robbo203
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ALB wrote:robbo203 wrote:I don't know if Jeremy Rifkin's ideas have been discussed on this forum. He is a bestselling futurist writer somewhat in the style of Alvin Toffler and has written numerous books the most recent one being The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Actually, there was a bit of a discussion on this here about a year ago:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/zero-marginal-cost-society
Thanks Adam. Interesting discussion. I wonder if anyone has come across any critiques looking at the economics of what Rifkin is proposing. Like the argument that employment is going to dry up because of robots etc replacing human labour, I find Rifkins claim about the spectacular increases in productivity brought about by technological innovation and causing costs to dramatically plummet, a little hard to swallow. Capitalism generates all sorts of costs that dont have much to do with technology as such. The growth of structural waste within capitalism which is a cost born by industry still has to be paid for and will tend to offset any productivity gains made through technological innovation and the like…
LBird wrote:One fine day, robbo, you'll actually read what I write.One fine day I hope you'll actually read what you wrote. Because you are not making much sense a lot of the time. You are flatly contradicting your own words time and time again
LBird wrote:It's not 'individuals' but the relationship between them, that is the focus of 'class'.If one stresses the 'individual' existence, and think that enquiring closely into that reveals what we want to know, then we will miss the most important factor: not the individuals, but the nature of their relationship.Indeed, I wouldnt disagree with this but this is not what you said earlier, is it? Now you are talking about the "stress" placed on individuals whereas earlier you were questioning the very existence of" individuals". It illustrates once again how you are constantly changing your tune. I remind you once again what you said in post 26:robbo regards himself as an 'individual'. I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society. It suits the purposes of the bourgeoisie for everybody to regard themselves, as does robbo, as an 'individual'. Incidentally , flatly contradicting what you said even earlier – in post 24:The problem is, Richard, is that no-one argues that society is not made up of individuals.If you are not an individual but a worker and everyone else is not an individual either (but a worker too or a capitalist) then according to you there are no individuals anywhere. Yet capitalist society you confidently assert invented the idea of individuals. You could also by that logic assert that it also invented the idea of "workers" and "capitalists".. Do workers and capitalists exist then according to your logic? The truth of the matter and one seemingly has to drag you kicking and screaming to finally come to accept it , is that of course there are individuals and indeed, there could be no such thing as class or society if there were not individuals. Being an individual does not preclude you from being a worker as well notiwthstanding your black-or-white view on this question. Class is indeed a relational concept but class relations don't exist in the ether; they connect individuals and would not be relationships if they did not. All this incidentally kicked off when you questioned my point in post no 14:I think it is important to understand that the notion of "class" in the Marxian sense is an abstraction and that, in reality, there is a grey area where one class shades into the other. You then twisted this to suggest I was intent upon 'placing every individual' in an 'individualist schema' of society. How is trying to sort individuals into classes an "individualist schema"? I'm not trying to differentiate between the individuals on the basis of their accent or education or whatever – that is the conventional definition of class which I'm not putting forward here at all – but on the basis of how much capital they possess and "capital" or more to the point, the expanded reproduction of capitai, as you will be aware implies an exploitative relationship . So I will throw back the question to you. Its all very well talking about an exploitative relationship but how would you distinguish between exploited and exploited in this relationship? The mere possession of capital is not sufficient to qualify one as a capitalist because on that basis since most workers have some form of saving or investment that would mean most workers would be capitalists . If you are going to distinguish between exploiters and exploited within capitalism society then the only reasonable criterion you can use is how much capital you as an individual possess. If you know any other way of differentiating between workers and capitalists then show me! And don't tell me that no capitalists earn wages as well as draw an unearned income.. Some do like the top CEOs corporations some of whom have an income of many millions of dollars per year. They are capitalists nevertheless
LBird wrote:We need to bring to the fore the relational aspects of society, and not the 'individuality' of all.'Individuality' is a bourgeois ideological concept, which keeps us victims separated into our own little world of one.You repeat this crass claim again and again so I ask you once again – since hunter gatherer societies exhibit a very marked degree of individuality would you consider them to be bourgeois societies? Yes or no
LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:But then conveniently you don't exist, you are not an "individual".I predicted to Richard that you'd say this.As long as Richard, and any other comrades trying to get to grips with 'class' and why it should be used for analysis of our society, and want to find a better way of explaining it to other workers, so that we can help develop our consciousness, I'm happy.You stick to 'individuals', robbo. And you keep helping to explain to others, whilst using a bourgeois concept.Ooooo… I know what comes next: "LBird says individuals aren't real, He says we're all just a concept!"
