Marx and Automation

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

   I am correct on this! Because, if you were correct, @DJP@Marcos@Kerr, capitalism would have ended a long, long time ago! The death knell of capitalism would have sounded decades and decades ago. The fact that you cannot even admit fault with Marx's analysis is fatal to your understanding of Marx, it means you good folks are fetishizing Marx into a religious opiate to sooth your Marxian souls, weary of struggle, and ready to sleep.  

 Michel, With respect, I dont think that is a reaonable charactersation of folk here at all.  Speaking for myself, although I know others here would endorse this view, there are quite a few things that Marx wrote with which I strongly disagree and which I have touched on in other threads on this forum.  Marx's writings are not something to be slavishly followed but nor are they to be unfairly dismissed in blanket fashion without good reason The labour theory of value is an immensely powerful tool for working class emancipation if properly understood and applied.   So many of Marx's critics fail to understand his method.  All theoretical models are simulcra – simplifications of reality.  That means many factors are ignored or held constant in order to discover the unique effect of a particular variable under investigation.  This ceteris paribus assumption is particularly applicable to economic models and Marx made full use of it.  Michael Harrington describes this process rather well in his book Socialism (1972):  Therefore the reader must be warned that the opening pages of Das Kapital – or, for that matter, the entire first volume – contain conscious simplifications.  Marx, like everyone else, actually began with the "chaotic whole” of immediate experience, but in his masterpiece he follows a logical rather than an experiential order.  So in understanding any part of the Marxian analysis one must carefully ask: Under what simplifying assumptions is it subsumed”   As Marx's argument unfolds, one "conscious simplification" after another, disappears.   In your post 223 you not only fail to understand his method but also attribute to him a view which, quite simply, he never held and which quite frankly he explicitly argued against on numerous occasions. You assert:  "Capitalism is predicated on this artificial fabrication of value, price and wage as it pertains to workers' and their labor-power. They, the working population, must continually accept less for the actual value of their labor-power, in order for capitalism and profit to persist."and"Marx had it wrong! He seemed to claim that labor-power was sold at its value (at least from the capitalist's point of view), but it never is. Labor-power is the only commodity that is never exchanged at its actual value and price" This is wrong on several counts. The idea that commodities sold at their value was precisely the kind of simplification that Marx begins with but which he progressively moves away from as his analysis strives to more closely approximate real world conditions so that he ends up saying that commodities do not in fact sell at their values but rather AROUND their "price of production"  (their cost of production plus the average rate of profit) and that, moreover, the actual prices at which they sell are subject to short term fluctuations in supply and demand.  You mistakenly take Marx's initial simplification to be his final postulate on the matter and in the process misunderstand his argument Not only that, you fail to see that the very view you attribute to Marx is one that he rejected.  Marx did not say, even as a conscious simplification, that labour power was sold for less than its value and that this was the reason why workers were being exploited.  On the contrary, he said, the worker was generally paid a "fair price" for her labour power.    Exploitation arose, not becuase the worker was paid less than the value of her labour power but, rather, because when in the course of applying her labour in the form of waged work for her employer, she produces a value in the form of her product  that exceeds the value of the wage she received. In other words, absolutely central to Marx's theory of exploitation was the distinction between labour and labour power.  Your failure to understand this explains why you come out  with claims such as this: "Labor-power must be constantly bought by capitalists at a lower price/value than it is in actually worth. And for this to happen, capitalists must artificially/arbitrarily fabricate and manipulate the value/price of labor-power at a lower value/price, than it is actually worth". This boils down to sayng that the capitalists exploits the workers by artifically/arbitraily raising the price of the workers' product above their value. In other words that profits are made at the point of sale rather than the point of production. But that is, as I say logically and empirically incorrect and you have still to answer the case against this basic claim of yours which I set out in some detail in post  no 198 of this thread

[Anonymous]

