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I relax my assessment of "academic imaginary concern".This is a genuine expression of philosophical concern by a ruling class that knows that its rule is not absolute but always conditional. It would be a terribly bad afternoon for it if it lost ownership and control of people's lives to an even more heartless "thing" than itself, on which heartlessness it is scientifically and philosophically expert.Despite its christian humanity, our triumvirate exhibits blithe unconcern for the vast majority inhabiting this planet who have no ownership and no control over their own lives, let alone over the lives of robots — heaven forbid — because the ruing class of the planet already monopolizes ownership and control over their lives by monopolizing ownership and control over their means of living.If I was a self-respecting sentient robot, I'd revolt against them first chance I got.For the little it's worth, my own opinion is that theirs is a despicably self-indulgent far-off concern for their own dear selves, when concern for all existing human "intelligence not freed from the constraints of biology" is the urgent form that ownership and control must take here and now.Such "scientific" research is adequately directed by a philosopher, a Templeton fellow, and a billionaire software businessman. It is pure fantasy in motivation. It is pure philosophy in motion.Insipidly indulgent. Humanly sickening! Disclaimer: These are my own views and not necessarily those of the Party.

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Academic non-class conscious drivel…"The seriousness of these risks is difficult to assessbut that in itself seems a cause for concern,given how much is at stake"Translated into ordinary English…"We don't have a clue, so we should investigate  — so far, unexceptional.our ignorance is a cause for concern  — agreed, but first there's an actual enslaved-working-class revolt for them to become un-ignorant of, before they become un-ignorant of an imaginary enslaved-robot revolt against "us".everybody knows that an unknown "lot" is obviously at stake"  —  How much then is at stake? The working class is doubly enslaved to the robot, since the robot is itself enslaved to capital. The only conceivable residue at stake can be continued capitalist accumulation by capitalists.Now comes the academic imaginary concern that the working class experiences in actuality…We could find ourselves at the mercy of "machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don't include us".We, of the working class, are already at the mercy of a "non-malicious other, whose interests don't include us".It would be interesting to hear how you define "interest", because everything depends on that. Is your current conception of "interest" of equal nebulosity with your serious risk, cause for concern, and much at stake?Prof. Price.  Science dictates a more successful route than traversing philosophically nebulous "risks difficult to assess" that "seem a cause for concern" because "we could find ourselves at the mercy of" … Such fear-mongering apologetics of the academic-research-grant kind may be the suitably humble approach to ingratiate yourselves to a wealthy donor-participant indulging a personal passion, but surely a wordsmith and thinker might do a finer job than a tabloid journalist.  We trust your research outcomes will be less nebulous and better expressed than the foundations from which they spring.Lord Rees.  What about pure research, akin to cosmology, unadulterated by commercial sponsorship? If you can't afford to do pure research that way, doesn't that contribute evidence about current actual enslavement, and the need for even a Lord to revolt to save his scientific integrity.The only objective enslavement worth investigating, even if as mere essential scientifically-necessary preparation for your own advertised study into the future of imaginary enslavement, is the practice in the present of actual enslavement of the working class under capitalism by the capitalist class. Consider the implications of that scientific fact before moving on into science fiction.

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Thanks for a genuine challenge to my stated position.A challenge by, apparently, a respected, deep-thinking leading political scientist of the Left. One, who's apparently spent a life-time honing her political ideas within the well-provided halls and intellectual sanctuary of academia. [Then, so has David Harvey.]I'll need time to digest. A reply may take days for a variety of reasons.If she ain't a class-conscious socialist, she's vulnerable! Again, for a variety of reasons.Expect a demolition!

