Petroleum Industry.  Monopoly Capitalism. Protectionism.

~ nicholasjayboyes

  The answer to why Donald Trump is ramping up tariffs is protectionism, in particular to protect ExxonMobil and Chevron, who control much of the US market for petroleum.  Other countries like Britain own Shell and BP,; Total is owned by France.  By discouraging competition with tariffs, ExxonMobil and Chevron will control the US market for oil. 

Chevron has a history.  This work is  from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

“Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is active in more than 180 countries. Within oil and gas, Chevron is vertically integrated and is involved in hydrocarbon exploration, production, refining, marketing and transport, chemicals manufacturing and sales, and power generation. 

Wikipedia Chevron 

Chevron is one of two massive companies that control much of the US market. There are 5 large oil companies in the world who control most or all of the market for petroleum production, refining, and selling the gas at gas stations.  They are ExxonMobil, the largest, Chevron, BP , Total, and Shell.  The Saudi Aramco company is in production of crude and are also a force to be reckoned with.

There was a time not so long ago, in memory, when the gas station was a family business.  That began to change in the 80’s and 90’s and now it is rare to find a family or small business owned gas pump.  Concentration of ownership by large capitalists removed the small gas stations, 

“Since the acquisition of the Pacific Coast Oil Company by Standard Oil, the Standard descendant had traditionally worked closely with Texaco for 100 years, before acquiring Texaco outright in 2001. “

Wikipedia Chevron

There went another large company to Chevron.  Texaco used to own gas stations, it is now all Chevron.

“Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985.[1] The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Gulf’s headquarters, the Gulf Tower, being Pittsburgh’s tallest building until the completion of the U.S. Steel Tower.

“Gulf Oil Corporation (GOC) ceased to exist as an independent company in 1985, when it merged with Standard Oil of California (SOCAL), with both rebranding as Chevron in the United States. Gulf Canada, Gulf’s main Canadian subsidiary, was sold the same year with retail outlets to Ultramar and Petro-Canada and what became Gulf Canada Resources to Olympia & York.[2][3] 

Wikipedia Gulf Oil

“The term “Seven Sisters” refers to seven major, vertically integrated oil companies that dominated the global petroleum industry from the 1940s to the 1970s. They controlled a significant portion of the world’s oil reserves and production. The “Seven Sisters” were: Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil Company of California (later Chevron), Gulf Oil (later merged with Chevron), Texaco (later merged with Chevron), Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon, then ExxonMobil), and Standard Oil Company of New York (later Mobil, then ExxonMobil). “

Google search 7 sisters oil and gas

Basically Chevron and ExxonMobil are the main American petroleum producers, BP, Shell, and Total also dominate the market for oil.  These 5 companies also own gas stations, which as mentioned have become owned by a few large companies, rather than small businesses.  

“Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess Corporation) is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas.[3] It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petroleum in 1968. Leon Hess was CEO from the early 1960s through 1995, after which his son John B Hess succeeded him as chairman and CEO.[4] The company agreed to be acquired by rival oil company Chevron in October 2023.[5]

Wikipedia Hess company

This one has ties to the new fields in South America, in French Guyana.  It is now owned by Chevron.  

Exxon Mobil is the other American company that competes with Chevron, at least, if you believe that this small group of companies does not exert monopoly control of oil.  

“Exxon Mobil Corporation[a] (/ˌɛksɒnˈmoʊbəl/ EK-son-MOH-bəl)[4][5][6] is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston.[7][8]: 1  Founded as the largest direct successor of John D. Rockefeller‘s Standard Oil, the modern company was formed in 1999 following the merger of Exxon and Mobil. It is vertically integrated across the entire oil and gas industry, as well as within its chemicals division, which produces plastic, synthetic rubber, and other chemical products. As the largest U.S.-based oil and gas company, ExxonMobil is the seventh-largest company by revenue in the U.S. and 13th-largest in the world. It is the largest investor-owned oil company in the world.[9][10][11] Approximately 55.56% of the company’s shares are held by institutions, the largest of which as of 2019 were The Vanguard Group (8.15%), BlackRock (6.61%), and State Street Corporation (4.83%).

“The company has been widely criticized and sued, mostly for environmental incidents and its history of climate change denial against the scientific consensus that fossil fuels significantly contribute to global warming.[12] The company is responsible for many oil spills, the largest and most notable of which was the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and itself considered to be one of the world’s worst oil spills in terms of environmental damage.[13][14] The company has been the target of accusations of human rights violations, excessive influence on American foreign policy, and its impact on developing countries.[15]

Wikipedia ExxonMobil

“ExxonMobil traces its roots to Vacuum Oil Company, founded in 1866. Vacuum Oil later was acquired by Standard Oil in 1879, divested from Standard in 1911 with its breakup, and merged by the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony), later known as Mobil, in 1931. After the 1911 breakup, Standard Oil continued to exist through its New Jersey subsidiary, sometimes shortened to Jersey Standard, and retained the Standard Oil name in much of the eastern United States. Jersey Standard grew by acquiring Humble Oil in the 1930s and became the dominant oil company on the world stage. The company’s lack of ownership over the Standard Oil name across the United States, however, prompted a name change to unify all of its brands under one name, choosing to name itself Exxon in 1972 over continuing to use the three distinct brands of Esso, Enco, and Humble Oil.[16][17]

“In 1998, the two companies agreed to merge and form ExxonMobil, with the deal closing on November 30, 1999.

