robbo203
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John Pozzi wrote:GRB shareholders cause complete and dramatic change – that's revolutionary.
John , I dont think you really understand what capital – and capitalism – is. That is why your analysis comes across as confused and unconvincing. Capital denotes a particular kind of social relationship based on private property in the means of producing welath. A machine for example is not in itself "capital" What makes it capital is that it is purchased as a commodity and is used to produce other commodities. What is a commodity? It is something that is bought or sold on a market, What is happening when something is bought or sold? I tell you what is happening. What is happening is an exchange of ownership titles to the things being exchanged. If I exchange my orange for your apple what we are doing is exchanging our respective ownerships rights to these things, I no longer own my orange and you no longer own your apple, So exchange NECESSARILY implies private or non-common property You earlier said "Capitalism works if all the people own the capital, i.e., Earth." But that is a completely absurd statement as you must surely realise. If all the people owned the earth that would no longer be capiltalism. There would be communism instead. Capital – from which the word capitalism derives – is, as we saw, some means of production that is purchased as a commodity to produce other commodities. But if it was purchased that implies that ownership of the machine in question has passed from one owner to another and that consequently they cannot both mutually own that machine Abd this John, is what logically precludes the possibility of all the people ownng the capital. This is nonsense on stilts as the saying goes
Capitalist Pig wrote:humans have been killing eachother for shit since the end of time. tribalism is natural.Well no to be pedantic – tribalism is particular kind of social formation of relatively recent origin in human terms, Human beings have been living in another kind of social formation for far longer – simple hunter gather band groups – and there is plenty of anthropological evidence that warfare and violence was pretty rare among such groups
Capitalist Pig wrote:you can say what you want about donald trump but he was the outsider and he won. For the first time in a very long time we have a president that will look out for our interests instead of the interests of multinational corporations. You will try to divide us by income but I see myself as an american not a capitalist or a worker.You know CP it makes me sad when I read comments like this, How you can possibly be so naive as to believe that Trump is an outsider who represents "our" interests and not those of the capitalists (of which he is one) and their Multinationals. It is plain as plain can be that the man is a complete and utter fraud and you like millions of other american workers seem to have been taken in by the salesman's patter Come on, Trump is not interested in your interests at all and even if he was he would have no option but to adminsiter a system that can only be operated in the interests of capital and of the capitalist class. Within days of his inauguation he had stuffed his cabinet with representatives of the BIg Business Establishment – some billionaires or multimillionairs like himself. He laughablly claimed that no one did more for equality than him but the record shows he treats his own employees like utter shit http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/workers-at-trumps-las-vegas-hotel-struggle-to-get-by-with-low-pay-and-little-benefits/ And despite his hypocrictical patriotism Trump himself has business interests in at least 25 countires in the world http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/28/politics/trump-foreign-businesses/ We can argue till the cows come home whether Trump is an "outsider" and what exactly is meant by an outisder. Hitler too was an outsider – but the social origins of politicians is irrelvant, anyway Trump is now very firmly the insider at the helm of the American regme despite sniping within by elements of the deep state – the bureaucracy Mark my words, CP, you are going to be mightility disappointed in Trump just as much as in any other previous incumbent at the White House. It might take a few months or it might take a few years but soon or later it will happen as Trump eases himself into the all too familiar role that all Presidents have carried out as representatives of the interests of American capitalism and their capitalist class
ALB wrote:Pity the whole graph doesn't show (but it will if you click the link). It seems to be about the growth of money wages in ten year periodsrather than pay levels. I see that it's from the person who writes and speaks about Fully Automated Luxury Communism. After listening to a podcast he did last year for the New Economics Foundation I tried to contact him to see if he would do a talk for us but he didn't reply if someome wants to tweet him to try again. Mind you, I don't think William Morris would have thought much of the idea.and of course socialism/communism does not depend on full automation just on the common ownership of the means of production whether automated or not.Yes I agree but I think this kind of meme – "Fully Automated Luxury Communusm" – is very useful indeed as a way of undercutting and negating the kind of objections that are routunely raised against communism/socialism – like the "lazy person" argument or the "who is going to do the dirty work?" argument. Well, automation renders such objections irrelevant. Not only that, it also calls – or rather appears to call – into question the continued viability of capitalism itself. If there are no more jobs left how are workers going to buy back the products of industry, goes the argument. To be clear , I am not saying I agree with the argument. I dont think capitalism can, or ever will, automate wage labour out of existence. But I am looking at the side effects such a line of thinking might have in the minds of the objectors . It has a kind of "shock and awe" effect, to quote that Gulf War phrase. It is deeply disturbing and disruptive in its psychological impact on the case against socialism and I have noticed in the past few years a significant and steady increase in the number of articles talking about the job cutting potential of new technology, especially robotics. A sign of the times perhaps This is why I think socialists should take up this meme and run with it – but not unconditionally, The approach we could use is to say that while we technically could automate a huge chunk of work in socialism we might chose only to automate some of it, thereby putting a positive spin on the nature of work as creative activity a la William Morris and co.
