits so there is always incentive to speed up circulation

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7
Q

Why is continuity of flow crucial?

A

an interruption to flow of capital lost revenues + extra expenses = reduced profits

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8
Q

How is capital flow spatial?

A
  • money is assembled from somewhere and brought to a particular place to utilize labour resources that come from somewhere else
  • trend towards general reduction of spatial barriers and speed-up
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9
Q

The capitalist can accumulate capital only because…

A

labour generates more capital than wages consume

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10
Q

Extra capital gained is immediately ploughed into…

A

production to generate more capital for growth/expansion

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11
Q

Capitalism operates through constructs known as ____ which act as ____ ____.

A
  • markets

- pricing mechanisms

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12
Q

Interactions between actors in the market gives _____ their monetary value.

A

commodities

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13
Q

Value of commodities based on ____.

A

roi

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14
Q

Commodity:

A
  • a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other commodities of the same type
  • an article produced for market exchange rather than for its own immediate consumption
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15
Q

Commodities are often used as ….

A

inputs in the production of other goods or services

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16
Q

The quality of a given commodity may differ slightly, but it is essentially ____ across producers.

A

uniform

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17
Q

THere is little _____ between a commodity coming from one producer and the same commodity from another producer.

A
  • differentiation

- a barrel of oil is basically the same product, regardless of the producer

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18
Q

Some traditional examples of commodities include…

A
  • grains
  • gold
  • beef
  • oil
  • copper
  • natural gas
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19
Q

Commodification:

A
  • producing sellable things from historically unsellable things
  • given sufficient amounts of cleverness, anything can be turned into a commodity
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20
Q

Once transformed into a commodity, the use value of something is ….

A

translated into an exchange value

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21
Q

Use value:

A

the want satisfying power of a good or service

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22
Q

The exchange value of the commodity is expressed in _____ terms.

A

monetary

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23
Q

Examples of commodification:

A
  • labour
  • land
  • money
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24
Q

Labour is commodified when employers see little difference between…

A

workers with a particular skill set

25
Q

Labour commodification prevents labour from commanding a ___ ____ or having much ____ over their employer to demand better ____ ____.

A
  • high salary
  • influence
  • working conditions
26
Q

Labour that is commoditized is often referred to as ___ _____.

A

human capital

27
Q

Labour that isn’t commoditized can be described as ____.

A

talent

28
Q

Under capitalism we have a fetishized relationship with ______.

A

commodities

29
Q

Commodity fetishism:

A
  • fetishizes the products of labour and the relations between the commodities at the expense of the labour itself and the relations between the humans involved
  • gives commodities a mystified status that can be religious
  • abstracts them from the human meaning they have
30
Q

The word fetish refers to…

A

any object that people fixate on or are fascinated by and that keeps them from seeing the truth

31
Q

According to Marx, when people try to understand the world in which they live, they fixate on ____ or _____.

A
  • money

- commodities

32
Q

Marx believed that _____ and _____ are fetishes that prevent people from seeing the truth about ____ and ____; that one class of people is _____ another.

A
  • commodities
  • money
  • economics
  • society
  • exploiting
33
Q

In capitalism, the production of commodities is based on an _____ economic relationship between ….

A
  • exploitative
  • owners of factories
  • workers who produce the commodities
34
Q

In everyday life, we only think of the ____ value of commodity (aka ____).

A
  • market

- price

35
Q

Marx argues that commodity fetishism allows capitalists to…

A

carry on with day-to-day affairs of a capitalist mode of production without having to confront the real implications of the system of exploitation on which they depend

36
Q

Relations of production:

A
  • the relationship between those who own the means of production and those who do not
  • often characterized by class
37
Q

____ are one example of wealthy owners.

A

oligopolies

38
Q

Means of production:

A
  • factories
  • facilities
  • machines
  • raw materials
  • labour
  • organization of labour force
39
Q

Labour is central to a human being’s ____ ____ and sense of ____ ____.

A
  • self-conception

- well-being

40
Q

Alienation:

A

by working on and transforming objective matter into sustenance and objects of use-value, human beings meet the needs of existence and come to see themselves externalized in the world

41
Q

Labour is as much an act of ____ ____ and a projection of one’s _____ as it is a ….

A
  • personal creation
  • identity
  • means of survival
42
Q

With alienation, workers approach work only as a means of ____ and derives none of the other personal _____ of work because …

A
  • survival
  • satisfactions
  • the products of their labour do not belong to them
  • products are used by capitalists and sold for profit
43
Q

Regimes of accumulation:

A

a pattern of production and consumption which is reproducible over time by which capital accumulation is ensured

44
Q

Fordist:

A
  • single site mass production
  • replaced cottage industries
  • single company owns all aspects of production
  • specialized labour force
  • large inventory of products
  • all tasks done by corporation
  • leads to urbanization
45
Q

Post-fordist:

A
  • production dispersed and accelerated
  • replaced fordist
  • just in time delivery
  • global division of labour
  • time space compression
  • outsourced and offshore
  • avoid government regulations
  • high tech manufacturing and R&D left in core
46
Q

First inherent contradiction within capitalism:

A

the capital-labour relation

47
Q

Wage-labour tension:

A
  • tension between the desire to increase profits and the need to have consumers with enough money to purchase the increased production
  • should consumers be unable to absorb all the production = overproduction
  • prices need to drop = profit margins are low
48
Q

Fixes for wage-labour tension:

A
  • pay workers more so they can absorb the production, but increased wages erode profit
  • enter new markets where new consumers can absorb the excess production
  • produce commodities more efficiently, thus lowering costs
  • secure loans to invest in new technologies and/or markets with the expectation of greater future returns on investment
49
Q

The fixes for wage-labour tension are….

A
  • spatial: moving to new markets
  • temporal: speeding up production
  • spatio-temporal: loans shift production into the future and into new markets
  • temporary
50
Q

Second contradiction of capitalism:

A

environmental contradiction

51
Q

Environmental contradiction:

A
  • we live in a finite planet with limited ecological and natural resources that has to be preserved for sustainability purposes
  • carrying capacity of the world cannot sustain endless consumption and production
52
Q

Issues with Fordism:

A
  • barrier to capital accumulation
  • accumulation strategy was capital intensive, requiring the construction of factories and infrastructure
  • relatively fixed turnover times from investment to returns, because of limits within the production process
53
Q

Current regime of accumulation:

A

financialization

54
Q

Financialization:

A

pattern of accumulation in which profit making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production

55
Q

Financialization is characterized by …

A
  • a move away from the production of commodities toward speculation
  • growing importance of financial instruments and crisis
56
Q

With financialization, capital has become highly ____ and can also displace itself further into the ____ than ever before.

A
  • mobile

- future

57
Q

Externalities:

A

a positive or negative consequence of an economic activity experienced by unrelated third parties

58
Q

Example of negative externality:

A

Pollution emitted by a factory that spoils the surrounding environment and affects the health of nearby residents

59
Q

Example of positive externality:

A

The effect of a well-educated labor force on the productivity of a company

KRLS 304 (24 decks)

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