It was the same mistake/distortion made by Lenin. He did not define economic exploitation at the point of production. He defined economic exploitation based on the salary of the workers of the colonies indicating that the exploitation of the workers in the colonies was higher than the exploitation at the metropolis. In reality, it was the opposite way because the workers at the metropolis were producing more surplus value. Left wingers like to make boycotts to certain commodities from certain countries indicating that exploitation takes places at the point of sale instead of at the point of production. They continue with the same argumentation of Lenin and they do not understand that capitalism has replaced colonialism, and workers are exploited at the point of production in all parts of the worlds by the ruling elite

[Anonymous]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Steve-SanFrancisco Think of total forest rather than just trees. You’re getting it Steve. For us what is switching total labour between all those things in proportions that change all the time with needs ways and means? 1) Crusoe 2) Prison commissar 3) Please fill in the blank there. It will help us with your conundrum.

3) ecosystem modeling and simulations,how does a forest decide which plant should grow and which plant should wither?  Ecosystem dynamics are complex but can be modeled and simulated and explain economic activity in a predictable way that is more complex than an equation based understanding of economics.  You can create simplified ecosystems models that function equivalent to a crusoe or a prison commisar or a market and run the simulations and see if they work or not.  It's like rocket science and takes effort and tech and talent, but we can simulate weather over the planet which is much more complex than money over a planet.  A fully developed ecosystem model is called a simulation and has predictive powers not available in Marx time using equations and graphs to reach answers and extrapolaating using logic to conclusions. there's no longer any need to logic proof the answers, you just build a simulations and run it and if it matches reality in it's predictions well then you have a foundation theory that matches the real world data to start.  it doesn't matter what you call it, it still predicts the future of money movement using basic science and measurements similar to how living environmental eco-systems are diagramed and simulated.  By functioning similar I mean for example that you can take a simplified ecosystem model with humans in the ecosystem and humans act as the commisar since the commisar uses some sort of intellegent design planning strategy.  So large scale simulations of complex markets using lots of computer processing is new.  And we have unprecedented data to measure these things compated to 20 years ago.  Or you can take a ecosystem model and apply the new science of behavioral economics or institutional economics that rely on fuzzy logic reasoning to redefine the entire problem into a statistical simulation to discover emergent properties and prove them. 

[robbo203]

Marcos wrote:

It was the same mistake/distortion made by Lenin. He did not define economic exploitation at the point of production. He defined economic exploitation based on the salary of the workers of the colonies indicating that the exploitation of the workers in the colonies was higher than the exploitation at the metropolis. In reality, it was the opposite way because the workers at the metropolis were producing more surplus value. Left wingers like to make boycotts to certain commodities from certain countries indicating that exploitation takes places at the point of sale instead of at the point of production. They continue with the same argumentation of Lenin and they do not understand that capitalism has replaced colonialism, and workers are exploited at the point of production in all parts of the worlds by the ruling elite

 Yes indeed Marcos.  Lenin's "labour aristocracy" thesis is bunkum from start to finish. The idea that the metropolitan capitalists would "bribe" their workers – or at least a particular stratum of mainly skilled workers – out of the superprofits derived from their colonial investments abroad to ensure theese workers political compliance to the system makes absolutely no sense. If the "bribe" was presumably  incorporated into the pay packet of workers,  you might just as well pay the workers more without the bribe – hardly something any employers would be inclined to do for some vague poiltical objective anyway – given the need for employeres to hold costs including labour costs . to remain competitive.  There is plenty of other evidence to throw doubt on the whole idea including one argument I came across by the Trot, Tony Cliff, that wage differentials were greater in European countries that possessed no  colonies compared with those other European countries that possesssed colonies.  If the labour aristrocracy thesis was correct , you would expect this to be the other way round

[Alan Kerr]

@Steve-SanFranciscoI repeat.For us what is switching total labour between all those things in proportions that change all the time with needs ways and means?Total labour is switching between all those things in proportions that change all the time with needs ways and means.Someone or something is switching total between all those things in proportions that change all the time with needs ways and means.Again, who or what is switching total labour between all those things in proportions that change all the time with needs ways and means?Next time you see your tailor ask him what he’s making or how many or what size style pattern or colour. He does not have to give you a straight answer or any answer. Try telling him that it’s all to go into a computer so that you can find if he must switch from tailoring to weaving. He can tell you that’s none of your business. There he would be right. We have private ownership. Can you see that still, you have not answered the question–not yet. That’s ok. We do not mind waiting. When you do answer the question then we can and will answer your conundrum.Thank you.