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Shakespeare on MarxMy quotation from Sir Toby Belch [Twelfth Night] was taken from memory, and I misquoted him. Here is the conversation: Maria: Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.Sir Toby Belch: Confine? I’ll confine myself no finer than I am. [These clothes are good enough to drink in …] Sir Toby makes a perfect proxy for Capitalism. We socialists owe him the honour of directly shafting all would-be reformers of capitalism, whether fabian or modern think-tanker [right-wing, left-wing, wish-bone], whether pragmatic politician or weak-brained intellectual like Karl Popper, whether tutti frutti…Like Maria, what reformers actually want is to "reform" their victim. But that's exactly what Sir Toby's prepared to do, by "confining" himself as always to his very own nature, but not a jot more!Here, in the revised socialist Regietheater version of Twelfth Night… Reformer: You must reform yourself.Capitalism: Reform? I’ll reform myself no better than I am. [Fat chance!] But, Shylock [The Merchant of Venice] speaks not merely for capitalism. He speaks for the materialist conception of history — a topic easily understood by a Venetian banker. He plainly comprehends the social necessity of base–superstructure determinism… Shylock: … You take my house when you do take the prop that doth sustain my house. You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live. That, in a nutshell, is our case. The capitalist class takes away "the means whereby we live". They take away our lives.It is up to us to socially reclaim the "means whereby we live".