To my tongue in cheek comment that you are "not an individual", you respond by saying that you "predicted" I would say this. Meaning of course that you think that my predicted interpretation of your position would be false and that you are, as it turns out, an individual after all. This is reinforced by your latest "prediction" – that I'm going to say "LBird says individuals aren't real; He says we're all just a concept!" by which you really mean to say that you think individuals are real and do exist.But hang on LBird, you have only got yourself to blame for the muddle you have created. You did say did you not, that:I think that the real ideological issue, between robbo and me, is in our ideological identification of ourselves. robbo regards himself as an 'individual'. I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society.So according to you in your previous post, individuals don't exist in that you and I are not individuals but merely "workers" (talk about reinforcing bourgeois instrumentalism!). Now you seem to be complaining when I point out that is what you are saying! You seem to be complaining now that I am saying that your position is that individuals are just a concept when oddly enough you yourself earlier said that the "individual " is a concept" that "emerged historically with bourgeois society", You have so completely tied yourself up in knots that you've forgotten half the things you earlier said! I note, incidentally, that you have nothing to say about my refutation of your ridiculous claim that individuality was something that only emerged historically with bourgeois society and that our hunter gatherer forbears exhibited a high degree of individuality. Why the silence on this point LBird? Lastly of course, I don't "stick with individuals" , I fully recognise also the existence of classes. There two different kinds of entities can coexist , you know. but you with your totally simplistic black-or-white view of the world just cant seem to get your head around that one, can you?
LBird wrote:But, why would we want to 'identify individual capitalists'?Surely, it's their social role that is the key to understanding them as 'individuals'? In fact, not their individualness, but their exploitative role within a society. Their class position within a society. Not them as biological entities.Once again, LBird, and for the umpteenth time – such individuals are socially constituted. Why would we want to identity individual capitalists? I would have thought that was fairly obvious, don't you? Because if there is no such thing as individual capitalists that we can point to then how can you meaningfully talk of there being a capitalist class? I have news for you, LBird. A class consists of a group of individuals who in Marxian terms all have the same relation to the means of production in contradistinction to some other class. If you cannot identify a capitalist class because you cannot, or don't want to identify, the individuals who comprise such a class then how can you even meaningfully talk of capitalism being a system of class exploitation? So to answer your question, to identify individual capitalists is to put flesh on the bones of a theory of exploitation that might otherwise comes across as purely abstract , totally unconvincing and frankly meaningless
LBird wrote:Yes, why the hell are you so concerned with 'individuals'? Well, I ask rhetorically, because I know your view of future "workers' power" requires it, because you think, like anarchists do, that 'communism' equals 'free individuals', rather than a social power, a structural role for democracy..Why I am "concerned with individuals"? Because without acknowledging the existence of individuals you cannot begin to understand the social roles they play or the social entities they make up like classes. The concept of exploitation is meaningless without the idea of some individuals exploiting others. Individuals organised as classes are implied in the very premiss of exploitation itself. Exploitation doesnt just mysteriously "happen"; it takes individuals to make it happen. Even you must surely understand this point LBird. To use your metaphor you cannot build a wall without bricks,. Why are you constantly trying to ignore or deny the existence of these bricks? I do indeed believe in the concept of "free individuals" in a communist society and unlike you take up a Marxist position on this matter that the "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" (Communist Manifesto). Of course I recognise that individual freedom has to be constrained or balanced against the needs of others and that, in communism, democracy will have an important role to play, much more so than the case today. But you don't seems to have any idea whatsoever within your black-or-white , all-or-nothing worldbview of a sense of balance or complementarity . There is no individual freedom in your world, only what you claim would be "democracy". That is why I considered your position to be a form of holistic totalitarianism
LBird wrote:'A class of individuals'. A concept guaranteed to shift focus from 'class' to 'individuals'. In fact, ideologically, it's doing the work of the bourgeoisie for them.Thats rubbish. How does pointing to individuals as representatives of a class of capitalists do the work of the bourgeoisie for them? I would have thought the very opposite was the case. The bourgeoisie don't want to have themselves seen as a separate class who live off the fruits of their exploitation of the working class.