[Anonymous]

DJP wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

@ Mr. DJP…,right back at you, "sorry, your wrong", you are holding onto a faulty and flawed analysis, which is clouding and confusing your thinking. You have to break with your fetishism of Marx, to see Marx, clearly.         

That's not an answer to my questions. You are holding onto a faulty and flawed analysis, which is clouding and confusing your thinking. You have to break with your fetishism to see clearly.Adios!

Marx is not the feitshism, the fetishism is the commodity, A very strange ambivalence, in one moment he says that Marx is still valid, in another moment he says that Marx was mistaken

[Proletarian_Marxist]

Marcos wrote:

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

Marcos wrote:

Antoher good article would be: The Myth of the Transitional Society.  Socialism would be a wageless society

 @Marcos,If everybody paid at the cash register a price that was wage normalized, than would that not be a wageless society in that everyone effectively has the same buying power regardliess of their wage? P.s. thank you for your adamant insistence than SPGB does not endorse or promote anything ever.  I agree with you that the transition from capitalism to socialism must come from a revolutionary rabble rising up from within capitalism in order to be accepted by capitalism. Perhaps there is more wisdom from your words than I at first understood.  Please feel free to reply with your standard "this has nothing to do with socialism and is just trolling" response. 

Today I have some free time and I am going to answer to your distortion. I did not say what you have said here, it is a pure lie. The word rabble means mob, or anarchy, or probably you are confusing the expression Anarchism with Anarchy. I do not support any transitional society programme. I do not make that kind of mistake, I know what I want, and I know what I am looking for, I did not grow up in DisneylandYou can take your cash register to a grocery store, but it would not be needed in a socialist society. You have been here for several years and you have not learned anything yet. Do you need a political exorcism?This article explains the myth of the transitional societyhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society.   The real transitional society is capitalismI know the content of this article by heart because I have translated in three languages already, therefore what you have said is not true

 I did not mean to provoke argument or indeed walk into a shitstorm but I do believe the real transitional society IS capitalism.  We cannot sustain a world built on the idea of contunuous growth, with finite resources. Socialism will prevail, sooner or later.

[robbo203]

I dont know  if folks here have come across this site which seems to be operated by a rabid anti marxist (I have an inkling who he may; he signs himself off as LK).There is an article in it which is fundamentally critical of what the writer sees as  Marx's bleak and erroneous views on the effect of increasing productivity leading to the cheapening of commodities – namely, to shorten the amount  of time spent on necessary labour, thereby increasing the amount of time spent on surplus labour.  In other words, the writer thinks Marx thought the worker got absolutely  no bnefits at all from increased productivity in term of a higher standard of living          http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/2016/02/marxs-capital-volume-1-chapter-12.html .  

[Anonymous]

Proletarian_Marxist wrote:

Marcos wrote:

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

Marcos wrote:

Antoher good article would be: The Myth of the Transitional Society.  Socialism would be a wageless society

 @Marcos,If everybody paid at the cash register a price that was wage normalized, than would that not be a wageless society in that everyone effectively has the same buying power regardliess of their wage? P.s. thank you for your adamant insistence than SPGB does not endorse or promote anything ever.  I agree with you that the transition from capitalism to socialism must come from a revolutionary rabble rising up from within capitalism in order to be accepted by capitalism. Perhaps there is more wisdom from your words than I at first understood.  Please feel free to reply with your standard "this has nothing to do with socialism and is just trolling" response. 

