Capitalism is only a progressive force in so far as it gets us to "superabundance" Marx was a 19th century whale oil boomer so superabundance to him was achieved like 100 years ago. Capitalism is purely a vestige of a need at the time it rose and is now a parasite trying to capitalize what little left of the planet and humanity there is in existence that isn't already consumed by it.
Superabundance is simply when the productive forces are at a point where we can successfully provide all of the basic "staple" necessities of life. Food, shelter, clothes, etc. which are actually a lot lot easier to provide for than we are led to believe, and also the production of "luxury" commodities could technically be applied to the productive forces required for the "staple" commodities theoretically, (although naturally in real life you could some level of "luxury" commodities is mandated to "staple" status changing some idea of what the basic necessities of life are) like you were alluding to.
The typical reference to post scarcity is in a post industrial society, so ig at whatever point in time we can consider that (like the 1890s in the US). The initial idea of socialism as a transitional period is to work to abolish the commodity form and continually provide more and more goods for only labor cost while continued automation decreases labor inputs, leaving more time for humans to exert into living their lives.
I think the grundrisse goes over this so if you would like to read more I'd recommend that.
Mhm the way marx used these terms is different to the way they may be used colloquially now. post-scarcity doesn't mean like all goods are no longer scarce but rather that people's basic needs are no longer materially scarce (ie famine is no longer a matter of purely physical inability to farm enough food to feed the entire population). Marx's definition of a post scarcity society is:
"The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them."
I think being sure to remember the time period that Marx was alive in (during the very first transitions from feudalism to capitalism) can help put into place that our current idea of "superabundance" would have been almost entirely unimaginable to somebody in the 1800s, but the idea that technology would allow us to provide for everybody without having to make compromises was comprehensible albeit differently to what that would mean to us.
And post-industrial would literally mean a society that has gone through the process of industrialization, as the deindustrialization of countries such as the US was a gradual 20th century phenomenon.
You're correct. post-industrial is a label coined after work in the 1940s and 1950s that evolved into our current service economy idea.
It was an improvement over its predecessor but now attempts to keep the wheel from turning onward are doing more and more damage.
Answering something such as this is a gigantic task that for even rough approximations would require an entire department of a state apparatus to conduct the necessary work needed to answer the, therefore to speak on the subject would need either a lot of previously-done research performed by various States to craft an accurate answer or rely on a significant amount of sweeping generalizations to give a somewhat nebulous answer - The latter one I'll be doing because I'm just one person who doesn't want to write a book.
Capitalism in the modern period could only be concidered a progressive force when subordinated under the direction of a communist party insofar as the party considers it necessary in order to build the jumpingboard to transitioning towards a socialist economy. The Soviet Union utilized the NEP plan, to rebuild after the civil war and prepare for the inevitable clash against capitalist states in the future, then transitioned to a socialist economy while liquidating the capitalist and petty bourgeoise NEPmen and kulaks that opposed the transition. The PRC on the other hand - from my barest understanding on the topic - entered their own version of the NEP plan and in order to stave off the inevitable clash against capitalist states in the future partially subordinated their country to the whims of international capitalism and harnessed/was harnessed to the anarchy of capitalism to do in decades what took the soviets years. And at this time the PRC is not a socialist economy but has on it's long-term plans to begin transitioning to a socialist economy within this century - something we, the living, will see occur or not occur in our lifetimes -
At the end of the day it is a tool, a rube goldberg machine in truth, that when used and directed properly helps build the foundations of a socialist society then be promptly discarded can be considered to be progressive. Otherwise it is as erratic as a pinball machine and often reactionary.
I don't think it's so much that capitalism is a progressive force as much as the CPC is a progressive force. In the West, all capitalist enterprises are private and driven solely by profit motive, whereas the CPC is, at least in theory, concerned with the well-being of the nation.
For instance, Raytheon will charge the US government make 100 missiles at $10M each that cost them $100K to make because that is the profit maximizing number of missiles, regardless of whether the US military wants or needs more. In China, the CPC has control over the economy, even if it is still a capitalist one. They can come in and tell their defense contractors they are going to make 5,000 missiles at $200K each. They will have spent as much as the US on missiles, and their defense contractors still made a hefty profit, but China has more missiles an order of magnitude. In the West, there are largely no governments both willing and able to dictate such terms, so the country pays a hefty premium for less weapony than the military believes it needs.
Arms manufacturing probably isn't the best example of "progressive forces" but I think it illustrates the extent to which it's not about capitalism as much as who is holding the reigns.
with the well-being of the nation
Which begs the very important question, is the nation/nationalism a progressive force? Doubtful imo
That is the confine within which the CPC must operate. There is no grand communist union for them to cooperate with.
Honestly, I don't believe that capitalism was ever a progressive force; the work of Sylvia Federicci is good here. Though it depends on what we mean by "progressive." If we mean progresses things towards communism, sure. But if by "progressive" we mean anything like "made the world better, or individual's lives better, in any way whatsoever," then no, it never was progressive and past Marxists were wrong about that IMO. Capitalism creates the conditions for the possibility of world communism, and in that sense was a positive development. But it made the lives of basically everyone worse, it was better to be a worker under pre-capitalism formations by and large. It's destroying the planet. The tech it produces may be "redemed" under communism, and so is good in that sense, but is currently nightmarish. Also, I think seeing capitalism as only a mode of production leads to distortions and errors in analysis, one needs to view it as a world system. Here, one can understand that although certain past AES countries were able to move beyond capitalist relations of production, they were still embedded in the capitalist-imperialist world system (even if as a resistant actor). This helps to explain the behavior of modern China, IMO.
Also, I'm very drunk currently, hope this makes sense.