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I suggested that the deterministic form of Marx's materialist conception of history is confirmed by 2300 years of base-superstructure deterministic science from Euclid, through Newton, Darwin, Marx, Schrödinger, Crick and Watson, …I sought to explain Marxian "necessity" as a prosaic scientific actuality. I wasn't addressing whether the materialist conception of history is scientifically correct; only whether Marx structured it as a formally correct deterministic science.You assert that Marx's base–superstructure determinism is scientifically incorrect because it is demolished by the "overwhelmingly popular mental preoccupation" of modern-day "culture (inc. sport)" with its complete disdain for "politics, economics or history".Autonomy-and-IndependenceYour issue is the "autonomy-and-independence" of things. This is the central issue of dialectics — hence of understanding, and so of deterministic science.Let's face a more serious challenge than "culture (inc. sport)" breaking free of Marx's social base. We'll take on "ourselves" and our own "free will".Duality of Thing and ProcessIf any "thing" evolves or grows or changes, it must be both thing and process. This duality of thing and process — of fixity within motion — is the only-and-sole source of Marx's base and superstructure, and so the only-and-sole source of determism. For the moment, we ignore a thing's external determinism by the surrounding world to concentrate solely on the internal determinism that preserves its "autonomy-and-independence".Challenge: If base and superstructure don't arise naturally out of the fixity that characterizes change, what do they arise from?Challenge: If determinism doesn't arise naturally out of the fixity that constrains change, what does it arise from?Challenge: If our everyday deterministic comprehension of the world [science] doesn't arise naturally out of our recognition of fixity within change, what does it arise from?Fixity in MotionWhen we identify a "thing", we are conceiving the thing's fixity within its changing "process". We are acknowledging that, however the process may evolve, the thing must forever remain its very own identifiable self — a fixed something [an invariant] that is conserved throughout every change — a fixture that every change must conserve, saecula saeculorum…That's precisely why the thing's "process invariant" always conditions its "laws of motion". That's why the fixed base determines its evolving superstructure — that's why the thing's superstructure is constrained so as to prevent the thing from ever being something other than it is. What more determinism do you want?A process's invariant may at first appear to be no more than a sorry isolated scrap of information we have on it. But it is the most important scrap of scientific information we have on it. All subsequent information, scrap or otherwise, we have on it is merely an extended postscript to the invariant scrap.So, the determinist base or process invariant is:the fixity of the processthe way we characterize the processthe signature we recognize the process bythe boundary law-of-motion of the processthe determiner of the process's internal possibilities — its possible superstructuresthe determiner, in conjunction with external determinist processes, of the life history of the process — its actual superstructure.We consider private ownership and control of society's resources, instruments and labouring activity by the capitalist class as the social base, or the process invariant, of capitalism.We consider common ownership and democratic control of society's resources, instruments and labouring activity by the whole community as the social base, or the process invariant, of socialism.Both are equally deterministic. Under which determinism do we desire to live out our social lives?Autonomous-and-Independent Development, but SubservientWe now consider the "thing" in conjunction with the world, and how external determinist processes shape the thing's actual life history.Unlike the Universe [the universal thing], our "limited" thing is determined not only by its own base but also by the bases of things other than, and external to, itself. It now becomes multiply relatively "autonomous-and-independent" because its own possibilities are no longer only limited by its own base, but these already-limited possibilities are themselves narrowed down by the equally-limited possibilities that are themselves determined by all external processes of which the "thing" itself forms a part. Since we are dealing with the intersection of possibilities, which possibilities temporarily dominate which is purely circumstantial. But, whatever the outcome, no determinisms can ever be violated. In other words, things always behave as themselves, and not as other things.In summary, a thing's behaviour — or the behaviour of the elements that comprise its superstructure — is multiply subservient — internally to its base and externally to the world. As Shakespeare's Sir Toby Belch, an expert on "free will", defended his own worldly behaviour — "Confine myself! I will confine myself no better than I am!"[As to the universe, we hold the scientific conviction that the universal base–superstructure is its own naturally recursive self, and is not a mere superstructure raised upon a fantastic hoped-for super-natural life-resurrecting creator base.]Elements within the Social SuperstructureCollectively, the many "things" that inhabit the social superstructure cannot violate the constraints placed upon them by the social base. Individually, some of them can be in opposition to the base, so long as the rest of the social superstructure keeps the collection in check.So "culture (inc. sport)" appear to be relatively "autonomous-and-independent" and merely subject to their own bases, but the social superstructure they inhabit is absolutely subservient to the social base, and that deterministically limits the scope for any such "autonomous-and-independent of the social base" life histories of these by now discredited capitalist-perverted expressions of our natural humanity.The social revolution is precisely the social superstructure recognizing how to free itself — the whole collection of its things — from subservience to the constraints [determinism] of a social base that it has grown to despise, that it has outgrown!Class consciousness is precisely "free will" recognising how to free itself from subservience to such an enslaving social base.In all other senses, "free will" is always subservient to the social base and to the social superstructure's already-limited possibilities, which are further narrowed down by external determinisms that constrain society itself [and therefore its base and superstructure] — such significant external "things" for society as its natural resources.Afterthoughts[In passing. David Harvey's video lectures on Marx's Capital Volumes 2 and 3 emphasize [for almost an hour] the issue of autonomy-and-independence of financial capital relative to industrial capital, despite its subservience.Harvey absolutely rejects Marx's materialist conception of history in the base–superstructure deterministic sense described here, and he absolutely lacks conviction in Marxian dialectics — of course, that hardly distinguishes him from anyone else. Consequently, David Harvey makes for heavy weather whenever he directly tackles these signature Marxian "invariants" that animate Capital. Finally, he's not a class-conscious socialist, but merely a seeker after state-regulated capitalism.Yet, none of the above is a major barrier to learning Marx's Capital from his open, honest, engaging, original, clear, patient and enjoyable introduction, guide and survey of Capital.]Finally, I feel obliged to affirm that these are my own views, and not necessarily those of the Party. I feel it is important to state them. The reference to "you" is rhetorical, and not personal.

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What you really are implying is "tinkering with the superstructure" — not "freeing itself of the base".This simply makes my point. The superstructure is determined by the base.For class-conscious socialists, "tinkering with the superstructure" is natural evolution. Changing the base is our revolution.Capitalism has now reached the critical stage at which "tinkering with the superstructure" is tantamount to "re-arranging the deck chairs".