Capitalist Pig wrote:I didn't think anyone on this forum would defend isis or the overthrow of free elections. I am doneActually if I had to pick any one particular development in recent years that has been more damaging to the socialist cause it would be the emergence of ISIS. It has contributed to the wave of bigoted, national chauvinistic populism that you yourself seem to be riding CP, with your defence of opportinist career politicians like Le PenThat apart, it is just too ridiculous for words to suggest anyone on this forum would "defend isis or the overthrow of free elections". Hitler was voted into power, Does that mean we are barred from criticisng the abhorrent Nazi regime?. In any event I thought you said you were opposed to democratic decisionmakong. Why the change of heart all of a sudden?
twc wrote:There is nothing surreptitious at all. Keen is merely following the rest. You see machines producing surplus-value comes straight out of the definition of value based on identifying it with physical labour time …as value.How so? Im not quite clear what you are saying here. Sure I understand the distinction between physical labour time and socially necessary labour time but I dont quite understand how this relates to the question of whether machines produce value or indeed surplus value. I say machines dont and cannot, by definItion, produce value because value is socially necessary abstract labour (SNAL) and machines dont and can't perform SNAL. They are just … er…machines, They dont "labour" (although perhaps in the remote future self aware and emotionally literate androids might be developed that might come to consider themselves to be "labourers" , though what they might think their needs might be other than to top up their battery supply and play endless rounds of chess, I wouldnt know….)That SNAL is different to physical labour is true enough but doesnt seem to have much bearing on the subject. So I would be intrigued to find out what your reasoning is for saying the above
twc wrote:Forget about Lenin as a serious economist.Oh I do, TWC, I do. His theory of superexploitation and his complementary theory of the labour aristocracy are so full of holes its difficult to know where to start with demolishing them. In that connection there has been some useful material written by a guy called Charlie Post, Here is a sample of his workhttp://www.solidarity-us.org/node/128
Young Master Smeet wrote:I think the under studied concept of surplus profit is relevent here: Marx did envisage a competetive advantage to machinery: if there is a predominant method of production in an industry, innovative production methods may allow a firm to produce goods sold at a price above their value, if otehr manufacturers have to sell at a production cost based on the old method. This isn't rent as such, but it is close. Such a new machine would seem to create or add value.YMS, This seems to be somewhat analogous to the concept of "super profits" in Leninist theory which are obtained through imperialist investment in the Third World?On a related theme I am curious about the tradition in neoclassical economics for describing what Marxists would call "profit" , as "interest". Profit accoding to the neoclassical economists is something that is obtained over and above the going market rate and is achieved by outwitting or outguessing your rivals. Any idea of what is the background to this curious distinction which flies in the face of the usual 3 fold marxian typology of proft rent and interest?
