What is economic growth?
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LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:What the latter proposes is to introduce a single universal universal unit of accounting – namely labour time – governing the entire economy and as such is grounded in the same mindset that rationalises the need for money as a universal unit of account
[my bold]I agree with you, robbo. Another name for this is 'absolute'.It is opposed by 'social'.The political reason for an 'absolute' is so that a minority can 'know' this supposed 'absolute', outside of any social (and thus, democratic) input.Any mention of 'universal' or 'absolute' (and many other synonyms, that you already know that I'd use) is only made to prevent the political appeal to democracy (ie. the appeal to the majority).This is to allow a minority to (supposedly) 'objectively calculate' what the majority (supposedly) require, without the majority having any say in their own 'requirements'.Marx warns against this, in his Theses on Feuerbach.[edit] the 'mind set' that you mention is 'ruling class ideas'.
Marx also advocated a universal unit of accounting in the form of labour time units
Young Master Smeet wrote:Imagine we made tools out of lego bricks (just go with me on this):n each tool would need to be accounted for in its own right, but, theoretically, they would be broken down into their basic bricks,a dn those bricks could be re-purposed: it would be useful to track the stocks of each type of tool, and by extrapolation, the number of available bricks that could be re-purposed. Also, assuming bricks can be made into intermediate and end products, it's worth watching the balance between the two.robbo, here is an example of an 'absolute' or 'universal': YMS's 'lego brick'.YMS posits this as a 'non-social' unit of account, which would allow an elite (like YMS as an individual) to 'calculate', without the need for the participation of the majority, and hence a vote.There is no 'lego brick' sitting 'out there' – the majority must determine their own 'lego-bricks-for-them'. And since they are a social product, we can change them.
robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:What the latter proposes is to introduce a single universal universal unit of accounting – namely labour time – governing the entire economy and as such is grounded in the same mindset that rationalises the need for money as a universal unit of account[my bold]I agree with you, robbo. Another name for this is 'absolute'.It is opposed by 'social'.The political reason for an 'absolute' is so that a minority can 'know' this supposed 'absolute', outside of any social (and thus, democratic) input.Any mention of 'universal' or 'absolute' (and many other synonyms, that you already know that I'd use) is only made to prevent the political appeal to democracy (ie. the appeal to the majority).This is to allow a minority to (supposedly) 'objectively calculate' what the majority (supposedly) require, without the majority having any say in their own 'requirements'.Marx warns against this, in his Theses on Feuerbach.[edit] the 'mind set' that you mention is 'ruling class ideas'.
Marx also advocated a universal unit of accounting in the form of labour time units
Yes, but 'labour time' can be voted upon, because it is a 'social unit of account', not a 'universal unit of account'.If you post the quote with Marx's statement of 'universal', I'll post the correction of Marx, who often uses sloppy terms which contradict his whole thesis, about socio-historic production (ie., not 'universals', 'absolutes', etc., which are 'divine'). Marx was human, y'know!
Yawn
Marx wrote:Truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, was in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which, once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process of cognition itself, in the long historical development of science, which mounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reaching, by discovering so-called absolute truth, a point at which it can proceed no further, where it would have nothing more to do than to fold its hands and gaze with wonder at the absolute truth to which it had attained.Measure does not equal absolute, it is an abstraction/approximation which contains compnents and movements. National walth is an asbtraction, just as labour time accounting i, the point is the degree to which they are both useful indicators: tools for humans.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Yawn….Measure does not equal absolute…You really must get more sleep, YMS, thinking is taking it out of you.So, you must agree that any 'measure' is a social product, and thus can be voted upon. There are no 'measures' sitting 'out there', like bricks.That's your elite 'lego bricks thesis' dissolved.
I feel inspired. Curently, there is value in commodities. , How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Since no commodity can stand in the relation of equivalent to itself, and thus turn its own bodily shape into the expression of its own value, every commodity is compelled to choose some other commodity for its equivalent, and to accept the use value, that is to say, the bodily shape of that other commodity as the form of its own value.The iron, as iron, is no more the form of manifestation of weight, than is the sugar-loaf. Nevertheless, in order to express the sugar-loaf as so much weight, we put it into a weight-relation with the iron. In this relation, the iron officiates as a body representing nothing but weight. A certain quantity of iron therefore serves as the measure of the weight of the sugar, and represents, in relation to the sugar-loaf, weight embodied, the form of manifestation of weight. This part is played by the iron only within this relation, into which the sugar or any other body, whose weight has to be determined, enters with the iron. Were they not both heavy, they could not enter into this relation, and the one could therefore not serve as the expression of the weight of the other. When we throw both into the scales, we see in reality, that as weight they are both the same, and that, therefore, when taken in proper proportions, they have the same weight. Just as the substance iron, as a measure of weight, represents in relation to the sugar-loaf weight alone, so, in our expression of value, the material object, coat, in relation to the linen, represents value alone.Here, however, the analogy ceases. The iron, in the expression of the weight of the sugar-loaf, represents a natural property common to both bodies, namely their weight; but the coat, in the expression of value of the linen, represents a non-natural property of both, something purely social, namely, their value.All my own work.