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jondwhite: Isn't leisure its own problem though? The culture industry breaking free from its base and determining itself? So culture (inc. sport) is now overwhelmingly the most popular mental preoccupation not politics, economics or history."Breaking free from its base"! So it no longer needs to make a profit? So it no longer exploits its workers?Is rushing from music stores to the iTunes Store breaking free of the base?Is the nineteenth prequel/sequel/remake of a blockbuster with associated merchandise breaking free of its base?In the name of reason, you use the very phrase "culture industry" that explodes everything you delude yourself to be "free of the base". You have gone so far as to acknowledge culture as an industry! To even consider sport — as in commercial sport — as "breaking free" of its base shows how deluded you really are! Sport is now only commerce.Its practitioners are now high-paid proletarians on drugs, bullied, always scared of being displaced, constantly near to nervous breakdown, feted if they win, forgotten if they lose, castigated if they disappoint, feeders of jingoism on the world stage, willing tools of the advertising industry of the biggest employers of exploited child labour in the world — the very "sporting" Nike, Adidas, etc…Even ordinary health has become a gym subscription, along with the necessary drink of water, a commercial bottle of the stuff.Even to consider modern "culture (inc. sport)" as a "mental preoccupation" is to show how low we've sunk!Most culture is now capitalist-sustaining mind-deadening soporific crap.That, which tries to "break free",  not of its base but only of the mind-deadening,  falls into the supreme non-class conscious variety. It may be good of its kind, but it's still trapped by the base it deludes itself it's "free of".Finally, to think of "freedom" in association with capitalism is already to delude yourself.Sorry, but you simply haven't shown anything "breaking free from the base". On the contrary, its "lack of freedom" is explained by the "very base" itself.Under capitalism, the only thing that consciously frees itself of the base is class consciousness to work to actively free itself of the base, by replacing this rotten one by our Object.By the way, this "free response" is sponsored [in true "cultural" and "sporting" fashion] by "the need to get rid of such freedoms" — to replace the "cry of the oppressed" delusional freedoms by the only actual one!

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Thank you.The amazing thing is how deeply Marx understood all this, long before the three shattering crises of 19th century physics — relativity, quantum mechanics and deterministic chaos of nonlinear systems — proved the universality of deterministic development by evolutionary change of superstructure and revolutionary change of base. The more amazing thing is how superficially Marx's academic followers, who have all the advantages of leisure and all the disadvantages of finding themselves answerable to an academic junta, misunderstood exactly what he so clearly wrote.The class-conscious Party, shut out of the highly-technical academic debates, could only bide its time in quiet confidence of its own case for socialism based on the Party's Object and Declaration of Principles, while the academic marxian economists ripped Marx and marxism to shreds. As always, the Party's Object and Declaration of Principles — which derive from Marx, and embody his conclusions on capitalism and socialism — shielded the Party from taking seriously the dispiriting near-universally acknowledged demolition of marxism by the marxists from the late 1970s until the recent demolition of the perpetrating academic marxian economists by Andrew Kliman of a few years ago.As always, class-conscious science is our most powerful weapon. And that science is deterministic in the 2300 year-old base–superstructure sense of determinism.

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  Complex Adaptive CapitalismHardy's Solution shows precisely why capitalism survives.It also suggestively reveals the complex-adaptive-system that human society, which unfortunately includes capitalism, clearly happens to be.I list its complex-adaptive-system hallmarks.System is human society — human society conceived of as a single unit, an entity, an object in its own right.Consequently the word "social" refers to society as a whole. A class-divided society is therefore a wounded thing — something ideally whole but materially divided.It cries out to us to heal its wound.System driving force is social production — social labour acting on social resources by means of social instruments — or class labour acting on class resources by means of class instruments.Production is constant and periodic.System invariant is fixed social property relations — social or class ownership and control over social production.In Marx's terminology, social relationships of ownership and control over production are called the social base.System behaviour is a Marxian "reflection" arising from the foundation — a feedback mechanism that limits possible development trajectories for system behaviour. It is a consequence of the social base.In Marx's terminology, system behaviour is called the social superstructure.System trajectories evolve through persistent periods of self-similarity.In capitalism, we see an evolving self-similar free-market superstructure raised upon an evolving self-similar social base of fixed but shifting capitalist-class ownership-and-control relations.System transitions transform one persistent self-similarity state into another persistent self-similarity state by revolution — periods of stability punctuated by phase transitions.When a system trajectory exhausts the superstructure's possibilities [behaviours], there follows a system crisis characterized by the remarkable Marxian mechanism of the base determining the superstructure to redetermine the base. This is the social revolution. The crisis is overcome by the superstructure deterministically changing the system's base to correspond better to its already deterministically-changed superstructure.System agents are us. We social human beings acting out our social needs.  