TWC I dont think you have quite read what I said. I am not siding with Keen and Kitching in this debate. You make it sound almost as if I am with your bizarre comment "But, having studiously sidestepped Marx, you leave us to entertain the mystical animism of the dead—the revivification of dead labour on each and every successive sale of it as paid-up means of production" I have said quite plainly – have I not? – that I do not consider that machines can generate new values and I gave my reason why I think that. I am actually on your side in this whole debate – believe it or not! – , but you seem to have somehow misunderstood the whole point of my previous post. I was actually trying to clarify in my mind what might constitute an additional or supplementary argument against the notion that machines are capable of producing new values based on what you earlier wrote In other words I was simply wanting you to develop the points you were making a bit further so I can see more clearly how they connect with the proposition that machines do not produce new values. I know the stuff you are talking about and frankly you are preaching to the converted but I am more interested in finetuning the argument and puttting it in more simple plain terms. There is really no need to get all hyper defensive about it.
alanjjohnstone wrote:So are you saying there will be a Red Army-style peoples militia – " institutional apparatus of repression…in a non statist form"Well, Alan, Im not a particular fan of the idea of "Red Army-style peoples militia". . I would hope that the need to use violence would diminish with the growth of socialist consciousness and the spread of democratic values it will occasion. However the point I am making is a theoretical one – that it is not neccessary that means of violence or displays of violence, should always take a statist form. Anthropologically speaking this is borne out by the simple fact that in some forms of stateless societies – notably tribal societies (but not hunter gatherer band societies) – there is systemic violence on a signficant scale. A great example of this in the literature is the Nuer people of Southern Sudan as studied by the anthropologist, Evans Pritchard http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245896.The_Nuer The point is that if means of violence can be deployed in a pre-state society there is no intrinsic reason why it might not also be deployed in a post state society. Hence my reference to apparatus of repression…in a non statist form" (which I hope will "wither away")
alanjjohnstone wrote:What is not in dispute is abolishing the State as an organ of class-rule once the political power of the capitalist class has been neutralised and stripping it of its coercive powers.This is precisely what calls into question the whole idea of the withering away of the state after its democratic capture by the socialist movement. For if by defintion the state is an organ of class rule, then its withering away would seem to imply the continuation of classes for some indeterminate time afterwards – the concept of the so called dictatorship of the proletariat . That is a concept that I have always found to be fundamentally incoherent and is one aspect of Marxist theory that I flatly reject. It is manifestly impossible for a slave society to be operated in the interests of the slaves. However, there is another way of looking at this question – namely that what Engels is really focussing on is the institutional apparatus of repression by which class rule maintains itself. It is possible to imagine this apparatus per se persisting into and gradually being demobilised within, a socialist society – but continuing in a non statist form insofar as socialism itself is a classless and hence stateless society. That being the case, the term Engels should have used is not the "withering away of the state" but rather the withering away of the apparatus of repression in socialism. The act of capturing the state by the socialist majority is coterminous with the abolition of class society and hence of the state itself. But that does not mean the infrastructure of repression will just magically disappear on the spot, It has to be gradually dismantled over time. It is, if you like, the hardware of the state and unlike the software of the state which can be deleted wih a push of a symbolic button – socialist electoral victory – it needs to be systematically gutted of its toxic contents, making sure that these are carefully disposed of without just wantonly dumping them somewhere to poison the surrounding landscape
twc wrote:Kitching is wrong.ExampleAssume that we are productive capitalists, and that the going social labour rate, i.e. the socially necessary labour rate (or money equivalent of labour time) is 1 hour of labour time = £1As productive capitalists, we are “productive” because our production process produces surplus value, ostensibly for ourselves but, under competitive capitalist conditions, we are producing it socially for competitive carve up by the entire capitalist class.Purchase of Socially Necessary MachineryTo be competitive—i.e. to be socially necessary—we, as productive capitalists, need to buy machinery, which we look for on the open, competitive, machinery capitalist market.We find a machine that appears perfect for our needs.The maker is selling it for £1000 money, for him potentially valued at 1000 hours of physical labour time.But an unsold commodity is an unloved thing, and asks “Do I really embody 1000 hours of socially necessary labour time? Am I really worth £1000?”Meanwhile, its equally anxious seller, poor fellow, has no inkling of what unforeseen surprises, game changers, and market disruptions may await him, between the manufacture and eventual sale of his product.Fortunately for him, we as part of a competitive community of purchasers, consider his machine is well priced at £1000 for our needs, and we buy it from him for £1000.Our mutual transaction has now collapsed the machine’s physical value into its money price. We, and our fellow purchasers, on the machinery market, have just validated that his machine really does embody 1000 hours of socially necessary labour time.