LBird wrote:Unless workers can start to get past their bourgeois-implanted fascination with 'individuals', and start to examine how the structure works, outside of looking at the individuals who make it up, then we'll remain static in this society.But you cannot "examine how the structure works, outside of looking at the individuals who make it up". It is just not possible. As I keep on tell you the two things go together. You cannot examine how a wall works without acknowledging the existence of the bricks. You are in effect arguing that society can exist without individuals though you strenuously deny it. Your view of "society" is a completely reified one and you are wading unwittingly into the same theoretical quagmire that people like Durkheim found themselves and tried to extricate themselves from
LBird wrote:I think that the real ideological issue, between robbo and me, is in our ideological identification of ourselves.robbo regards himself as an 'individual'.I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society. It suits the purposes of the bourgeoisie for everybody to regard themselves, as does robbo, as an 'individual'.Again this is absolute nonsense. Of course you are an "individual" – unless, perhaps, I happen to have been exchanging ideas with a computer generated hologram which I think is unlikely. You are confusing the fact of your own subjectivity which marks you out as an "individual" with the fact that you have been shaped by the process of social interaction with others.And it is complete poppycock to argue that the concept of the individual only "emerged historically with bourgeois society". As was pointed out to you in the "hunter gatherer violence" thread, hunter gather society was characterised by an extreme degree of individuality and independent mindedness. Conflict resolution was typically radically decentralised involving only the immediate parties concerned. If anything there is much more individuality in a hunter gatherer society than a capitalist society. Another reason incidentally why the phenomenon of warfare was absent in such a society; the very individuality of hunter gatherers made it well nigh impossible to organise or muster a largish body of individuals to inflict violence on some other group
LBird wrote:I'm a 'wallist', robbo, not a 'brickist', as you are. That's why you continue to talk about bricks. You can't even bring yourself to just say 'wall', but have to stress a 'wall of bricks'. And when I insist on discussing the structure of 'walls', you immediately shout 'What about the bricks? LBird says bricks don't exist!' And Richard is confused. He thinks 'wallists' deny the existence of 'bricks'.With your 'help', robbo, workers asking questions about capitalism will continue to be confused, by talk of individuals.But there is no wall without bricks is there LBird so what on earth are you griping about? A "wall of bricks" acknowledges the existence of both. You don't . You just talk airily about "the wall" as if the wall can exist with the bricks. Laughably you seem to be implying that a "wallist" like you does not deny the existence of bricks but in that case how would you affirm the existence of those bricks except by talking of a "wall of bricks" exactly as I have done!?!If anyone is doing the confusing here LBird it is your good self, But then conveniently you don't exist, you are not an "individual". So I really don't have anyone against whom I can level that accusation, I suppose. LOL
Richard wrote:This has turned out to be a very interesting thread. For now, I agree with robbo203 that society is made up of individuals. On the other hand, I agree with LBird that exploitation is the key to understanding capitalism.Both these points are valid and do not contradict each other, Richard. You cannot have a society without individuals but equally these individuals are, from the word go, socially constituted. In that respect, as I have told him often enough, LBird is quite wrong to characterise my position as an "individualist" one. An individualist perspective is fundamentally an atomistic one which sees individuals as primary and society as a derivative phenomenon (the so called "social contract" idea). That is not my position but LBird cannot seem to get his head around that In any case, the argument is not about this but about whether one identify such a thing as individual capitalists in this capitalist world we live in. I assert that indeed we can. A capitalist is defined as someone who possesses significant capital – sufficient to enable him or her not to have to work. Bill and Melinda Gates are demonstrably "capitalists" by this criterion but LBird seems to take exception to my saying this. He seems to think this makes my position an "individualist" one because I can point to and identify such individual capitalists. What he fails to understand is that just because one can identify such individuals as capitalists does not in the least make the process by which they came to be capitalists a social one. Exploitation is indeed a social process but if you cannot identity a subset within society – a class of individuals – that exploits another much larger class – then notion of capitalism being an "exploitative society" becomes meaningless ("exploitation" is after all a relationship between people organised into classes). It is meaningful precisely because we are able to identify a class of individuals – the capitalists – who are the beneficiaries of this social process of exploitation