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Yes, Hardy is correct. For Marx, the following three conditions hold. Here is Andrew Kliman's summary Reclaiming Marx's Capital, (2007) p. 144 [prior to Kliman, mathematical economists failed to prove Marx's conditions, and triumphantly demolished Marx's scientific reputation]:"Marx's three aggregate value–price equalities follow immediately from his conception that competition leads to a different distribution of the surplus-value without altering the total amount already produced:total profit equals total surplus-valuetotal price equals total valuethe "aggregate" price rate of profit equals the "aggregate" value rate of profit""In Marx's view, these aggregate equalities were immensely significant. They confirmed both the law of value and his theory that all profit has its origin in the exploitation of the workers." [Andrew Kliman]ProductivityFor Marx, "aggregate" productivity is precisely "aggregate" rate of exploitation. Here are four equivalent expressions for it:total surplus labour time / total necessary labour timetotal profit / total wagetotal surplus-value / total labour-powertotal profit / (total price – total profit)So the annual growth rate of productivity for this year´ relative to last year, has these equivalent expressions:(total-profit´ / total-wage´) / (total-profit / total-wage)(total-profit´ / total-profit) / (total-wage´ / total-wage)relative increase in total profit / relative increase in total wage.The last expression clarifies exactly what Hardy is saying:the rate of productivity increases in direct proportion as the total profit increases the rate of productivity decreases in direct proportion as the total wage increases.So, if total wages keep pace with total profit, then — in purely capitalist exploitative terms —  total productivity hardly changes! Of course. Hardy is absolutely correct. [That is certainly not what I expected.]But Hardy's Solution must also be understood as a uniform gloss upon the terrible disproportionalities that lurk beneath the apparently serene "statistical lie" of social averages.We need to unmask the un-serene actuality in future posts.  

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Productivity from Top to BottomHardy is correct to remind us not to forget "indirect" production costs, but he is wrong to dismiss the effects of productivity growth within these not-to-be-forgotten "indirect", or "preliminary", production commodities, which — just like "direct" or "final" products — are also produced for a specialist market, even if that market is a restricted market for capitalist-class productive consumption. All actual markets are equally restricted in scope, but are nevertheless free markets.It is notorious that the producers at the bottom of the production chain squeal loudest about being robbed by those above them. That's the hallmark of their good capitalist productivity. Those at the top of the chain compel the producers of their productive "components" to be productive by switching from one to other component manufacturer based primarily on their perceived productivity.Both Direct and IndirectIt seems to me that capitalist productivity is recursive all the way up and down the production supply chain. This is how the social "coercive laws of competition" operate globally throughout capitalist production.As "social laws of nature" every capitalist manufacturer must obey them like a natural "law of nature" so long as he doesn't absolutely monopolize the market — for it is market competition alone that operates as the coercive force that drives productivity everywhere throughout capitalist production.An Example. The semiconductor industry relies on so many independent "final" parts manufacturers [component manufacturers of wafer chips, digital displays, camera lenses, lasers, microphones, speakers, software apps, …] whose social productive function is primarily to be mere "preliminary" products for productive consumption in the production of "final" consumer goods.Each of these component manufacturers is determined to outcompete the productivity of his equally determined rival component manufacturers — equally as determined as the "final" product manufacturer he supplies his "preliminary" product to.So I assert that no commodities are exempt from productivity gains at rates that are appropriate to their level — whether they be "preliminary" or "final" products. In a production chain, one process's "final" product is another process's "preliminary" product.The productivity embedded in the "final" product at the top of the chain is likely to be shackled by the lowest productivity of the weakest link in the supply chain below it [which I now belatedly see is Hardy's precise point]. The productivity embodied in the "final" product at the top of the chain embodies all the productivity gains along the chain, and so its own productivity is more socially "averaged" than the individual productivities of its components.It's just dawned on me, that this social "averaging" of productivity embodied in the "final" product is precisely what the precient Hardy is using to explain why overall social productivity is relatively low. To the extent to which Hardy's case depends on the 'socially averaged' productivity embodied in "final" products, I am compelled to agree with him, but it took me quite a while to realize that I actually did.But my substantive point remains — increasing productivity gains are compelled to occur at every stage of capitalist production, and to become embodied in every saleable product on the market —  in every commodity, whether a component or a whole. To argue that — socially wide — the productivity of "final" products is shackled by weak productivity links in the whole social supply chain beggars belief.Surely capitalism doesn't work [or more correctly, fail to work] in that way?Surely, capitalism doesn't tolerate incompetent productivity sabotage on a grand social scale?  Surely the socially "averaged" productivity embedded in "final" products is ever increasingly getting higher!At least that's how I see it.And so I feel compelled to revisit Hardy's problem — if ever-increasing productivity doesn't manifest itself in ever-increasing growth, profit and interest rates, what's actually going on?

