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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!
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.
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.
Dialectics of "Free Speech"Capitalism quite legitimately, from its standpoint, insists on honourable withholding of that vaunted Absolute "free speech".Capitalist companies demand commercial-in-confidence non-disclosure agreements [NDA] to prevent staff, suppliers or collaborators who, in a free market, are potentially staff, suppliers or collaborators of competing rival firms, from sharing the company's so-called "intellectual property" beyond the confines of the company. Such folks are expected to honour their NDAs as condition for their collaboration and work within the company. It is a legal offence to violate this confidence.Police and military demand a need-to-know "free speech" policy to prevent unintended disclosure of vital information that might jeopardize their operations. Folk are considered incompetent or saboteurs if they divulge such confidential or classified information. In many cases, failure to withhold "free speech" may endanger the lives of their active personnel.International diplomacy is the supreme task of unfreeing some other nation's withheld, or unfree, speech.And we all know about cabinet solidarity, which deliberately leaks cabinet-confidential "free speech" when expedient to fly a political kite or when its hostile band-of-rivals sneakily settle political scores against each other. There is often greater honour of silence among theives.What about a prisoner's "right" to remain silent in his own defence as part of his own defence?On the other hand, how about the coercive side of "free speech".Thrusting "free speech" upon people whether they like it or not must surely be a good thing! Well, what is enemy torture but a means of thrusting upon a captured enemy the great capitalist Right of "free speech"?The vaunted capitalist rights are absolutely not Absolute. Their multifarious concrete manifestations are all explained rationally as consequences of the capitalist social base of production — just like everything else that is social in capitalism.
Capitalism's "Social Laws of Nature"Single Issues = IdealismSingle issues, like the topic of this thread "freedom of speech", but also "freedom of religion", "freedom to work", "freedom of race", "freedom of sex" [freedom for women, gays, same-sex marriage], "freedom for the environment", "freedom for animals", "freedom to bear arms", etc. are always framed in terms of rights [human, animal, environmental, whatever] — Absolutes that have been tarnished in their relative actuality, and must be restored from socially undesirable actualities into social embodiments of unsullied Absolute purities.The Idealist political stance is always that the socially inviolable has been socially violated and must be socially restored. It is what motivates non-class conscious politics.Perhaps, "motivation" is too strong a word to describe the "politically-realistic pragmatic" emasculation of inspiring social demand for actualizing a social Absolute, which always appears a ridiculous thing to do under mercenary capitalism — so that the poor non-class conscious politician must settle for second-best motivation — "we [the non-class conscious] humbly recognize that our socially-inviolable abstract Ideal is unattainable, but we still fight to reduce the extent of social violation in its concrete social actuality".Such is the feeble political residue of a century of non-class conscious politics that arrogated to itself the claim to being class conscious. Such motiveless motivation is the very embodiment of political damage control.When the materialist Marx spoke of ideals being material, he was not being perversely enigmatic. He was not referring to such trivialities as ghosts being real products of the imagination [something most three-year olds glean without parental guidance from their picture books].Marx was precisely referring to the materiality of the most insidious form of human bondage in the annals of human society — the capitalist "social laws of nature" — the forces that manifest themselves as social illusions that control each and every one of us under capitalism. The illusions that capitalism naturally creates. The illusions that sustain capitalism as a complex adaptive self-organising system. The laws that govern our lives under capitalism. The laws that we can never repeal under capitalism. The social compatriots of the natural "laws of nature".Insight into the materiality of capitalism's "social laws of nature" ranks among the deepest social insights of Marx's new materialism — the materialist conception of history — the science of our social being, that is forever eons ahead of any contender.The material might of capitalism's "social laws of nature" is precisely the reason why a century of non-class conscious politics achieved nothing to further but everything to set back the social goals that inspired it. One cannot repeal a law of nature — social as well as natural.Anything that always defeated, continually defeats and will continue to defeat every social onslaught by the greatest and finest non-class conscious minds society has to offer is quite rightly the manifestation of a "social law of nature". What inferior name would you call it?Challenge: To the brightest and finest non-class conscious minds. Capitalism's "social laws of nature" offer a perfect target for non-class conscious attack. The claim of their existence appears so obviously false. To the non-class conscious there are only natural "laws of nature". Our absurd claim should be trivial to demolish. Please try to demolish it! [Caution: Think carefully — you're taking on Marx and his materialist conception of history.]Syncretism — Collection of Single IssuesAn arbitrary collection of Absolutes does not a single Absolute make.The idealist Hegel showed the world the only possible way an Idealist can unify a collection of Ideals. Our non-class conscious opponents are incapable of recognizing their own Idealism, and would scoff at the very thought that such practical folks as they are could ever be guilty of, and motivated by, philosophical Idealism, which they totally misconceive. Unwilling to unify their Ideals in Hegelian