[Note. This market transaction is not a mechanical operation. It is the working out of a socially necessary competitive process, that continually reproduces and refines itself. It is systemic development. It is, in form, though not in content, a continuous Hegelian development operating before our eyes.]End of transaction.Physical v Socially Necessary Labour Time Our machine has now dropped out of the circuit of production. It is no longer a commodity. Its destiny is no longer the market. It has been sold.Its physically embodied labour time is ancient history. Its socially necessary labour time has been settled, socially, by the market at £1000 or 1000 hours of socially necessary labour.But social evaluation is a dynamic process. Tomorrow, a competing capitalist unveils a cheaper machine that drops the socially necessary purchase price of all machines similar to ours down to £500.Lo and behold, 1000 hours of socially agreed embodied labour has been devalued, in a flash, from 1000 to only 500 hours of embodied socially necessary labour time.The actual time to produce remains the same, but capital pays scant respect to dead labour, even less so than it does to the living variety, which begs gentler handling because it alone is productive. And we, purchasers of the higher priced machine, reluctantly have to wear its social devaluation in order to remain competitive, i.e. to remain alive as a competitive productive capitalist enterprise.Relative to our new competitors, we have to surcharge our products over twice as many products as they, in order to cover the cost of our over-valued purchase. Paying off the cost of a machine, by the way, is a purely bookkeeping transaction.[Note. To dramatise the difference between impotent dead labour embodied in a machine and virile living labour-power embodied a worker—which is the crucial distinction here under discussion—Ruthless one-off devaluation of constant capital, such as plant and machinery, is periodically enforced by economic collapse to the delight of circling vultures who pick them up “for a song”. Such fire-sale stocks are cleared at a fraction of their original value, something that daren’t be done to precious living labour.]False Accounting in Physical ValueA machine is a socially necessary purchase but not a productive one, in and of itself. Only living labour—labour engaged in the production process—is productive, i.e. preservative of embodied dead labour time and productive of new surplus labour time.Now, most critics of marxian economics think of labour time in terms of fixed physical valuation in one form or another.The supreme example is Sraffa, who chased his tail in recursing through past labour time, reducing embodied labour time to dated labour time, ad infinitum, to utter frustration.It never occurred to Sraffa that market transaction, like our socially necessary purchase of machinery (or raw materials, etc.) is the socially necessary mechanism that short circuits all such labour reduction, once and for all, by collapsing embodied dead labour into socially necessary labour time.Physical labour time, like the category of ‘use-value’, is subservient to socially necessary labour time. And money, as in everything else in the capitalist market, is the ultimate arbiter of labour time.That’s precisely why the capitalist market cannot be understood in pure utility or physical terms.I would agree with all of this TWC but again from the standpoint of Kitching or Keen it doesnt quite addresss their claim that machines can create new value and not just transfer their embodied value to the product. From their point of view you are merely making an assertion – that machines cannot generate new values – rather than showing why this is the case. Im trying to understand how what you are saying here could be further developed to the point that could satisfactorily answer their specific objection. At the end of the day I feel the argument boils down to axiomatic point that, by definition, machines dont perform abstract human labour and therefore cannot be said to generate value in these terms. . If you are going to criticise a theory you have to stick with its basic definitions and follow through the logic of the argument to its conclusion. You cannot surreptitiously import another definition of value into your own argument which is what Keen and co are effectively doing, However, it would be useful to identify some other argument, apart from the axiomatic one, to refute them which is what I am interested in developing. There is an awful lot at stake here in this single problematic issue of whether machines can produce surplus value. Nothing less than the whole Marxian worldvew – or at any rate a substantial chink of that worldview. Because, as I said, this question holds out the theoretical possibility that production could become totally automated under capitalism without jeopardising the capitalists' profits so that, in effect, the capitalists themselves, by bringing about the disappearance of wage labour through automation, would have accomplished something that has thus far eluded the socialist movement – the abolition of capitalism itself