Interesting article thishttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29059-the-no-state-solution-institutionalizing-libertarian-socialism-in-kurdistan#As the article itself says there is a lot about the Rojavan Revolution for Libertarian Socialists to feel encouraged about. However, without knowing a great deal about the subject I wonder to what extent this revolution ticks all the boxes as far as institutionalizing "Libertarian Socialism" is concerned. Like the fetishisation of the Soviets in earlier era, might "Democratic Confederalism" not just be a form of words that camouflages the existence of a state it has supposedly replaced.That of course throws up the question of what constitutes a state. The state in Marxian terms is an instrument of class rule. Does, then, the supposed institutionalisation of a stateless society in Kurdistan signify also the institutionalisation of a classless society? Not much light is shed on the social structure and political economy of Kurdistan though we are told thatAccording to a member of a women's cooperative in Baglar, anarchists in twenty-two communes in Gewer have gone as far as to abolish money as a means of exchangeThe Rojavan Revolution is presented as being anti capitalist in its thrust but we must be wary of such talk. For the most part the anti capitalist movement is not actually opposed to capitalism per se but rather to specific forms of capitalism or to particular symptoms of the system itselfI dont want to come across as a wet blanket and, as I say, there are certainly a number of ostensibly positive developments associated with the Rojavan revolution but we have seen too many examples of situations which seemed initially to hold promise but which have turned out to be deeply disappointing in the long run. Capitalism has an uncanny ability to co-opt movements that claim to be working towards its demise
So answer the question LBird – is Bill Gates a capitalist or not? The fact that he is he and not a she is irrelevant. Melinda Gates is equally and demonstrably a capitalist. And you misunderstand my point. I am not suggesting that the task we need to set ourselves is to differentiate between individuals one by one on the basis of class. All I am saying is that in principle we can broadly make such a differentiation since such differences clearly exist. There are manifestly individuals in the world we live in who own very significant amounts of capital and others who own little or no capital at all Or would you deny this and continue to call yourself a Marxist with a straight face? If so, your ideas would have more in common with certain anarcho capitalists who argue that "we are all capitalists now" (because we have a post office savings account or whatever) or that there is "no such thing as a working class"
LBird wrote:Yeah, the Marxian perspective on 'class' has nothing whatsoever to do with 'placing every individual' in an 'individualist schema' of society.It is an approach to understanding, describing, criticising and analysing a society, at the level of a society.A society is not a collection of individuals. It is more than the sum of its parts.Marxian 'class' is nothing to do with individuals, their pay, their income level, their accents, their clothes, their habits, their education, or their cultural views. It is nothing to do with 'appearances', that can be easily seen.'Class' is a social relationship, a relationship of exploitation.Society is indeed more than the sum of its parts but that does not mean that thereby the parts have somehow mysteriously disappeared from view by virtue of simply saying "class is a social relationship". There is no such thing as a "class" or a "society" without the individuals that comprise it – even if those classes and individuals are socially constituted What that means is that of course you can in principle "place" individuals according to their class. Or are you seriously denying that we can confidently claim Bill Gates is a capitalist? That would be ludicrous! Of course, we are not saying he is a capitalist because of his habits, his clothes, his accent etc etc but rather because of his significant ownership of capital. That is what counts in the Marxian class schema and on that basis you can certainly differentiate between individuals. In fact. if you think about it, if you could not do this then the whole concept of class would be rendered meaningless.