terms, they parade their disparate Ideals as a grab bag of a single dis-united Ideal. They are intellectually insipid syncretists.Our syncretist opponents are scientifically incapable of uniting their collection of Absolutes. So they resort to moral suasion, dramatic display and grand rhetoric — as anyone must if they are fighting for grand inalienable absolute rights that have been concretely violated.We don't fight them [even when we confront them face-to-face]. Their case is beneath contempt. We choose a worthier foe. We fight the hold that the capitalist "social laws of nature" have over them. We take on the capitalist "social laws of nature".How do you Repeal a "Social Law of Nature"?The only way to repeal a "social law of nature" is to repeal the social base that raised the laws. We repeal in one fell swoop the whole grand-united capitalist "social laws of nature" by repealing the capitalist social base of ownership and control relations of social resources, instruments and labour — by the working class wresting these from capitalist-class ownership and control [class rule] to replace capitalist-class ownership and control by socialist common ownership and democratic control of the whole society's resources, instruments and labour.Social Materialism = change the social base to change the social consequences! [Changed men are the products of a changed environment].Society's working class gets to consciously wield hitherto inaccessible social power — something that forever eludes the non-class conscious politician — it gets to repeal the capitalist "social laws of nature".All "social laws of nature" are created by us — hitherto, quite unconsciouslly. We have gained the class consciousness to know how to change ourselves. Isn't that the import of Marx's 11th thesis?[A rather fun aside… We do not know how to change the natural base of which the natural "laws of nature" are our scientifically hard-won human-crafted constructions thereof. We seem to be absolutely powerless to change those natural "laws of nature" — at least at present — to generate an entirely novel natural base with associated novel laws of nature.]Now to "Freedom of Speech"Freedoms of a class-divided exploitative society are always duplicitous. But, more importantly, the capitalist "social laws of nature" ensure that its freedoms are always insidious.Because single-issue advocates of freedoms always conceive them Idealistically, they invariably see their freedoms in a great inspiring light. They delude themselves.The following rather-tame uninspiring actuality of everyday "freedoms of speech" should be enough to disabuse anyone of the existence of any such truly-inspiring Absolute.[We entirely pass over the not-so-tame insidious aspects of capitalist "freedom of speech" perhaps for another occasion.]Freedom of Speech = freedom for unsolicited communication [call-centre harassment, junk mail, SPAM], freedom for conversational drivel and viciousness, freedom for scientific plagiarism, freedom for literary and artistic forgery, freedom for lynch-mob incendiarism, freedom for political demagoguery, freedom for religious mystification, freedom for advertising fraud, freedom for political lying, freedom for direct-action incitement, freedom for shock-jock venom, freedom for celebrity gossip, … The list of freedom-of-speech actualities extends to the crack of doom.The only way to ensure that these perversions of human decency don't emerge from the very socially-necessary conditions of our capitalist social existence is to change the conditions of our social existence —To replace capitalist conditions of class ownership and control by society's capitalist class with socialist conditions of non-class ownership and control by the whole society.
Complicated because there are no solutions to Capitalism's problems other than our own single grand united solution!This, I know, is exactly your starting point.Long and TechnicalThe sad truth is that capitalism is complicated because capitalism complicates everything.If capitalism wasn't complicated through its very own workings, we'd have deposed it long ago. We wouldn't have overwhelmingly numerous and powerful opponents who can't free themselves from the complicated delusions that control them and their thoughts.Yet, as you say, Capitalism is really very simple to explain.1. Capitalism is as simple as the capitalist class owns and controls the working class's labour, instruments and resources — 13 words that even a young teenager can understand, but probably won't believe without discussion that soon becomes complicated.2. The socialist complaint is really as simple as the capitalist class rule and rob the working class — seven words that even a young teenager can understand, but probably not believe.3. The socialist Object is our Object — not many more words, but that's just the start of a rapidly escalating discussion with a young teenager or anyone else.I believe, if we stick to the two dozen or so simple words that express our foundational ideas, we have the simple technical foundation for reducing complication.My own postsI never set out to write long "technical" posts. But it turned out that what people posted as unassailable assertions, could only be unravelled [at least by me, as I'm clarifying my own view] at length.Length should be the minimum to make the point — sometimes that turns out to be long.Technical should be as technical as the author understands the case to be — class ownership, class control, social system, capitalism, socialism aren't concepts directly derived from everyday "common experience", and so they remain remote to everyday "common sense". They are indirectly derived by analysing common experience, and that analysis is unfortunately "technical"."Uncommon sense" derived from "uncommon experience" is the very essence of science.Our non-class conscious opponents wallow in the "common sense" that directly arises from their "common experiences" — and they then defiantly oppose our hard-won "uncommon sense" with their very own common or garden variety, knowing like the tabloid press that they hold every "common sense" prejudice on their side.We, on the other hand, want deeper Class Consciousness. Unfortunately for us, that's technical. It's not tabloid press.But, I'm duly warned, and will aim for simplicity without sacrificing message.