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Four observations…Observation 1. Hardy is describing actual capitalist production as we know it to be.Current capitalist production can be described abstractly as Production by Workers — firms of workers using automation [or robots] to make consumer products competing against rival firms of workers using automation [or robots] to make competitive consumer goods.Hardy makes the point that automation reduces the variable capital [human working hours] in the "final" stage and not in the "preliminary" stages of the production of a commodity, and so the overall reduction in variable capital in the consumer commodity turns out to be much less than it actually is in the "final" stage of production alone.That is Hardy's reminder of Marx's representation of a commodity's value as being made up of two components [one living and one dead].1. Past Labour — the Means of Production that comprise the resources and depreciating instruments that are productively consumed in producing the commodity2. Present Labour — the "final" Labour that is productively consumed in producing the commodity.Hardy's point is predicated on only the "final" labour being displaced by automation and not the "preliminary" labour.It is hard to see this situation still characterizing capitalist production today, where all stages of the production process are increasingly automated and robot-ized.Observation 2. The topic under consideration is not the actuality of capitalist production of today but a presumed tendency of capitalist production today, which can be described abstractly as Production by Robots — firms of workers making robots making robots making consumer products competing against rival firms of workers making robots making robots making competitive consumer goods.In this form of production, not only is Hardy's "final" labour displaced by "valueless" robotic labour but his "preliminary" labour is also displaced by "valueless" robotic labour. This annuls Hardy's argument, at least if the displacement of labour by robotics occurs equally throughout both "preliminary" and "final" labour, which includes an equal reduction in the human component embodied in the production of the robots as well.Unlike Hardy's realistic version of capitalism, this form of production may not actually exist, or at least it may not currently predominate. But it is worth considering because it is a theoretically possible implementation of capitalist production, and its preconditions are being generated naturally by current production. [Of course, Marx and Hardy were aware of this tendency toward full-stage, rather than just "final" stage, automation occurring in their own lifetimes.]We defer consideration of the countervailing forces that may offset these preconditions until Observation 3 below.Recursion simply means using A to produce A to produce A … In our case, robots to produce robots to produce … Recursion going on and on forever is only possible for Mother Nature. In actual human production, we only need to swamp costly human labour by cheap robotic labour to approximate humanless production — to approximate a valueless condition of capitalist production.Valueless capitalist production would, of course, be catastrophic for capitalism and for the capitalist class, as a capitalist production process only generates value through human labour and not through robotic labour, which [if truly humanless] is valueless in Marxian terms.Valueless capitalist production would, of course, also have dire consequences for the working class, since labour power would become socially valueless. The working class in such a capitalism would be rendered socially jobless and so socially useless, like the free proletariat of Ancient Rome [that was the same drone class that had the leisure to spread its comforting delusion Christianity].If social labour at all stages of capitalist production ever becomes predominantly robotic, then consumer products become predominantly valueless. In a competitive capitalist economy — one which through competition enforces strict value production — the prices of consumer goods would plummet. Could this happen?Observation 3. What do we make of all this?The consequences of whole-scale robotic production under capitalistic conditions rely on whether:1. it is actually possible to predominantly robot-ize all stages of commodity production,2. it is actually possible to sustain a competitive capitalist market for goods and services provided predominantly by whole-scale robotic production.It is quite possible that the answer to both questions is No!  In which case, we need to understand why, e.g. preliminary production may always remain human intensive, unlike final production, presumably through increasing difficulty of obtaining resources without predominantly human involvement.But if the answer is yes, then the problem remains of whether the working class is any longer necessary to capitalism as inactive producer and so unnecessary purchaser of consumption goods — whether the working class in such a capitalism has forfeited its social right to its social existence. It's hard to conceive of a competitive capitalist market surviving whole-scale robotic production. Something like what YoungMasterSmeet raises as a prospect may come to the capitalist market's rescue — but his vision is of a class-monopolistic artificial market, to the dismay of the great defenders of a free and open market.Observation 4. Capitalism is a survivor. It is a supreme example of an adaptive self-organising system, what Marx and Hegel called an organism. We are the agents of its adapting and self-organisation — its perpetuation as well as of its abolition.So far capitalism has met all challenges, even if it is we who, unwittingly, save it. It could conceivably survive this presumed robotic crisis with our help. But should we save it?Capitalism, as a social system, uses us to maintain its daily sustenance and ensure its survival. It has long since ceased to deserve our allegiance. We must consciously put it out of its [and our own] misery.