Wikipedia ibid

From here we pivot back to protectionism.  Oil from Canada is now under a 25%  tariff from Trump.  This number fluctuates as Trump has repeatedly threatened larger tariffs, and exempted Canadian oil from some tariffs. Trump’s tariffs change from day to day and seem to be more reliant on stock exchange numbers than anything else. 

“Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.

“The predecessor company of Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Marathon Petroleum Company LLC, formerly known as Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, was formed by the merger of the refining operations of Marathon Oil and Ashland Inc. in 1998.[11] The merger brought together several descendants of the Standard Oil trust, as Ashland had acquired several smaller Standard spinoffs while Marathon itself was directly owned by Standard Oil. It also brought Marathon’s Speedway and Ashland’s SuperAmerica convenience store chains together and were subsequently merged as “Speedway SuperAmerica”.

“As longtime Marathon rivals Standard Oil of Ohio and Amoco were acquired by British company BP, Marathon Ashland adopted the marketing slogan “An American Company Serving America”, with the slogan being adjourned to Marathon fuel pumps. In 2006, it adopted its current slogan, “Fueling the American Spirit” as the company shifts emphasis on work ethic and the contributions of its employees.[12]

Wikipedia marathon petroleum

Mentioned above is a further ending of small businesses in petroleum, BP (British Petroleum) purchased Amaco.  Marathon is still a big gas station owner in companies with American ownership.  BP is massive, so is Total and Shell, and can leverage power in the market.  Marathon does refining, but it is not nearly as large as ExxonMobil or Chevron. Watch for concentration of ownership to consolidate  monopoly control of this company by the bigger competitors… 

Place tariffs on the oil from outside the country, and these three companies are in position to have monopoly control of petroleum in America.  It is probably not a coincidence that ExxonMobil are climate change skeptics, and Trump is too.  

These dinosaurs pump and sell as much oil as possible, with little or no concern about climate change.  The goal is to make a profit, not to promote proletarian ecological visions.

Consolidation of ownership occurs after every periodic crisis that comes in the business cycle of what we know of as modern capitalism.  The economy starts off after the last crisis. Workers return to their jobs, business starts moving again.  The unemployed army of workers who work in the precarious position of unskilled labor are slowly reemployed.  Business picks up further, the economy starts to pick up a trot.  Employment increases, and profit is created.

Then, there comes overproduction.  The speculation on the ability of the market to exchange commodities begins to falter.  The crisis comes, and the workers are out on the streets again, unemployed.  The machines are no longer working, capital is being destroyed. The crisis is social; there are workers hungry and jaundiced, the machines to provide for them unable to be used due to capitalism. 

At this point the large companies buy at ridiculously low prices their former competitors.  This process gives rise to massive capitalist companies in control of things like petroleum.  

American goals of returning to small businesses in control of, for example,  gas stations, is a futile endeavor.  The Standard Oil monopoly that preceded ExxonMobil and Chevron’s trust was hit with antitrust in the 20th century.  As we can see, monopoly control of petroleum came raging back.  There we have Trump, climate change skeptic, supporter of large petroleum industries, also throttling forward gasoline powered engines for cars.  Built by Detroit, the large engine petroleum motors propel people where they need to go.  

Attempts at building electric cars are now dominated by China, where EV’s cost as little as $10,000. Compare that to an American car, the low end is about $33,000, it is more expensive to buy an American petroleum powered vehicle than a Chinese EV..

Trump to the rescue, with 100% tariffs on Chinese EV”s.  Protectionism rears its head, bourgeois gas companies are favored to powering cars with electricity.  Combine this with Detroit’s failure to go metric, and it all becomes clear.

Protectionism is required to keep 20th century industry moving.  The petroleum powered car has reached its climax. It peaked about 4 years ago, and is now being replaced with cheap electric vehicles, in particular from China.  A return to a past era is promoted, “make America great again” sums up this desire.

Small business will not be returning, without a massive crisis.  The companies are all in trusts, monopoly or duopoly are the real conditions.  These same conditions create a class of people who own little or no real property, they do not own the means of production.  They are wage labor,  they work part of the day for these large companies and are not paid for their labour.  Rather surplus value is created.  This surplus value is created any time productive labor is employed.  And it increases as industry grows larger, more concentrated.  

These old industries were all created to make surplus value, essentially profit.  The whole pattern of industry and society  was shaped by them.  What will their end bring? 