Dear TOGW,No, I don't doubt your motives. I honour you and yours. I see them as absolutely genuine. And you also. I was merely pointing out that the very act of placing "freedom of speech" above common ownership and democratic control [which are our class interest] is creating something moral holding suasion over something practical. You would counter that "freedom of speech" is precisely something practical. That it is practical to gaining and running socialism. I agree, although there won't be social pressures to remove it under socialism.But if it's practical to gain a practical end then it is subservient to that end.If on the other hand it dominates our practical end then it is either our true practical end [which I don't believe it is] or it's a guiding principle to achieving our end — in which case it's moral.I see it as a consequence of our own class case that must use it as a weapon to expose capitalism under capitalism and which will be a natural outcome of daily life under socialism. It is perhaps one of the greatest things we have in our favour. It is a social goal, but only establishes itself as a truly socially achievable and sustainable object under socialism.As for now, we are not alone in honoring free speech. Objective science scrupulously practices free speech. What else are the pages and pages of references in Marx's Capital but free speech. It is a confirmation that our case is scientific. But it's also our recognition that each of us is but a unit of the common humanity that will achieve something beyond anything humans have achieved before. We all contribute our voice, because we are articulating our common goal — common ownership and democratic control.We socially and communally recognize that free speech is advantageous to us in exposing caputalism.But by turning "freedom of speech" into something superior to something practical. That is turning it into a guiding principle. That is what morality is. It is also what the bourgeoisie thought was guiding them in their revolutions — from England, France, [forget the Soviet Union, which consciously abused it even in the undertaking] and in the recent flight of Eastern Europe from the clutches of mother Russia. But it was always practical to free themselves from actual unfreedom of speech.Unfreedom of speech is something that occurs far more subtly over us in capitalism.Please, I'm writing these posts at speed. When I use the word "you" I mean some nebulous generic target. Actually, I do feel that most of us, you especially, are truly inspired by Voltaire's ringing defence. I think we'd be non-human not to be shaken to our core by its stirring defiance.Please, these are my thoughts inspired by yours. They may appear to make accusations. They don't. They are free thoughts within free speech inspired by free speech.Unfortunately, that's how opposing thoughts mascarade when we exercise free speech. We must all learn to accept that sometimes we need to go beyond Voltaire, even at his level bourgeois revolutionary level and recognize that even among friends discussing the common subject we love about the common goal we desire that — we also personally have to suffer the slings and arrows of free speech. With freedom comes its correlative.[And some misguided folks don't see things dialectically. But we recognize that argument by free speech may hurt both by its very freedom as well as by its content. That's why there are always ways and means to shut it down in class-dominated societies. But even we, especially we who fight for a non-class dominated society, must acknowledge that free speech also hurts our own minds and egos in order to liberate both to achieve a truly social mind and ego.]