DJP wrote:Machines, like coal, are something that are used up in the productive process. There's nothing arbitrary about saying that their value is transfered to the product as they are used up.I guess, putting my Devil's Advocate's hat on, that someone defending the kind of position that Kitching holds would argue that this is not relevant since, as well as transferring the value embodied in them, machines are also capable of generating new or additional values. That is the argument advanced by Steve Keen in Debunking Economics – namely that “Marx reached the result that the means of production cannot generate surplus value by confusing depreciation, or the loss of value by a machine, with value creation" ( p. 294). As far as I can tell what this argument is saying is that if machinery enables the amplification of the productive power of workers thereby boosting aggregate value, how can it not be said that machinery adds value… To me though this objection is axiomatically overcome by the simple observation that machines fo not perform socially necessary abstract labour and therefore by definition cannot add value. The problem is how to integrate this simple observation with that other simple observation that the productive power of human labour is greatly enhanced by the use of machinery
Has anyone come across Gavin Kitching’s book “Karl Marx and the Philosophy of Praxis” (1988)? Kitching, who I have just been reading, seems to be sympathetic to some aspects of Marx’s thought but is highly critical of his economics and in particular the labour theory of value. Much of his criticism seems to focus on the question of whether machines produce surplus value Briefly, Kitching argues that Marx employs a completely arbitrary “accounting procedure” to sustain his argument. If a machine has 1000 hours of Socially Necessary Abstract Labour (SNAL) embodied in it then the maximum amount of SNAL hours that the machine can possibly transfer to each product, according to Marx, is dependent on the number of products produced over the life time of the machine itself. So if the machine lasts for 1 year and is used to produce 50 products, the maximum value transferred from the machine to each product is 20 SNAL hours. But, contends Kitching, Marx is just inventing an example to fit the theory. There is no reason why a machine, by amplifying the productive power of the worker should not transfer, say, 2000 SNAL hours in total over the lifetime of the machine, meaning double the number of SNAL hours embodied in the machine itself. After all a machine can work for a longer amount of time than went into the making of that machine. So why arbitrarily set the limit of SNAL hours it can transfer to just 1000? By the same token there is no necessary reason why the worker should be producing more value than that required to reproduce and maintain herself. That is to say, the entire surplus value could in theory be produced by machines. Marx is in effect rigging the whole discussion with those hypothetical examples of his in Das Kapital, using arbitrary figures plucked out of thin air Of course, if Kitching is right this has enormous implications for the whole edifice of Marxian economics. For starters, the whole concept of the “tendency for the rate of profit to fall” goes out of the window since one cannot sensibly talk any longer of the rising organic composition of capital as machines replace labour power. In theory this means “capitalism” could happily continue even if we had a totally robotised and automated system of production. The machines would be happily churning out surplus value while the proles are left to languish on the dole paid for out this surplus value. I say capitalism but since capitalism is predicated on generalised wage labour this would hardly be capitalism any more insofar as generalised wage labour would disappear. A revolution would no longer be necessary to make it disappear. The capitalists themselves would, as it were, be the agents of the system’s destruction by going down the road to technological innovation. And this all seems to centre on this vexed question of whether machines can add value or produce surplus value. Personally, I think Kitching is making an elementary blunder in his treatment of the labour theory of value but I would like to hear what others think……
twc wrote:Robbo, my reply to you is more or less the same as that to Alan.Then you are restricting socialist delegates to voting for a capitalist framed bill, with all the baggage that entails. Not a very bright strategy for a “socialist” reformer to cripple his “socialist” drafting hands, and meekly vote on capitalist designed legislation. He’s already crossed the boundary to reformism, why not go the whole hog?No this is not the case TWC, Endorsing refromism is very clearly not at all the same as endorsing a particular reform, Reformism is the pro–active advocacy of a package of reforms as part of an electoral strategy. That is to say you are putting forward this package in the hope of attracting electoral support on the promise of implementing these reforms if elected. This is obviously not somethimg a socialist party can do and as a socialist I would oppose such reformism. A socialist party can only stand for socialism and nothing else. But there is absolutely no contradiction between that and socialist delegates voting on refroms put forward by others on the basis of their merits or otherwise from the standpoint of working class interests. For example, if a bill came before parliament re-introducing national conscription or makiing it a criminal offcnse to criticise the monarchy, would you still urge that socialist delegates abstain from voting? That would be madness frankly