Will the companies that were most responsible for capitalism, and its surplus value,  disappear?  Will surplus value go with these monopolies and trusts being dismantled?  It shouldn’t seem so ridiculous that with the failure of the 20th century non metric factories socialism is being discussed.  The ecological movement taught us about what forms of repression come with asking the bourgeoisie to clean up their act. How can you trust them to clean up the environment when they sell pollution on the market, as carbon credits?

As we slowly leave the 20th century, society is progressing.  Our reliance on petroleum is starting to end.  Will we leave what we know of as capitalism, when we are no longer reliant on these forms of industry?

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

Division  of Town and Country. Large Scale Private Property on the Land.

~ nicholasjayboyes

The structure of capitalist agriculture is an extension of the relationship of the owner of the company to wage labour.  The farms are worked by people who do not own the land; they are not even renting it in most cases.  The machinery like the tractors, harvesters, etc. are also not owned by the farming workers.

With the advent of farm machinery, it is now possible for large farms to be worked with a far higher productivity than in the recent past.   There is far less labor in producing, for example, a potato, than ever before.  The farms are a thousand acres or more, owned by a corporation, the workers basically wage labour, just like their proletarian cousins in the city.  

A job in farming has become tending large machinery; driving a tractor,  unloading trucks full of potatoes, etc.  In many cases it is even beyond manufacture; workers are not using tools in skilled labour positions, rather  are unskilled using machinery a child could learn to use.

The fact there are still small farms changes nothing about this.  At best we can say it is remarkable that anyone can compete with the large farms that own and work most of the land.

The family farm, like the family grocery store, is becoming a memory. Those people left on the land have to make a hard decision;  will they invest in large machinery in hopes competition with the corporations is possible?  If they do not it may mean having to work in a town at a factory as well as farming. Or having to get credit to try to compete, knowing most people who attempt to compete with the corporation end up failing, and having to move \to the city.

The people left on the land may own a home and a car, but that is about the extent of the things they own.  They do not own shares in the company they work for on the land, or industrial shares in joint stock companies.  They are basically propertyless, like all wage labour.

There is a clear racial divide, in the north the farms being white owned.  There are migrants though, often Mexican, who work sometimes legally or illegally on the farm.  Needless to say they do not own the land they are working. They  make the profits for the owners of the farms, they work hard, often for a small check they send much of back home to family as a remittance.  It is their wage labour that creates the surplus value, which is the purpose of the operation to capitalists. 

In this respect it is strange to hear the same bourgeoisie who control the farms coming out against migrant farmers.  In the southwest it is common for farms to be worked by Mexicans, many of whom cross the border daily to work the fields.  Without these low paid workers, it is questionable how many farms could even operate.

Yet constantly the republican bourgeoisie tries to remove migrants, and builds ramparts on the border, to stop immigration north.  It looks like an Indian reservation, a  demilitarized zone, and the army is even deployed there.   All this to stop the same people who create the surplus value on the farms. 

The landowners are overwhelmingly republican bourgeois, like the owners of urban factories.  They supported Donald Trump as president , as he represents the owners of the means of production, as opposed to wage labour.  The more concentrated ownership becomes on the land, the stronger corporations who own the land become,  

This creates a rural population only one step removed from moving to the city.  Those displaced by modern machinery stay out of the city only at the large farm owners’ mercy.  They are a sort of unemployed army of workers of the land, like their urban counterparts of the city , who are also living check to check precarious positions as for their employment.  

Unions of farm workers are rare, rebellion can lead to removal from the job and a transition to life in the big city.  The lack of political organization of the wage labour on the farms is mercilessly taken advantage of by the landowners, who squeeze maximum surplus value out of workers, many of whom are recent arrivals from Mexico. 

Production is for commodities; the workers do not work for their own food, at least not on purpose.   They may eat potatoes they farmed, but their job is not to feed themselves, it is social labor.  It is abstract labour, for society, controlled by the owner of the land. 

It may be unfortunate, but large scale farming seems inevitable with the advent of large farm machinery.  Competing with the potato harvester looks futile for a small farmer.  It’s like returning to small business from monopoly; a futile endeavor.  You cannot go back to a simpler time, even though the republican bourgeoisie seems to want a return to a past era, to “Make America Great Again”, when small businesses sold the groceries.

As far as large farms go, cooperative ownership is replacing capitalist ownership.  Already there are large cooperative grocery stores, owned by the workers, selling the produce of cooperative production.  

This isthe logical answer to the large scale corporations control of the land,  employee ownership of large farms.  With the ownership of farms no longer a mom and pop operation, unions mean for wage labour its emancipation from work that is sort of a mix of manufacture and large industry, on machines he does not control, to realization it is his own labour that is responsible for the machinery around him, and the state of the land.  

The division of town and country has become stark, with the large farm starting immediately adjacent to the suburban worker’s dwelling.  He owns no chickens or gardens,  yet there is land all around him, often lying vacant.  He has no gardens or land to speak of.  The division between town and country could not be more evident.  