I see our class interest as being precisely common ownership and democratic control. If ever the capitalist class forbids "freedom of speech" [to support private ownership and non-democratic control] as it did in Soviet Russia or goes even further to outlaw socialist parties, as in Bismark's Germany, "freedom of speech" will be curtailed absolutely, and that includes ours.We'd just have to accept the fact, and compromise [as we do when compelled to do so without jeopardizing the Party case in times of war] in some common sense fashion — just as Marx recommended sections of the International and social democrats to behave and not compromise the movement.So we may very well be compelled to curtail our external "freedom of speech" in the interests of our Object, but we will never yield an inch of our Object Itself.You say "No freedom of speech – no working class movement for socialism..'" True, internally for us. But not externally, It's the capitalist class that decides such external things for us, not us. We sometimes, as in times of war, have no choice but to submit in order to keep the case alive.Please, I agree with your case. It's strictly a solved-organizational issue for us, but please don't turn i"freedom of speech" into a higher absolute than our Object.Do you really suggest modifying our Object to read. "Freedom of speech to all mankind, regardless of race, sex, religion, politics, [the more deviant the speech, the more we'll support your right to it] in order to gain common ownership and democratic control…"?Do you see what I'm driving at?I'm not trying to undermine the Party's case — as you appear to think. My opposition to your case is that it stays at the admirable level of Voltaire. But that's not our position at all.You, on the other hand, have confirmed what I feared in my original post — that you were waiting to play your trump card as "a moral stand" against all non-Party players.i wholly support the Party's case on "freedom of speech". And, yes, it sometimes hurts.As for "the moral stand" — recall that I tried to make an abortive case that vestiges of our common sociability remain even under capitalism — and these are commonly called something like morality. I try to be scrupulously accountable in everything I write, partly out of common sense but also out of that remnant something we both share.
Hi Steve Colborn,I was trying to ward off an acrimonious thread like the recent one over religion — a new one which might invite the intolerant to intolerantly defend intolerance. I was wrong to do so, and apologize for so doing.Hi TheOldGreyWhistle,I fear that you want to treat or turn "freedom of speech" into a social or political Absolute. All Absolutes are made by us. The Party only acknowledges two social Absolutes — common ownership and democratic control. They are absolutes for us, because we have conviction that they embody our class interest. Contravening them is contravening our class interest. It is contravening us.Does "freedom of speech" occupy a similar status for us — or do we hold it to be subservient to our class interest, or do we dare hold it superior to our class interest?The answer to this question tells us how to view "freedom of speech" from our standpoint, whether we like it or not.I believe that "freedom of speech" is very much a consequence of society's social base. It will be a non issue for a common-ownership democratic-control social base. It must be a perpetual issue for a class-ownership and class-control social base.So what we can say from our standpoint about "freedom of speech" is far more important than merely what our left-wing opponents do [or don't do] say about it — that's their problem. We have ours.1. Capitalism has mastered — under compulsion to mask its class-division — the art of non-authoritarian suppression of "freedom of speech" without legislating against it [on the contrary, by extending its domain].2. As consequence of our Object [class interest] we differ from left-wing groups because we confer on our whole membership "freedom of speech". The Party is not conspiratorial. Ultimately it belongs to the whole working class, but first it must belong to its membership.3. As consequence of our Object [class interest] we differ from left-wing groups because we do not open our membership to non-class conscious members of the working class — to that extent we currently deny "freedom of speech" to the vast majority of the working class, because they currently don't want to become members of the Party. [Our non-class conscious political opponents — like the Labour Party, etc. — appear to be far more democratic, but their internal hierarchical control structure puts democracy safely in its place.]So "freedom of speech", like every aspect of our case, must be considered through the contrast between the social base of capitalism and the social base of socialism, and their implications.You challenge "But you begin to see it [freedom of speech] as important when it is taken away." This is both obvious, and still posed at the level of capitalism.I retort "If 'freedom of speech' is taken away, what do you propose we do about it when we haven't got it? That is the only possible question for us to answer then.
Wow!Thanks ALB. I'm speechless from puking!As always, the underbelly of theology is to justify the ways of god to man — and mammon.
It's practically a dead issue in these days of the Internet. That could conceivably change [anything's possible] but scarcely seems imminent.The Party has a fearless open policy, which you've outlined. What more of socialist significance need be said or can be said on this non-issue for us, in which we would always be victim, never perpetrator.I suppose, we could add — socially acknowledged censorship against us would be interesting indeed!
