Overproduction: A Long Standing Key Aspect of Capitalist Logic

What neo-Malthusianists fail to realize is that poverty, unemployment, and the lack of equal distribution of resources has nothing to do with the world having "too many people". Then again, when one has an extremely pessimistic, anti-human, millenarianist worldview, one cannot rationalize any of the material conditions scientifically.

Although the world has changed since the 1800's, a long standing feature of capitalism still remains, in spite of Marx and Engels not foreseeing the advent of artificial intelligence (A.I.): the capitalist bias of technology and overproduction. Firstly, technological advances are not necessarily or inherently 'bad' especially if they help workers be more productive and help make their work and lives easier; they do indeed have the potential to serve human needs. However, capitalist 'efficiency' has never been about raising output or productivity; investment under capitalism always meant replacing workers with machines and disposing of them once the capitalists have reached their profit-making goals. In Chapter 25 of Capital Vol. I, Marx discusses "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation," and how the capitalist is always looking to expand profits so that they can be reinvested into expanding [capitalist] production and maximizing profits. In the process of doing this, driving down the workers' wages (who are already poorly paid and in constant fear of losing their jobs) is inevitable as per the logic of capitalist accumulation. Subsequently, this is followed by hiring as fewer workers as possible in order to cut labour costs and eliminate jobs, eventually replacing the workers with machines and automation.

Of course, Marx was addressing the material conditions of his time when he described the workers as being reduced to mere appendages to the machines; but overtime, that has since evolved to a point where machines are actually replacing them so that now workers are no longer needed. But despite these changes in material conditions, production under capitalism continues to be profit-driven rather than for use-value, and technological progress under such an anarchic system still frequently results in more unemployment as unlimited competition leads to labour being wasted. Thus, with increased efficiency, more and more products are being produced on a mass scale -- but not necessarily being purchased at large because hardly anyone can afford them since prices have skyrocketed. And so, food is being wasted while millions of people around the world go hungry. Homes are being built everyday and yet no one is living in them because they are too expensive to buy, and there are many homeless people living on the streets. Also, landfills are overflowing with unused products that no one is buying. The United States is especially guilty of this since it holds the global monopoly, with the apparatus of production being centred around Wall Street.

In the age of imperialism, countries are targeted by U.S. foreign policy and are deliberately kept underdeveloped and backward, with their currencies decreased in value, as they are beholden to the global hegemony of the U.S. Dollar which facilitates cheaper exports created by cheap exploited labour in these Third World countries, who have low-state interference when it comes to the infiltration of foreign capital (especially U.S. capital). If any of these poorer nations were to gain independence and challenge U.S. global hegemony, as Cuba (and many other post-colonial successes like it, such as Syria and North Korea) had done to liberate itself from the backward mafia state it once was, then it would mean that the United States would do what it can to cut them off from the world’s resources by any means necessary including force. But, over the years, there has also been increasing unemployment in these poor Third World countries -- which is essentially a death sentence -- since their workforce, as exploited and extremely poorly paid as they already are, is gradually being reduced and replaced by machines and automation as well, which can create the cheaper exports at a much faster rate. Hence the mass migration crisis (also products of imperialist wars of aggression), which actually hurts the poor countries' economies even more as it not only depopulates them but causes a 'brain drain' which only leads them to become more underdeveloped, more susceptible to disease, and their children less intellectually stimulated since it forces many of their best medical and educational professionals to leave. And when their "best" leave, the populations they have left behind become more vulnerable and desperate, many of whom eventually do follow suit even if they do not truly want to leave their home countries; they are, really, only trying to "follow the money" so to speak. Although of course, immigration has been an 'easy target' whenever the American right-wing needed to lie when seeking the support of the working class, as the CPGB-ML so eloquently wrote:

"This is an easy target when seeking the support of working-class people, large numbers of whom have fallen for the endlessly-repeated lie that immigrants ‘take’ their jobs. 

In reality, however, it is imperialist interests that are to blame, not immigrants. The political system of the USA demands the greatest profit possible from investment of capital. The greatest profits come from advanced robotic systems, which cut the workforce down dramatically, or from exporting jobs away from the US to low-wage, low state-interference countries. 

Most immigrants are taken in to perform low-wage jobs that white American workers will not do, and, as is always the case, illegal immigrants are by far the cheapest to employ, since they have no rights and therefore cannot complain about their pay or conditions.
The majority of applications for entry into the United States are from the countries to the south of its border, and so it is convenient for the capitalist class to depict the Latino/Hispanic worker as lazy, stupid, sly and totally without morals. 

In truth, the immigrants’ intelligence, knowledge of work systems, eagerness to work/learn and morality are as diverse as those of any other peoples, but it must be recognised that most of those who either apply for US citizenship or try to cross the border illegally are doing so directly or indirectly because of the foreign policy of the USA, which is causing social upheaval or extreme price rises at home (the only exception to this would be a natural disaster)."

If there are no jobs and no resources being shared equally or being made affordable -- despite there actually being an overproduction of products (which are then being wasted) -- then how can we say that “humans are a cancerous tumor eating up the earth’s resources,” causing poverty because “there’s too many of them”? Also, it is through imperialism that capitalist accumulation is causing the world to become depopulated as the Global South's wealth continues to be stolen and exploited. Not to mention, sanctions of mass destruction, bombing campaigns, funding terrorist proxy forces, and deliberately causing 'brain drains' do kill a large number of people who are unable to flee. So how is it reasonable to say that "the world needs to be depopulated!" when such a thing is already happening (and no, it is not positive in any way, shape, or form)?

Such is the logic of capitalism, when we can have too much food and yet not be able to feed everyone. The number of unemployed workers (whom Marx called the 'reserve army of labour') is growing not because they are "breeding like rabbits", but because people are being forced to compete with machines that were designed for capitalist accumulation only, and not human needs.

Recommended Reading:

Lalkar writers (2019, September 20). The persecution of Latinos in the USA. The Communists - Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). Retrieved from: http://www.cpgb-ml.org/2019/09/20/news/persecution-latinos-usa-racism-immigration/

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (2005). Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. [Marxists Internet Archive version]. (Original work published in 1916). Retrieved from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/  

Marx, Karl (1999). Capital: Volume 1, Ch. 25. [Marxists Internet Archive version]. (Original work published in 1867). Retrieved from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm

Maupin, Caleb (2019). City Builders and Vandals In Our Age: Articles and Essays on Socialism, 89-93. Denver: REVOLUTIONAIR.

Roberts, Michael (2019, July 1). The G20 and the cold war in technology. Michael Roberts Blog: Blogging From a Marxist Economist. Retrieved from: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/the-g20-and-the-cold-war-in-technology/

Velina, Janelle (2019, January 9). The Global Hegemony of the U.S. Dollar, a Brief History. LLCO.org. Retrieved from: https://llco.org/the-global-hegemony-of-the-u-s-dollar-a-brief-history/