It is this division which is also a product of the corporations owning the farms.  They seem to be worried the workers will not be producing commodities, and will instead produce their own food.  It’s like a fetish; any labour not subsumed by the social production of commodities is the target.

This barrier must be broken, and with it large scale private property on the land.  When the proletariat is unleashed on the land a new stage of material and social development will have been reached.  The city and the country will no longer be so divided,   The two will merge into a fluid mesh, with city and country division becoming less obvious. 

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

9 17 2025

Slavery. Barbarism. Social and Environmental Change.

~ nicholasjayboyes

The current condition of society, modern culture, is a relatively recent phenomenon.  It was only 1865 when it became illegal to own a human being.

It is hard to say that when slavery was present it was not a stage of barbarism.  Slavery has its roots in the barbaric period of society, primarily in the mid to upper levels of barbarism.  It would seem that black slavery was the higher stages of barbarism, eventually replaced by capitalism.

A slave was not paid.  That is the most basic essence of slavery, the slave worked for a master who owned him, and was used as forced labour.  In the east slaves were used for domestic purposes, for instance by the Muslim Arabs until fairly recently.

“Slavery was formally outlawed in Saudi Arabia in 1962 by a royal decree from King Faisal.”

Google search: What year did Saudi Arabia abolish slavery?  

Christianity and Islam have much in common. Slavery was practiced in the New World from its discovery by Europeans.  It lasted about 400 years; Spain and France were Catholic countries; clearly the ideology of the slave master was Catholicism. 

The British practiced slavery in the New World too, they were Protestant Christians. Canada was the exception, black slavery was never practiced there.  But the practice was present in America, and continued unabated for 91 years after independence.  

The revolution did not abolish slavery.  The feudal system of economics reigned supreme, with slavery practiced.  Society was still barbaric. It wasn’t until 1863  slavery started to end. 

It was replaced by capitalism; it was cheaper to hire a freeman to create commodities than a slave. Slaves escape, and when this occurred the owner was out the value of money he paid for the slave. They also had to be fed and clothed, and it was cheaper to have a freeman paid as wage labour than to have a slave to labour.

But barbarism is still partially present in capitalism.  The practice of part of the day being worked with no pay may be an advancement from the whole day’s labour being unpaid, but the practice of working for a master and not being paid part of the day has lingered on into modern society.  

It is precisely this relationship that capitalism is based on.  It is rooted in the upper stages of barbarism, patriarchal society.  The arrangement common to barbarians, slavery, was present in the New World.  The slaves were for labouring on large farms, as opposed to Arab domestic slaves I mentioned earlier in this article.  Domestic slavery took place in the New World too, but working slaves were more common in the west.  

The lower stages of barbarism were a more civilized arrangement.  Native Americans owned little property, and hunted and fished as a means of living for thousands of years before the upper stage of barbarism reached them, when Spain, France and Britain arrived.   What they found was a matriarchal society with no state, at least nothing like what we know of  as the state.  There was little property, and no fraud or extortion.   Society was organized in gens, familial and tribal.  A good description of this is found in Friedrich Engels The Origin of the Family, State and Private Property.

The upper stages of barbarism also practiced genocide.  Extermination of the native Americans can hardly be considered civilized.  To qualify that though, the Holocaust should show us just how far we are from barbarism.  Clearly we are still in the upper levels of barbarism.

Ecological society comes at and after the late stages of barbarism. Part of this is when the mechanism that creates the surplus value is uprooted, when the state machinery is placed in the museum.  The state is the mechanism which, paid for with surplus value, the class structure is maintained.  It is slowly going away, as less and less people own property, like joint stock company paper.

Another form of barbarism is the practice of polluting air and water by non metric industry.  And it should be obvious the Republican bourgeoisie are still most connected to ownership of these primitive operations, periodically bailed out by the state.  

Legal rights to pollute the ecology are a part of barbaric modern culture.  Although pollution is inevitable, barbarism and modernism condone  it.

An ecological society will outlaw pollution altogether, recycling and composting are part of this.  These two movements came about out of ecological necessity rather than as a surplus value producer for capitalists.  It may cause pollution to recycle, but it is a recognition of man’s effects on ecology to attempt to remove pollution.  It does not condone pollution, rather accepts it as inevitable sometimes.  Making it legal leads to modern ideas of trading carbon emissions, in other words condoning pollution, just making the more primitive pollution causing factories to have to pay for the right to pollute the air and water.  The fact it is traded on the stock market should be enough to tell us where this is going. Society will no longer condone any pollution, but it will still pollute the ecology, the pollution will not be traded on the stock exchange, speculated on to create a profit.

The feudal system of property, when it was acceptable to own a human being, is only a little over a century away.  In Asia minor it is only 63 years away.  Modern society still retained wage labour; work for a master with no pay for part of the day.  Ecological ideas came in the late modern period. Society will come to relate to ecology as a process of symbiosis, rather than as a source of resources to be exploited by capitalism for surplus value.  

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

9 17 2025

Concentration and Consolidation of Ownership. Joint Stock Companies.

