Like even in the best of scenarios where the left isn't destroyed but can actually summon some form of revolutionary energy against capital, what is to prevent most capital investment from leaving the country as the winds begin to turn?
Is there good theory out there on how to prevent capital flight? Are there capital controls that don't simultaneously provoke capital flight?
Do you mind explaining why?
The "real" economy is the productive things: workers and capital. The capitalists themselves can fuck off wherever.
In the context of, say, a wealthy country attempting to pay for welfare by increasing taxes resulting in the rich taking their money out of the country:
Points where it's valid to be concerned about:
This is the thing. Tell them they can't take the drill presses with them and don't let them go full Kulak on the drill presses. I just figure that if Saudi Arabia don't got me, South America and China got me.
Yeah, secure means of production and supplies, then revolt. You're interacting with that stuff every day, they're not.
counterpoint, white flight is the exact same phenomenon as capital flight.
This is a mostly US specific answer but the white labor aristocracy has essentially fled the cities for the suburbs and its a serious issue that has resulted in schools and public services being significantly underfunded in nonwhite areas.
Yes, it would be impossible for the rich to take a factory outside of the country if a revolution happened right now. But capital flight can be and most often is a gradual process, do you think the rich don’t prepare for such a scenario?
And what about brain drain, when highly educated and skilled people like doctors, engineers, and scientists flee from a revolution when the state legitimately needs their services? The USSR and USA jockeyed for German rocket scientists.
Small business tyrants may be one thing but when you have human capital fleeing a revolution that’s bad, that’s very bad. Either they have to be killed or re-educated. It doesn’t matter how brilliant someone is, if they are being paid to run the nuclear program of a nation like Israel they got to die. The Cuban exile community even existing at all is unironically a failure on the part of Castro.
When the revolution comes it has to be unexpected and fast enough to make escape from it impossible, and odds are it’s not going to be a global revolution so there will be many escape routes possible.
So essentially the extent to which a country still participates in capitalism is the extent to which capital flight it will be a problem. If you maintain a system where you need permission from capitalists to do anything then surprisingly you won't be able to do anything in the absence of capitalists. Thus is the problem with social democracy.
Thanks for outlining it all, I'm taking some time to process it