How to save capitalism

What can save capitalism? The Japanese have the answer - monkeys.
This matters. The defining feature of capitalism is that it is a set of institutions that permit workers to be exploited. If workers can be replaced not just by technology (that’s sooo 1980s) or by cheap foreign labour but by apes as well, we have yet another reason to believe that workers’ bargaining power will remain weak and, therefore, profits high.
And profits are already reasonably high, suggesting that capitalists are exploiting workers well. This is one reason why I’m loath to regard the current crisis as fatal for capitalism - because in its core function, capitalism is succeeding much more than it did in the 70s or 80s.
The introduction of monkeys into the global labour force promises (or threatens) to prolong capitalism by increasing the potential for exploitation.
But how feasible is this? How high could be the elasticity of substitution between monkeys and humans?
Maybe higher than you might think. From an economist's point of view, monkeys are very similar to humans. They have similar meta-cognitive skills, and respond similarly to incentives, and even share the same cognitive biases.
Can monkeys be trained to do useful work? You can ask the same question of humans.

Comments

[passer by]

Are we exploiting the monkeys or are they exploiting us?

Personally getting jap beer (which is really good btw) out of the fridge for nuts is a lot better than sitting around in trees eating bananas and scratching their nuts.

They seem to have made a short cut to productive labour without having to start at the bottom by becoming parasitic farmers like we did.

Will the Socialist international be setting up a monkey workers branch?

[kinglear]

They look a lot better than many of the barmaids and landlords I know...

[Bob B]

Japanese companies have earned an outstanding reputation for developing well-behaved human-like robots too:
http://www.robotmatrix.org/humanoidrobot.htm

Also, the Japanese have a long history of getting on with robotic creatures:

"Japan's love affair with robots could be said to be more than 300 years old."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/robotics/2008-03-01-robots_N.htm

[William]

Would never work in the UK. A country where it's easier to do drug trials on humans than other primates is not a country that would tolerate enslaving monkeys instead of humans

[Will Davies]

Funny you should say this. A colleague at Goldsmiths was teaching Marx's Capital to undergraduates, and they kept quizzing him on whether different types of ape could produce surplus value...

[John Meredith]

"The defining feature of capitalism is that it is a set of institutions that permit workers to be exploited. "

Is it really? Surely the defining feature of capitalism is limited liability shared ownership in joint stock companies? Those companies need not be exploitative (in a perjorative sense) of workers although they might be and often are.

[CharlieMcMenamin]

Ahem.
There are still a few of us out here who think the basic problem is that the creatures who have been running capitalism all along have always been monkeys.

[ejh]

The chess column in the Times appears to be written by one.

[Bob B]

C'mon. Never mind monkeys, I really believe that you are all underestimating the extent of recent progress in developing androids. Evidently, the prospects are currently looking very promising:
http://www.roboethics.org/icra07/contributions/LEVY%20Robot%20Prostitutes%20as%20Alternatives%20to%20Human%20Sex%20Workers.pdf
http://rackjite.com/archives/1057-Hot-Robot-Sex-For-the-Under-35-Crowd.html

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"The defining feature of capitalism is that it is a set of institutions that permit workers to be exploited."

If it is the defining feature, then it must be a feature unique to capitalism, and not be possessed by eg. Stalinism, feudalism, domestic slavery etc...