~ nicholasjayboyes

Try as they may, regardless of the size or sophistication of their latest technology, there is no changing material conditions.  Even with all the new weapons, the fact remains the companies are owned by a monopoly, a duopoly, or cartels.

Every crisis consolidates ownership further, as the companies concentrate ownership.  Often bought in crisis conditions, for ridiculously low prices, or merged by companies with larger wallets to absorb functioning capital, more and more joint stock companies dominate industry.  

It is rare now to have a large company not listed on the stock exchange, the center for trading of joint stock companies.  The days of an industry being private property of an individual have basically come to an end.  

With this change competition begins to fall behind making surplus value by setting prices due to monopoly.  When there are only a few large companies owning, say, electricity and gas, and distributing this gas to consumers on their own lines, it is not hard to see competition come to an end.

Wisconsin Gas and Electric produce all the electricity from power plants here Milwaukee Wisconsin, and also own the lines for transmission of high voltage to Milwaukee.  They also own the gas lines, and distribution facilities, including pipelines.  There is no alternative source in any sense, and short of cutting your own wood, the houses are all gas burning forced air heating.  Solar is still prohibitively expensive, and Wisconsin Gas and Electric do not pay for excess production from solar generation in homes.   

This has been building for some time.  It is a common feature of industry to become concentrated in a few hands, often in the form of monopolies.  They set prices as they control the production facilities, the distribution,the lines etc., and do not practice competition.  

The days of competition regulating the price of major commodities is rapidly fading.  The grocery stores are now all consolidated into huge markets, dominated by WalMart, Kroger, Albertsons, and Costco.  Smaller family owned stores are becoming rare, only for an item or two needed between visits to the big stores.  Kroger and Albertsons attempted a merger, which looks like a failure, but would have meant about half of grocery stores would have been controlled by WalMart and Kroger Albertsons combined as one company.

The largest computers cannot stop the consolidation of industry, the growth of joint stock companies and monopoly conditions. It is a built in condition of late capitalism, described by Friedrich Engels in Anti Duhring in the 1890’s; the growth of joint stock companies, and concentration and consolidation of industry. here is a quote

T0″he period of industrial high pressure, with its unbounded inflation of credit, not less than the crash itself, by the collapse of great capitalist establishments, tends to bring about that form of socialization of great masses of means of production which we meet with in the different type of joint stock companies. Many of these means of production are, from the outset, so colossal that , like the railways, they exclude all other forms of capitalistic exploitation. At a further stage of evolution this form also becomes insufficient. The producers on a large scale in a particular branch of industry in a particular country unite in a “Trust”, a union for the purpose of regulating production. They determine the total amount to be produced, parcel it out among themselves, and thus enforce the selling price fixed beforehand. But trusts of this kind, as soon as business becomes bad, are generally liable to break up, and on this very account compel a yet greater concentration of association. The whole of the particular industry is turned into a gigantic joint stock company; internal competition gives place to internal monopoly of this one company. This has happened in 1890 with the English alkali production, which is now, after the fusion of 48 large works, in the hands of one company, conducted on a single plan, with a capital of &6,000,0000.”

“In the trusts, freedom of competition changes to its very opposite- into monopoly; and the production without any definite plan of capitalistic society capitulates to the production a definite plan of the invading socialistic society. Certainly this is so far still to the benefit of the capitalists. But in this case the exploitation is so palpable that it must break down, No nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend mongers.”

Anti Duhring First wellread books edition 2017

Part 3 socialism II Theoretical p. 329

Which is optimistic that a society will not tolerate trusts and monopolies, which is precisely what we have learned to do. The important part is trusts and monopoly were recognized by Engels as being the dominant form of capitalism.

This was published in 1890. Vladimir Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Form of Capitalism, in 1916. Clearly Lenin agreed with Engels, and developed this idea further.

It is all connected, and the presence of these monopolies looks unlikely to change.  Internet service is also dominated by two large companies, one of which has been the subject of antitrust activity, American Telephone Telegraph, AT&T.  The only choice is Charter, also called Spectrum, and these companies cooperate to keep the price of internet at a set price, by removing, for instance, subsidies by the state to keep the price of internet low for seniors.  There is AT&T again controlling prices; last time it was their long distance telephone service, broken up by congress, resulting in the baby Bells.

Computers are dominated by Apple, who produce most often computers used in homes. International Business Machines, IBM, is no longer a competitor of home computers to Apple, who are close to monopoly.  Google as the search engine, also a monopoly, caps off much of our computing.

This list could continue, but I think I have made my point.  Consolidation and concentration of ownership into joint stock companies, often exerting monopoly power, is a fixture of modern capitalism.  Rarely it is addressed as antitrust by capitalists who want to artificially change what is a dominant feature of capitalism, to control the market by monopoly.