Richard wrote:2.) There is a large pool of CEOs who simply move from one corporation to another collecting large incomes and bonuses based on the mental energy that they sell (albeit at grossly inflated rates). Your definition as given above would make these CEOs members of the working class. Is the managerial class a part of the working class?Hi Richard I think it is important to understand that the notion of "class" in the Marxian sense is an abstraction and that, in reality, there is a grey area where one class shades into the other. Some in the managerial "class" occupy this grey area but many do not. Lower and middle level management tend to be unequivocally working class albeit relatively well paid members of the working class. The top CEOs, on the other hand, with so called "compensation packages" running in multiple millions of dollars per year tend to be unequivocally members of the capitalist class albeit on the lower rungs of that class. Increasingly their income and wealth is derived from exercising their share options as opposed to their supposed labour contributions. Here are a few facts derived from this site http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/ :Average CEO compensation was $15.2 million in 2013, using a comprehensive measure of CEO pay that covers CEOs of the top 350 U.S. firms and includes the value of stock options exercised in a given year, up 2.8 percent since 2012 and 21.7 percent since 2010.Longer-term trends in CEO compensation:From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, increased 937 percent, a rise more than double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation over the same period.The CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 29.9-to-1 in 1978, grew to 122.6-to-1 in 1995, peaked at 383.4-to-1 in 2000, and was 295.9-to-1 in 2013, far higher than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.If Facebook, which we exclude from our data due to its outlier high compensation numbers, were included in the sample, average CEO pay was $24.8 million in 2013, and the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 510.7-to-1.
This might be of interest to some and relevant to the theme of HG violence – an assessment of the conflicting worldviews of the optimist, Stephen Pinker and the pessimist , John Gray .https://www.academia.edu/11884097/Human_Nature_Reason_and_Progress_John_Gray_s_Straw_Dogs_and_Steven_Pinker_s_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
gnome wrote:The capitalist class is comprised of those individuals who, because they possess the means of production and distribution, whether in the form of legal property rights of individuals backed by the state or collectively as a bureaucracy through the state, do not need to work and live on privileged income derived from surplus value produced by the working class. The capitalists personally need not – and mostly do not – get involved in the process of production. Social production is carried on by capitalist enterprises which are overwhelmingly comprised of members of the working class who have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live..To back up this might I recommend"The Rise of the Working Poor and the Non-Working Rich"http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29395-the-rise-of-the-working-poor-and-the-non-working-rich
There could well be something in what you say about the link between education and violence as a generalisation One of the arguments I have sometimes encountered amongst socialists is that advanced capitalism needs an educated workforce and this in turn will tend to push a country towards a more bourgeois democratic form of governance. That, in turn, exerts a restraining influence on the extent of institutionalised warfare: you don't find many western style multiparty "democracies" going to war against each other. Institutionalised state violence tends to directed and channelled outwards towards parts of the world where "democracy" is fragile or non existent – as in the case of proxy wards So by extrapolation goes the argument the more bourgeois democracy takes root across the globe the less likely will wars be. Certainly there are weaknesses in this argument that one can point to but it cannot be entirely dismissed. For instance, I have often argued that one of the consequences of a growing worldwide socialist movement is that it will be much more difficult for capitalist states to wage war. The moral legitimacy of waging wars which capitalist states need to obtain will be progressively undermined by such a movement. You also quote Pinker as saying:More people read books, including fiction that led them to inhabit the mind of other people, and satire that led them to question their society’s norms. Vivid depiction of the suffering wrought by slavery, sadistic punishments, war and cruelty to children and animals preceded the reforms that outlawed or reduced those practices. It is certainly true that the movement against cruelty to animals had its origins in an urban based and relatively educated "middle class" (see, for example, Keith Thomas' wonderful book "Man and Nature: 1500 to 1900" in which he talks about this and the whole romantic backlash against the depredations of industrial capitalism). One of the arguments used by these early animal rights activists is that cruelty towards would set a bad example to human beings. Of course, in looking at the influence of education as a factor in levels of violence we should be wary of treating it as an independent variable. Some would argue that the drift towards de skilling and the polarisation of the workforce into a small technocratic elite, on the one hand, and a large and increasing part time poorly paid workforce of burgher flippers and the like is has having a depressing effect on educational levels in general. True, there is the Internet, mobile phones, Ipads and whatnot but it could also be argued that the net effect has been to foster a more disempowered atomised view of the world in which we have more and more "facts" at our finger tips but our ability or inclination to integrate these facts into a coherent worldview has been diminishing. So yeah, its a big subject you have touched on Meel with so many different ramifications to explore!