Ownership and Control of SocietySocial production relies on workers, instruments and resources.Possible social relations of ownership and control — expressed as pure abstractions:1. Society as Socialism. Society collectively owns and controls all three. Social production is controlled democratically by the whole society, is directed in the interest of the whole society, is performed in association by the whole society, is aimed at productive consumption by the whole society and luxury consumption by the whole society.2. Society as Chattel Slavery. The ruling class of society legally and socially owns and controls all three. Social production is controlled by authority of the ruling class of society, is directed in the interest of the ruling class of society, is performed under physical compulsion by the working class of society, is aimed at productive consumption by the working class of society and luxury consumption by the ruling class of society.3. Society as Feudalism. The ruling class of society legally owns and controls resource [land] and socially owns and controls worker and his instrument. Social production is controlled by authority of the ruling class of society, is directed in the interest of the ruling class of society, is performed under social obligation by the working class of society, is aimed at productive consumption by the working class of society and luxury consumption by the ruling class of society.4. Society as Capitalism. The ruling class of society legally and socially owns and controls instrument, resource and the worker's labour. Social production is controlled by private decision of the ruling class of society, is directed in the interest of the ruling class of society, is performed under social compulsion by the working class of society, is aimed at productive consumption by the working class of society and luxury consumption by the ruling class of society.[Please no complaints about the following. 1. All class-exploitative forms are inhomogeneous, but are homogeneous at this level of abstraction. 2. The economic abstraction labour power doesn't exist at this level of abstraction. Labour power arises precisely because the labourer has already ceded ownership and control of his labour to his employing capitalist at the abstract level under consideration here. Though consequential upon the base, labour power emerges in terrifyingly concrete manifestation in the social superstructure.]The conclusion I reach, based on Marx's materialist conception of history's base—superstructure model, is that everything in our case is derived from the abstract base of capitalist class ownership and control relations.Many assertions have been floated by others in this thread about how to make the case against capitalism. I am now prepared to lay my own cards on the table for all to play against. I assert that we can't repudiate the following challenges [some controversial; others possibly unexceptional] without repudiating our case for socialism.How to Confront Capitalism — For discussion…Challenge 1. We must be able to demonstrate deterministically how the social ills people want to overcome [and can't ever overcome under capitalism] relate back to — are deterministic consequences of — capitalist class ownership and control of the whole society's instruments, resources and labour. Otherwise, how can we hope to convince anyone else to join us in changing capitalist ownership and control to socialist ownership and control [our Object]?Challenge 2. We must be able to demonstrate deterministically how a social base generates its appropriate social superstructure [by using capitalism as a model to unmask the capitalist superstructure as a reflection of its class-divided base]. Otherwise, how can we hope to convince anyone else to join us in changing the capitalist social base into the socialist social base?Challenge 3. Our theoretical task is to expose the capitalist class's ownership and control of society's productive instruments, resources and labour, and the working class's deprivation of ownership and control of society's productive instruments, resources and labour.Challenge 4. Our class interest is precisely "to own and control society's instruments and resources", and in so doing control our social labour in our social interest.Challenge 5. Our goal is our Object, to the achievement of which all else is subservient.Challenge 6. Our class consciousness is precisely the conviction "affirmation of the above 5 challenges".
Subject and VerbLet us revisit the transitivity of worker [subject] — working instrument [verb] — resource [object] to see how it actually expresses itself in real social systems.Who's really subject and who's merely verb under capitalism?Worker—instrument—resource is the situation that prevails when the worker owns and controls instrument and resource.But we assert that the worker doesn't own and control instrument and resource. The ultimate proof that the worker has voluntarily relinquished ownership and control is expressed in the actual prevailing reality of the inverse transitivity — that which actually occurs in capitalist production:Instrument [subject] — labouring worker [verb] — resource [object].The worker is controlled in the working process by the things he doesn't control. He is demoted from the working process's subject to its mere verb.If the worker is a mere verb in his own workplace, the working class is collectively a mere verb in the social system at large.With Ownership and Control go Responsibility and AccountabilitySo, to assert that the working class is the subject of the social system [in which it's practically the verb] is to saddle it with responsibility for the social system it allegedly subjects. As alleged subject, the working class must now be held responsible for, and so accountable to its wretched self for, the poverty, degradation, destruction, war, famine, … endemic to the system it allegedly subjects.The insidious implications of the allegation of worker as subject of production is the final humiliation of his degraded status — the worker is now morally guilty for the mess he is forced, by actual lack of ownership and control, to be illusorily in ownership and control of. Can any further degradation await him? Any crueler mockery?And what does that allegation do to the socialist case? It trivializes the socialist case to merely expunging moral guilt for the mess the working class has allegedly wrought upon its own class and upon the world through its gross mismanagement of the world it's allegedly in charge of. Can humiliation go lower!But, let us now unmask the real subject of the capitalist social system. The capitalist class owns and controls the worker's conditions of working, and it legally and socially owns and controls the worker's labour. The capitalist class therefore owns and controls the whole social system in the only sense that matters — at the level of assigning responsibility and accountability for it. It owns and controls the mismanagement of the world it's legally and socially in charge of. [Apparently they don't teach management of the world in a Harvard MBA — only management of the working class.]Sheet home responsibility where it so obviously belongs!So the Capitalist Class isn't in Control?We therefore have no common interest with the capitalist class in any sense that matters — ownership and control. Any other sense is blather!Now to examine the assertion that neither class owns and controls the whole social system… [By implication, the allegation that both classes do have a common interest.]The illusion that the capitalist class isn't in control of capitalism — and so, not in control of the working class — rises primarily from our everyday popped illusions over the workings of capitalism. Capitalism always suggests opportunities and possibilities that can't be realized within it. Ever expanding capital growth that "pops" only to collapse in a heap. Non-class conscious politicians finding solutions that "pop" because the problem can't be solved under capitalism. Everyone wants X but it "pops" and they get Y. Things just don't work out as we believed they should.No wonder the disillusioned delude themselves that nothing can be controlled and that the poor dispossessed capitalist class controls absolutely nothing, least of all the working class. How very deluded, but how wonderful for capitalism that its very workings [or failure thereof] generate protective illusion.The non-class conscious desire an imagined capitalism without its popped disappointments. That is the very essence of illusion.We deterministically know why capitalism always pops the illusions it copiously creates. But the explanation is entirely deterministic, and is entirely about control, and not the absence of control.We oppose the capitalist class because it robs us [it legally and socially owns society's instruments and resources, and the working class's labour] and because it rules us [it legally and socially controls how we labour for it, and so controls our lives].The capitalist class owns and controls its very own mismanaged mess. We should relieve it of its responsibility.