Every capitalist wants to drive his competitor out of business.  When they are successful at this, they control the market, competition ends, and they then set prices for the commodity they control. It seems to be universal; there are no sectors of the economy left untouched by consolidation of ownership. Breaking them up is only a temporary fix, AT&T for instance is now back to its old self again, in a duopoly of internet service with Charter, as they own the fiber optic cables. Antitrust activity towards AT&T, breaking up the long distance telephone to the baby Bells, did not stop AT&T from again attempting to set prices by control of markets,this time in internet transmission .

This system is a form of capitalism referred to as imperialism in the late 19th century and early 20th century by Friedrich Engels, and later by Vladimir Lenin. It was becoming more obvious then that joint stock companies would dominate capitalism, and consolidation of ownership would only continue.  

Names like J Peirpont Morgan, and his domination of 20th century large scale industry, is a case study in the growth of monopolies and trusts. By the early to mid 20th century Morgan’s empire included railroads, Steel production (US Steel), General Electric, AT&T…. Morgan personified the bourgeoisie of the 20th century, with control of markets for just about every large industry.  

When the next crisis comes the trend will no doubt continue. Capitalism is at the  stage where competition is becoming rare, only lasting a few years in a new industry, until monopoly control and joint stock ownership is achieved. Crisis comes and ownership is consolidated further, the likes of which are a recurrent theme in capitalism. It seems unlikely this will end without leaving capitalism, antitrust does not deter companies from concentration ownership of the means of production (like AT&T) from continuing to exert monopoly power over the industries they own, it just sets them back a decade or so.  It is just way too tempting to remove competition by these capitalists , and set prices.  

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

1 4 2025

revised 9 16 2025

Abortion in Ancient and Modern Times. Aristotle on the Subject. 10 31 2024

~ nicholasjayboyes

Abortion in Ancient and Modern Times. Aristotle on the Subject. 10 31 2024

“With regard to the choice between abandoning an infant or rearing it, let there be a law that no cripple child be reared.  But since the ordinance of custom forbids the exposure of infants on account of their numbers, there must be a limit to the production of children.  If contrary to these arrangements copulation does take place, and a child is conceived, abortion should be procured before the embryo has acquired life and sensation; the presence of life and sensation will be the mark of division between right and wrong here.”

Aristotle the Politics p.448

Book 7 ,  part 16

Penguin classics

This is of interest as this is from 350 years before Christ was born.  This shows that abortion was an issue in ancient times, as it is today.  With Catholics voting in favor of stopping legal abortion, guided by Christianity,  I believe the relevant question is,  what Jesus Christ thought about abortion?

It is not in the bible.  It was an issue before the bible was written, 350 years before Christ.  It seems unlikely Jesus had no opinion on an issue that the Greeks were involved in, well before he was born.

As far as the statement goes, they did not have morning after pills then.  You would have to realize you were pregnant, then  go to a doctor and get  an abortion.  They did not have misoprostol; abortion would have required surgery.  

So we can definitely say,  at least in Greece in  Aristotle’s time,  abortion was legal. At least up to a point, that is.  He says abortion should be legal until there is “life and sensation”.

Square that off with the Republican bourgeoisie, and their Catholic following.    They often want all abortion illegal, with no exceptions.  In many cases as of late, with abortion becoming illegal in parts of America again, 6 weeks is the limit of time a woman has to decide to have an abortion.

If Aristotle thought crippled children should not be reared, what do you suppose he would have said about “life and sensation” , in regard to a child?

Whatever.  The point here is, why is abortion not in the bible?  Where is Jesus coming out against it? It was obviously an issue then, abortion existed well before Christ lived in Israel.

How Christians turned against abortion remains a mystery.  Clearly the Pope and his Catholic clergy are all against all abortion, even before 6 weeks.  Greece looks more liberal in 350 BC than the bourgeois today.  I guess democracy in Athens, compared to American suffrage, another thing the bible does not discuss, was in common with the way referendums on abortion seem to be going.  Putting it on the ballot generally results in it being legal.

I will not split hairs with Aristotle about when the life of a child begins.  A person’s birth and death date become considerably difficult to ascertain.  Was he born the day of conception?  Or later, when his brain was more developed?  

In any case society, at least in Greece in Aristotle’s time, looks rather much like American society today.  It is still an issue whether or not a woman should be allowed to have an abortion.  And it is still an issue when a child is a person, after 6 weeks, 3 months, etc.

The bourgeoisie likes to consider themselves so advanced, and make fun of ancients.  The Christians are notorious for it.  The opposition to the Jews resembles this.  That is part of the bible.  

But when we look deeper, how much has society changed in 2374 years?  I guess it shows just how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.  Rising on one’s high horse and proclaiming Jesus to have been against abortion, is fiction.  It is not in the bible to be against abortion, and it is nowhere written Jesus coming out against a practice that seems to have been practiced since the beginnings of recorded history.  At best perhaps the Catholics can claim a “moral awakening”, perhaps some time in the Dark Ages?

