Excellent response. I understand where your opinion is differing from mine.

I would point out that I don’t think the value of preferred shares from an “ownership” perspective are all that useful unless the owner has enough knowledge to meaningfully exert control over the company. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’m not a fan of democracy, because I don’t really believe that the average voter has the incentive or the understanding to set policy. I suspect the same is true of corporations. While owning common stock doesn’t get one closer to the Marxist ideal of true worker control over the means of production (and using those to break the “commodity fetishism” of capitalism), I think it does partially address the recovery of the “surplus value” generated from his labor.

Regarding insider information, I think that’s a far larger psychological problem than real problem. Many cases where insiders trade on information without disclosure are quickly found. This is not only the case with large or politically visible companies, either. (I’d go into more specifics, but there’s a conflict of interest in publicizing it as it relates to another company in the industry I work in).

I agree with you that 401K’s have a negative effect tying people to the corporate world. One way this is done is through high taxes and exempting certain “preferred” behaviors, such as 401K’s from that taxation. There are myriad examples of government finding ways to discourage entrepreneurship while encouraging large corporations through policy. As you may have seen through your time reading TLP, I argue against corporatism regularly.

However, I would disagree that this is not including “the working class” into “the capitalist class”, as we are talking about long-term ways in which ordinary individuals can build real wealth. Not enough take advantage of those opportunities (whether 401K or other non-government options), but far more do so than in the days of feudalism, and all have the access to do so. For most, though, chasing the “commodity fetishism” that Marx derides does get in the way. People choose their own shackles.

Your final point about Marx idealized vs. Marx in practice, and the fact that capitalism idealized vs. capitalism in practice is well made. As a libertarian, I would suggest that the key point in both is size and scope of government. The problem with corporatism isn’t capitalism — it’s a government large enough and powerful enough to run roughshod over private society, and corrupt enough to be co-opted by corporate interests. Freeing those markets from government are the answer whether you want to go anarcho-capitalist or anarcho-socialist. I believe the latter (Marxian) won’t work, but the common enemy of both creeds is the exploitative State.

Not only that, but also the era of the 401(k) “lifeplan” cleverly instills, at times, irrational loyalty of the working people to the larger corporate system. It is that system that I feel is cancerous to general society in several ways. In general, I do not feel that this system is, in any meaningful way, including “the working class” into “the capitalist class.”

On Marx himself, I admire his stance on the carrying capacity of human populations vs. Malthus. Marx professed that human ingenuity can always solve a resource dilemma through technology while Malthus asserted that humanity is essentially no different than bacteria in a petrie dish.

On “Marx The Ideal” vs. “Marx The Reality In Practice” yeah that’s spot on. But what else would you expect from an ideal in practice? Capitalism itself is an idealized economic system of supply and demand, yet in practice as corporate systems consolidate over a dozen generations or so, supply/demand is distorted almost beyond recognition and fascism results.