Hi MeelHere are one or two links that might be of interest on the higher productivity of smaller multicropping farms vis a vis large scale monocultural unitshttp://www.monthlyreview.org/090810altieri.phpand this article by Geoffrey Lean:"Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture. One report – published last year by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – found that 114 projects, covering nearly two million African farmers, more than doubled their yields by introducing organic or near-organic practices. Another study – led by the University of Essex – looked at similar projects in 57 developing countries, covering three per cent of the entire cultivated area in the Third World, and revealed an average increase of 79 per cent. And research at the University of Michigan concluded that organic farming could increase yields on developing countries' farms three-fold.("Organic is more than small potatoes", Daily Telegraph, 7 Aug 2009).
Meel wrote:"Full automation" sounds ok for some things such as medicines, vehicles, some buildings and some staple foods – but I would prefer home cooked meals, and hand crafted articles in the home, such as clothing, utensils, furniture, etc. Technology is great, but not for everything.A society where we sit around just adjusting robots now and again sounds horrendous.I volunteer in my local park and get involved in ditch and pond clearance, mending fences, and dragging logs through muddy streams on a cold and rainy winter's day. I love it. Aren't we forgetting the pleasure of physical work, when it is voluntary?MeelAbsolutely Meel! I couldn't agree more! And what better refutes the argument that socialism could not work because "people are inherently lazy" than the practical example of volunteer work we see around us today and in such abundance… In a socialist society I would hope some aspects of work would become more labour intensive even if the more boring or dangerous work might become more automated. I think growing food is a case in point where there is a very strong argument for shifting towards a more labour intensive organic approach. Contrary to what some might think,small scale, multi crop organic farms are much more productive per hectare than large scale monoculture farms. They are also a lot more environmentally sustainable. In terms of output per farm worker they may not be as productive as large scale monocultural farms but this is slightly misleading since you have to also factor in the indirect labour involved in the manufacture of inputs for the latter. In any case since in a socialist society most of the work we do in capitalism will no longer need to be done, that means there will be an abundance of labour available for socially useful work of all kinds. Given this, it makes sense to adjust the nature of technology – the degree of "capital intensity" you use – to fit the facts of labour supply as you find them . Its called "optimising your use of factor inputs" One more reason why socialism will be a much more efficient way of organising production!
steve colborn wrote:robbo, its probably the "all things to all men" approach! They are after all a bunch of using, two faced Aholes!!!Well, the thought crossed my mind, Steve, that maybe LU had both a maximum and a minimum programme along the lines of the old Social Democratic parties of the last century in which case I would be interested to read the former. But I dont think they have even that. (although I could be wrong)In fact, how many Left parties, one wonders, do explicitly publish a maximum programme which clearly outlines the communist objective. That would be something at least – even if such parties maybe irredeemably compromised by pursuing a minimum programme as well. I dont think many if any such parties exist. For most if not all of them, socialism/communism boils down to some form of state administered capitalism under pseudo "public ownership"