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

10 31 2024

The Gens and Private Property

~ nicholasjayboyes

The Gens and Private Property

The level of ignorance towards the native Americans, and other peoples like the early  Romans and Germans who were in the lower stages of barbarism, is something common to modern conditions.  The lack of knowledge of the kinship structure of man in this condition was part of the effort to root out these often matrilinear family systems.

Clearly  history shows that the monogamous patriarchal family we know now is a historical product, part of the class structure, and the level of technological development.. It was not until men began to acquire property, according to Friedrich Engels in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, that it became necessary to remove the matriarchy that was ruling in previous conditions, when men just fished and hunted and had little or no property as we know it, and the women did the domestic work, that the general breakdown of the society governed by the system of gens begins. 

Prior to the formation of the state, the society was ruled by the gens, or kin, groups.  There was little or no real property, men were just starting to become pastoral.  When people domesticated cattle society began to move towards patriarchy; the men were taking care of the animals, rather than just hunting and fishing, the domesticated animals becoming the basis of property.

As the labour of herding fell to the man,  and the property connected to it was his, it was inevitable that soon the men would overpower the matriarch that was part of early barbarism, and replace her with the patriarch.  When property could be inherited, when a man’s possessions could remain property of someone even though its owner was dead, the transfer of power away from inheritance in the gens only began to transform society further away from gentile society.  Having the inheritance switch from the matriarch and her family to the man’s sons, marked the end of matriarchy. 

At this point money is invented, based first of cattle which was used as money, then the precious metals. This allowed for debts to form, and mortgages on property begin to form.  Classes are now formed, and the society is forced to create a mechanism to protect the class structure.  This organization is called the state. This form of society quickly replaced the gens., the corrosive power of private property and money starts to dissolve the old kinship group, especially the matriarchy.

Prior to the state the gens protected  its members if they were sick, or if there was crime.  There was the right of vengeance for murder, but beyond this there were little laws in the gens; there was no theft, burglary, fraud etc.  as there was little property.  

The state completely overrules the gentile society, and classes are formed, often of landowners and later hereditary nobility forms.  The Romans  reached this point, and the longing for a return to life under the gens was part of why the German Odacer, who was a barbarian,  could overpower Rome, where the state was formed.  People longed for the old gentile society, before usury and large landowners, to return.

But after Rome fell to the Germans, the land became private property, and the gens was unable to survive.  The amount of land the Germans found themselves with hastened the end of gentile society.  The Germans could not  control all the land they now owned and nobility came to be resorted to for territorial control.  The longing for a return to the gentile life was impossible to satisfy; the state was formed, and in a short period of time, the  peasants were in the same condition they were under the Romans. 

Slavery was part of ancient culture under the Romans.  Large scale agriculture was heavily reliant on slaves, when Rome fell the land was parceled out to individuals.  But it was not passed down to the gens as inheritance, and soon there were usurers and large landowners.  It is at this point a new feature of society develops, a person whose job is to exchange products for another, the merchant.  The commodity is developed, production is for society rather than for one’s self.  Handicraft had preceded this, and production was still primarily for oneself and family. With money it becomes possible for production to be for exchange purely.  The merchant  provides the commodities now, everything exchanged gradually becomes more of a commodity  with the intervention of money.

The state comes along the whole way.  It reaches its apex of power with the condition of civilization we know now.  An instrument developed as a mechanism to maintain the class structure, it survives on taxes.  It even borrows money as bonds, it debts, are traded on the stock market;. speculation on the states debts becomes common.  

Manufacture is the intermediate state between what we know now as heavy industry, and handcraft.  Manufacture starts when handicrafts are replaced by groups of people producing for money, under a single individual.  The commodity is formed, the producer no longer produces for himself and his small family, he doesn’t know who will be consuming the product he helped produce.

This gives way to large industry, where the producer uses machinery, and his race or sex are not barriers to the capitalists who own the machinery, the women and children are all used by the capitalist.  The producer does not own the means of production, its efficiency at producing a surplus is the reason it is used.  It does not matter to the capitalist who works the machinery, it is often the man who is not working due to fear of rebellion by him against the state.  His children are less likely to rebel, so are used for labour.  His wife is in the same position.  The same mechanism that caused the patriarchy to form now is taken to the point of dissolution.  Private property comes to be its opposite,  the producer is propertyless.  At best he owns a small home in a city, he is the modern proletariat.  

Divorce becomes easier with women working.  There are less impediments to divorce by the woman, she no longer has to ask the man’s permission to divorce.  Property also falls in half to the woman. Large scale industry seems to be a return  of the woman to power, at least as more equal than in previous historical conditions to the male.  As he owns no real private property,  there is less dominance as things were when the patriarchy formed. 

It is at this point we leave off at.  But first a word about the state.  Formed due to classes, it begins to die out as the means of production gradually come to be controlled by the workers, and become not owned by anyone, at least not by a capitalist..  A socialist society without class would seem to be the antithesis of the organization created to maintain class, the state. If there is no class, what does the state become?  What would it be for?