TheOldGreyWhistle,Yes, I fully understand.I had my ironic reason [which might have backfired] for using the term "voluntary" for it is legally and socially "voluntary" — to let people reconsider just how illusory, but really deceptively insidious, are their capitalist freedoms, etc. They turn out to be socially necessary consequences of the capitalist social base, which actually shackles them."Voluntary", of course, not! Unless you have the means, it's practically "necessary" — social necessity in operation.By the way, nothing I've said is different from what Marx discovered. He only hinted at some significant scientific things that he suppressed spelling out in full, mainly in order to avoid being misunderstood as an old-fashioned Hegelian mystic instead of the most modern materialist scientist, still ahead of us all.Marx has consciously seen further than any other scientist before or after about the nature of our social being. He felt he owed the working class everything. He showed mankind how, at last, to cut through appearance to reality. That's what we must do.
TheOldGreyWhistle: "So capitalism consists of two classes in conflict over the price of labour power."You'd have to include the correlative — capitalism also consists of two classes in conflict over the price of goods and services. In other words, you assert that capitalism consists of two classes in conflict over price in its market.That's precisely how non-class conscious academic economists sum up capitalism to their satisfaction. They propagate the illusion that the market controls capitalism — instead of being controlled by it — but their professional role is to sustain this inversion, and so they rightly deserve their Nobel Prizes for theoretical exploits in service of capitalist deception.Yet every normal human being from the age of five upwards [beyond the confines of the economic theology of capitalist apologetics] senses that conflict over market price is a superficial view of something deeper going on beneath the surface.We can't avoid the market, but we should beware it! It is the breeding ground of the illusions of capital. It is where capital realizes itself — where capital conceals its actuality.A capitalist who realizes his capital in the market has little concern over how this alchemy actually occurs. His own class's economic theory amounts to a justification of the market. It is of no practical use for his day-to-day pursuits. Which is just as well, because not even its practitioners can apply it to actual markets.The capitalist market is a place where owners of commodities meet each other with exactly identical legal and social equality. It would not be a free market otherwise.It is wrong to think either party to a capitalist market transaction is robbed. The free market couldn't work that way. It relies on tacit fairness or it would collapse.So exactly how is the worker dudded? Well all production relies on three categories — think of them transitively as worker [subject], working instrument [verb] and resource [object]. The capitalist class owns the last two categories outright.Unfortunately, the free worker owns himself [especially his socially prized ability to operate-the-instrument-upon-the-resource].But the worker [as seller] must meet the capitalist [as buyer] on the labour market to actualize his possession, because he lacks the other two.So the worker voluntarily trades away his prized ability to operate-the-instrument-upon-the-resource to the capitalist to use as he wishes. In other words he voluntarily gives up ownership and control of the third category [subject] that the capitalist didn't own and control.In actuality he has freely, both legally and socially, volunteered away his ownership and control of production. And this on the free capitalist labour market, where equal faces equal.That's the most fundamental assertion that we can make about the free capitalist market.[In what contempt would we hold a slave who had willingly volunteered away his [in capitalist terms] "basic human right to own himself" for servility?]In the annals of human control — what else really compares with the willing servility of the capitalist worker? What else really matters?