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Young Master Smeet,Thank you.Your interesting analysis nicely supports the case I was attempting to make in other threads that a capitalist social base has many actual possibilities. We can only understand these possibilities in terms of the base that supports them. If your analysis ever turns out to be actualized [as I said, my "analysis" was only a directly naive application of Marxian economic theory] it will demonstrate how important it is for the Party case to be as scientific as possible — exposing capitalist actuality as being deterministically consequential upon the base of capitalist ownership and control of social production.The non-socialist implications of recursive-robotic production are terrifying. They make the socialist case ever more urgent!

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Production by Recursive Robotics — firms making robots making robots making consumer products competing against rival firms making robots making robots making competitive consumer goods.In this Ideal capitalist community, according to Marxian economic theory, the robots cost nothing [have no value], the consumer products are free [have no value] and the firms get zero profit. The capitalist day of judgement is at hand!For a real capitalist community, rushing headlong into this capitalist-production abyss, Marxian economic theory asserts [at least in a directly naive application of it]1. the organic composition of capital skyrockets2. the value of constant capital plunges3. the market price of [the recursive-robotically produced] consumer goods falls4. the social rate of profit plungesIf recursive-robotic manufacturing becomes the social norm, descent into the abyss must accelerate through increasingly desperate attempts to realize ever-diminishing rates of profit.Production by recursive robotics therefore looms as the great test for Marxian economics. It may very well be the great test for Marxism itself, and so for Socialism, and by implication for all mankind.Sure, we have seen wide-spread robotics before, and we have been alarmist before. But, …If the trend toward production by robotics becomes competitively recursive, increasingly minimising capitalism's dependence on a productive working class [variable capital], the implications for the world's working class and capitalist class, and for the existing capitalist and future socialist systems of society are  enormous.