Perhaps like the capitalist state what remains is the security mechanism, the police for shoplifting etc., but not in control of industry. A socialist society would still have to have security, but just because industry was no longer controlled by capitalists it does not follow industry must be owned by the state. Rather it is not owned by anybody, the state just keeping it from being looted etc.

Engels conclusion in the book mentioned above, the state is to maintain classes is completely right.  It seems inevitable it will  be less powerful as classes are less a dominant force in society.  Unfortunately, it looks like society has a long way to go before the state as we know it becomes a thing of the past

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

Value.  Its Forms. Concept of Surplus Value.  David Ricardo, Adam Smith. 8 11 2023

~ nicholasjayboyes

Value.  Its Forms. Concept of Surplus Value.  David Ricardo, Adam Smith. 8 11 2023

The science of political economy brought us knowledge of the theory of value, and consequently unblocked the hidden mechanisms that are how the capitalist system is really working.  It is not a simple set of rules; it is not common sense to be able to discern what the innards of the capitalist system look like.  

Writers like Adam Smith, and David Ricardo had already determined the value of a commodity is how much labour is contained in it.  David Ricardo was very direct about this, the first sentence of his book on the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation he wrote:

“The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and not on the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour.

David Ricardo Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

London 1817

Which is very straightforward.  It means it is not what the labourer is paid that determines the value of a commodity, rather value is the amount of social labour time required to produce the commodity, paid or unpaid.  This concept becomes important as vulgar political economists, as Marx called them, said profit was merely added on the value of the product after it was produced, a surcharge so to speak.  

In order for this to work every merchant and capitalist would be adding money to the value of his product when he sold it.  Every capitalist would be having to charge an extra amount of money in all parts of production, every time something had to be sold there would be a surcharge for profit passed on. 

It becomes obvious each dealer would mutually swindle the other out of the extra amount of money every time they met and bought from each other.  What was lost would be gained in mutual swindling, ultimately eventually devolving to the consumer who would have to pay for this fictitious capital first tacked on by  the producer, and the surcharge otherwise would be extra on all exchanges.  

What this would accomplish is not clear.  Clearly though, it views surplus value as a mere addition to the value of a commodity, above its cost price.  How could labour be being compensated for with all this mutual swindling?

To really understand it you have to see what David Ricardo just said, labour is not always paid for, “the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour.” is not the value of the commodity.

So we see the labourer is not simply selling commodities, and surcharging unpaid labour from his contribution.  And it also certainly looks rather ridiculous after having stated this, as Ricardo clearly did, to label Ricardo a vulgarian. Clearly this statement leads to the recognition of the fact labour is not always paid for, but the value of the commodity produced by this labour remains in the commodity.  That is what profit is, it is not a surcharge rather it is what is left over after the labour and the material elements of production are paid for.  It is the excess in the value of the commodity appropriated by the capitalist due to his ownership of the means of production. It differs from pure surplus value as the latter is calculated on the amount of labour paid for, what Marx called variable capital.

In reading Adam Smith and Ricardo,  what became clear to Marx, which was also clear to Ricardo and Adam Smith,  the labourer working part of his day for no pay is the very basis of capitalism. It is possible to begin with as soon as it is possible for a man to be able to produce enough food for two or three men in a day, as opposed to simply himself.  If one man can produce enough to feed himself and three others,  the two others no longer have to be farmers. They can be supported by the surplus the farmer creates.  

He is not compensated for the surplus he creates. A whole system of society forms around this.  Once there is a surplus, the landowner and capitalist become possible, who consume the surplus value of the labourer.  The workers set free by the surplus value of the farmer who provides a surplus find themselves without land or money, and the capitalists who by one way or another, for instance piracy, slavery, etc. get control of money can begin to subordinate all of society to labour for them on means of production the workers do not own.  

The workers are paid enough to survive and continue labouring, with some additions for a wife and children, or the race of workers would not survive long.  But the fact is all labour in capitalism sweats surplus value.

The content of the labour is for society; the nature of what a commodity is is a product not consumed by its producer.  It may be that a worker sometimes consumes his production, but it is generally not considered to be part of his consumption, it is for instance on a screw, a washer, a gear, etc.  His labour is social labour, and it is on machinery he does not use or otherwise control.  

Thus we see David Ricardo and his statement become clear.  Political Economy solves one of the most basic of relationships, what the value of a commodity consists of.  It does not solve what is socially necessary as a wage for labour.  Adam Smith, who also saw value as created by labour, tried to suggest the value of corn (food in general), was the value of wages. It is a compelling argument, but in a temperate climate needs increase exponentially.  It was more true before society was so industrial; on the other hand it is still agriculture that provides much of the raw material for production. There is only sort of a socially determined amount and price of agricultural goods, in winter more expensive in the north.

But regardless of how much wages are socially acceptable, Ricardo is right when he places the value of a commodity is how much labour it costs to produce it. The surplus value created only shows it was produced by a capitalist, it is the unpaid section of the workday, and without it you would have no capitalism.

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

8 11 2023