twc wrote:Socialist delegates are in parliament to propagate the socialist case and to expose capitalist legislation for exactly what it is; not to endorse it. Endorsing (shonky) capitalist legislation just as surely “sends a message” of abject admission of socialist defeat. You seem eager to be “doing something” that “sends a message”, however capitalist at the core, instead of crafting a message that exposes the rotten core of capitalism to the light of day.Why on earth waste precious socialist time and effort in supporting the damn social system we seek to eradicate?I am not suggesting socialist delegates should not take every opportunity in parliament to propagate the socialist case. Of course they should and all the more so when they are voting for or against particular peices of legislation. As always they need to point out the limitations of such legislation. But also they must take up a position as decided by the movement in gneral as to what is in the best interests of the workers = however fleeting or ephemeral – under the circumstances prevailing. I made the point earlier about Marx's attitude to promoting the 8 hours working day. You wouldnt dispute – would you? – that a reduction in the working day would benefit workers and mitigate the rate of exploitation. Juliet Schor in her book, The Overworked Americanm notes that American workers worked an average of nearly one month more per year in 1990 than in 1970. One reason for this – apart from the rising costs of fringe benefits vis-a vis-overtime rates which made it profitable for employers to get their workers to work longer hours – was the decline in trade union power in America. And here's my point. Can you not see the sheer cognitive dissonance between saying socialist delegates should not vote in favour of (but simply abstain on) measures that reduce the rate of exploitation such as restricting the length of the working day and yet urging workers in their trade unions to militantly resist the attempts of employers to increase the rate of exploitation by extending the working day. That would send out a very mixed message indeed to the detriment of the socialist movement itself.
twc wrote:robbo wrote:By reducing the rate at which it is robbed, pehaps? Isnt that of some benefit?But that flies in the face of “return on investment”, which is the driving force of capitalism, and manifests itself as the driving motive of the capitalist.A capitalist parliament, with or without socialists, has to guarantee social reproduction. But social reproduction is capitalist reproduction, and remains so, whatever the rate people are robbed at, for they are still robbed.Parliament is there to guarantee this driving force of social reproduction, i.e. to act on behalf of dear old capital expanding itself.The robbing I refer to is the essential mechanism of capital expansion, i.e. Marxian exploitation. Watch the capitalists panic when their precious market rate falls! It is life or death to those whose motive drives the system—those bearers of the will of capital to expand itself.Reducing the mere rate of robbing is a fantasy solution of liberal humanism in an illiberal inhuman world. It forgets, or fails to comprehend, that we are dealing with a dynamical process that is necessarily insatiable.We dealing with something enormous—an entire social system, or mode of production. Not fixing its minor unfixable problems.The socialist case is diametrically opposed to liberal humanism—a position that wallows in glorious defeatism.The socialist case abolishes the illiberal inhuman conditions that generate liberal humanism. Ours is a consciously victorious case.
TWC nobody is disputing that while capitalism lasts workers will be exploited. This is a red herring. What we are talking about is the hypothetical situation in which there exists a minority of socialists delegates in parliament and how they should respond to leglslation put forward by those in power. It is NOT being suggested that such delegates should themselves actually propose any such legislation which would indeed be reformist. For instance, one of the ways in whch the rate of exploitation is increased or reduced is by increasing or reducing the length of the working day i.e. absolute surplus value. Marx himself saw the question of the length of the working day as being one of vital importance to workers. In 1866 he wrote on behalf of the International Workingmens Association "The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive….The Congress proposes 8 hours as the legal limit of the working day.". Marx himself was a bit of refromist in this respect Now suppose a situation arose in which legislation was proposed which would shorten the working week. Are you telling me, TWC that the socialist delegates in parliament would abstain on the vote even if it had a direct bearing on the rate at which the working class was exploited? I find that hard to believe I repeat again. Its not a question of trying to fix an unfixable problem. No one is disagreeing with the contention that problem of exploitation is unfixable in capitalism. Its a question of what sort of message you are sending out by abstaining on a peice of leglislation that could mitigate but never eliminate the exploitation of workers. Unless of course you think that reducing the working week has had absolutely no benefits whatseover to workers, Do you?