LBird wrote:Yes, but 'labour time' can be voted upon, because it is a 'social unit of account', not a 'universal unit of account'.If you post the quote with Marx's statement of 'universal', I'll post the correction of Marx, who often uses sloppy terms which contradict his whole thesis, about socio-historic production (ie., not 'universals', 'absolutes', etc., which are 'divine'). Marx was human, y'know!If labour time is the only unit employed the planning process then it is necessarily a universal unit of account. There is no contradiction between saying it is a universal unit of account and a social unit of account. It is both in this case. In any event how can labour be "voted upon" if is past labour already “congealed” in the product? What would be the point of the exercise? If you are referring to the future application of human labour – again what would be the point of that? How would you square this with the communist principle that workers should be free to determine their own contribution to production? If they are compelled to work in certain kinds of jobs and for a specified duration as decided by society in general then this alienated or estranged labour; it is not freely chosen and voluntaristic communist labour. It is not communism I suspect what you are really trying to say is that there should be a democratic vote on what gets produced as a opposed to a democratic vote on what each of us should do in the way of work (and for how long). But this too is deeply problematic from a communist point of view. I dont discount democratic voting by communist communities with respect to, say, some large-scale social project but if you are seriously promoting the idea here that the totality of production should democratically voted on in advance and coordinated through some kind of gigantic input-output Leontief type matrix then this is completely bonkers. It stands not the slightest chance of getting off the ground This is what is meant by society-wide central planning – one single giant premediated plan covering literally the totality of production. Do you support this idea LBird? How do you envision 7 billion voters deciding on the global output of 6 inch cross head screws and coordinating the inputs in such a way as to ensure this target is met? There is only one way in which any kind of modern system of production can be operated and that is essentially on a self-regulating basis ( via a system of stock control). Anything other than that is just pie in the sky – totally unfeasible
robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:Yes, but 'labour time' can be voted upon, because it is a 'social unit of account', not a 'universal unit of account'.If labour time is the only unit employed the planning process then it is necessarily a universal unit of account. There is no contradiction between saying it is a universal unit of account and a social unit of account. It is both in this case.
[my bold]It's a shame that you haven't understood the distinction, robbo.'Only', at a particular time and place, in a particular society, after a particular conscious social decision, is not the same as 'universal'.'Universal' means everywhere at everytime, and outside of human consciousness.I thought that you'd finally got there, and realised the political importance of this distinction, this contradiction between 'universal' and 'social'.The political effect of the choice between 'universal' and 'social' is that of between 'elite' and 'democratic' power.Some elite will claim to 'know the universal' outside of the decision of the majority, because the elite will claim 'the universal' to be, well, 'universal' and outside any 'social', and this 'universal', known only to the elite (and they must argue this, or they'd be forced to recognise the majority could remove this 'universal' and so it wouldn't be 'universal', but 'social') will form the basis of power for the elite.Lenin recognised the political implications of a 'universal' which society couldn't change, which allowed him to build an elite which denied power to the majority.
robbo203 wrote:There is only one way in which any kind of modern system of production can be operated and that is essentially on a self-regulating basis ( via a system of stock control). Anything other than that is just pie in the sky – totally unfeasible[my bold]This is not 'self-determination' by the producers, robbo.Only the producers can 'regulate' their production, in their own interests, for their own purposes, for their own ends.I suspect by 'self-regulating', you actually mean 'regulated by individual choices', where there is no social (and thus democratic) consciousness.To you, as you say, 'socialism' must be a 'pie in the sky – totally unfeasible'.To me, 'socialism' must be consciously democratic. If you disagree, you should say so openly. That declaration would clear up many of the political debates that we've beeen having, over years now.
LBird wrote:blah blah etc etcSo do you support society-wide central planning then LBird as in everyone getting to vote on the totality of production? Yes or no?
robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:blah blah etc etcSo do you support society-wide central planning then LBird as in everyone getting to vote on the totality of production? Yes or no?
This response proves, once again, that 'materialists' simply cannot conduct a reasoned debate, but must always fall into abuse, because they always get politically cornered, when 'democratic production' is mentioned.Further, the 'materialists' never read what I write, and make up their own version of 'what I say', and then pass that around amongst themselves, and convince themselves that that lie is 'what I wrote'.robbo is arguing against a bogeyman of his own making.If he isn't aware of his own individualist (and elitist) politics, surely someone else here is?And will join in to defend Marx's vision of a self-emancipatory, conscious, democratic, socialism.
Our feathered friend doesn't half lead us on wild goose chases. First, it was about whether the Sun moves round the Earth. Then, it was about whether external reality exists. Now, it's about whether 2 + 2 = 4. All of which are to be settled by a referendum. It's just not possible to have a meaningful discussion with him.
ALB wrote:Our feathered friend doesn't half lead us on wild goose chases. First, it was about whether the Sun moves round the Earth. Then, it was about whether external reality exists. Now, it's about whether 2 + 2 = 4. All of which are to be settled by a referendum. It's just not possible to have a meaningful discussion with him.You haven't bothered to respond to some points that I made earlier, but you will always jump to support elitist 'materialists', and fight any mention of 'democratic production'.And you wouldn't know what a 'meaningful discussion' is, ALB.2+2=11You can't explain that, can you?And if you did, you'd destroy the philosophical basis of your post.'Materialists', eh? Not the brightest, but certainly dangerous to those workers wanting to know about 'democratic production', ie. socialism.ALB thinks that he is part of an elite. And as such, he must argue against (or simply denigrate, when losing the argument) democratic production.
Well, as I said about two years ago, Tweety Pie tweets utter nonsense. His last post is a repeat of the nonsense. He has said it a thousand times. It is entirely incomprehensible. I am sure there are forum rules about repetitive postingsIf there is anything amusing in all this, it is that he uses 'materialist' as an insult. Guffaw.
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