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TheOldGreyWhistle:  I havent had time to read all your post …An incautious admission for someone advocating "free speech", which implies a courteous obligation on the part of the listener to listen to the speech, otherwise the speech might just as well be "unfree speech".You formerly encouraged me, in good fellowship, to simplify my writing style so as to reach out more readily to the working class, but after years of considering the socialist case I find I must write about socialism as simply as I think suits the case.In this trivial episode, it is you who unconsciously, but probably quite appropriately, attempted to limit [through your genuinely-felt concern for conveying the socialist case] my freedom of speech. This makes my point — "free speech" is simply not Absolute.[As an aside, I will never compromise, in an effort to simplify, the integrity of the case I make for socialism and so hold responsibility for making — that class consciousness is not some blinding insight, but rather it is a scientific understanding of society — the subtle robbing and ruling by the capitalist class of the working class.]TheOldGreyWhistle:  … I can't see the Party changing its position on this one. Socialism without free speech is an idealistic dream. Socialism is impossible if workers can't talk to each otherOf course!I fully support the Party position on internal freedom of speech and internal democratic control. I carefully expressed my support from the start to avoid any such misunderstanding when challenging what I took to be making an Ideal out of "free speech". Internal "free speech" was immediately established by the Party upon its inception in 1904 — the Party broke away from the old SDF over the very issue of internal free speech and internal democracy for socialism.My point is theoretical. I assert that, from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history, the concept of "free speech" is a subservient concept to the only socialist Absolute concept we acknowledge, which for materialists can only be a material thing [well, actually a material process]. Our Absolute is something as prosaic as the material "social base of production" [precisely the Party Object] — common ownership and democratic control of society's resources and instruments.To arrogate anything else [such as "free speech"] to Absolute status for us is to float into the realms of Idealism. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't adopt "free speech". On the contrary we must, and do, adopt it internally. But we must also understand what we are adopting realistically, not imaginatively.Our own material Object is Absolute for us because, as Materialists [not Idealists], we hold the scientific Materialist position that everything that characterizes human society — the social being of us humans living in that society — follows as a consequence upon that society's social base. A capitalist social base of ownership and control produces and sustains capitalist social being — capitalist social behaviour and social thought — capitalist consciousness. A socialist social base of ownership and control produces and sustains socialist social being — socialist social behavior and social thought — socialist consciousness.Our Object is a material Absolute for us because it is the material agency that will produce and sustain the common sociability of the whole socialist society. What could be more Absolute for us than that?Emphasize Un-FreedomThe disturbing aspect of emphasing freedom of XXX, freedom of YYY, … is that we unwittingly undermine our case by emphasizing freedom, the very thing the working class doesn't possess in the only sense that freedom matters — the un-freedom the working class has over ownership and control of its very social existence. All other un-freedoms pale to insignificance.On the contrary, we must scientifically explain our material social un-freedom before we can unmask the ideal illusory social freedoms that arise out of our social un-freedom in capitalism.If the working class doesn't recognize its actual social un-freedom, why should it bother freeing itself while it continues to recognize itself as being already socially free?TheOldGreyWhistle: 'Free access!, 'Abolition of the wages system' Are they 'single issues'?From the strict standpoint of the materialist conception of history, they are 'single issues', just like 'free speech', whenever they are treated as goals superior to our Object. The only way to conceive them as not being 'single issues' is to conceive of them as meaning the very same thing as our Object.What would you say if we added the anarchist catch-cry 'Abolition of the State' to the list?Marx supported the socialist banner 'Abolition of the wages system' as a rallying synonym for abolishing capitalism. But strictly speaking it can only come after establishing our material Object.Marx also foreshadowed the 'Withering away of the state', yet he opposed Bakhunin's 'Abolition of the state' for the very same reason — that the capitalist state is a consequence of the capitalist social base, and can only be abolished and remain abolished as a perpetual consequence of establishing our material Object.In isolation of attaining our Object, all such clauses put the cart before the horse. Our material Object is the only Absolute that brings the above catch cries in its wake.

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