Today I have some free time and I am going to answer to your distortion. I did not say what you have said here, it is a pure lie. The word rabble means mob, or anarchy, or probably you are confusing the expression Anarchism with Anarchy. I do not support any transitional society programme. I do not make that kind of mistake, I know what I want, and I know what I am looking for, I did not grow up in DisneylandYou can take your cash register to a grocery store, but it would not be needed in a socialist society. You have been here for several years and you have not learned anything yet. Do you need a political exorcism?This article explains the myth of the transitional societyhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society.   The real transitional society is capitalismI know the content of this article by heart because I have translated in three languages already, therefore what you have said is not true

 I did not mean to provoke argument or indeed walk into a shitstorm but I do believe the real transitional society IS capitalism.  We cannot sustain a world built on the idea of contunuous growth, with finite resources. Socialism will prevail, sooner or later. 

Don't  worry   You  want to learn  you are  doing pretty good  We have trolls in this forum

[moderator1]

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[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

I dont know  if folks here have come across this site which seems to be operated by a rabid anti marxist (I have an inkling who he may; he signs himself off as LK).There is an article in it which is fundamentally critical of what the writer sees as  Marx's bleak and erroneous views on the effect of increasing productivity leading to the cheapening of commodities – namely, to shorten the amount  of time spent on necessary labour, thereby increasing the amount of time spent on surplus labour.  In other words, the writer thinks Marx thought the worker got absolutely  no bnefits at all from increased productivity in term of a higher standard of living          http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/2016/02/marxs-capital-volume-1-chapter-12.html .  

I am an old fox  with eagle vision that is the reason why  I do not romanticize the class struggle. There are too many wolf out  there  pretending to be defender of the working class and sometimes they have several personalities

[Alan Kerr]

Michel Luc Bellemare is busy revising all of his old notes now. That’s because before he considered as if price was “arbitrary”. But our society is also a way to shift labour from where we have too much, to where we have not enough. And we have private ownership of means of production. So the market is our one way to achieve this. So we know that “socially necessary labour” must in the end, rule average prices. If not, the system could not work at all.Do all here get this point now? If not then please speak up. Then to be clear we can discuss this point some more.

[Alan Kerr]

Michel Luc Bellemare found that Marx’ labour theory must be wrong.“… Because, if you were correct, @DJP@Marcos@Kerr, capitalism would have ended a long, long time ago! The death knell of capitalism would have sounded decades and decades ago. The fact that you cannot even admit fault with Marx's analysis is fatal to your understanding of Marx, it means you good folks are fetishizing Marx into a religious opiate…”See Michael’s claim here.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/marx-and-automation?page=23#comment-42832Steve-SanFrancisco also found that Marx’ labour theory must be wrong and for the exact same reason.See Steve’s conundrum here.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/marx-and-automation?page=21#comment-42803It’s time to criticize Michael’s claim. This will solve Steve’s conundrum at the same time.We will use The SPGB Object.But if we were to just stare at The SPGB Object in the wrong way (as Adam Buick still does I think) then it would not help.Yes, we do need to stare at The SPGB Object but in the right way.For this, we need my same letter which we discussed here.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/marx-and-automation?page=18#comment-42749That same letter adds a new Preamble to The SPGB Object.Here is the Preamble which we need:Capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production.The small capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to that of the big capitalist.The big capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to Socialist Production.(Taken from my same letter)Now note how what is happening is confirming Marx’ labour theory. We do clearly hear the death knell of small capitalist firms. The big firms are killing them off. The seeds of the big capitalist firm grow in the small capitalist firm. The seeds of Socialist Production grow in the big capitalist firm.  

[alanjjohnstone]

Rather than a new thread i felt this media story may well deserve to be herehttp://www.dw.com/en/karl-marxs-das-kapital-still-fascinates-after-150-years/a-40489519

Quote:

the main thesis of "Das Kapital" is, in fact, that workers are exploited, that there is no way out, the only solution being a revolution. When Karl Marx wrote "Das Kapital," he had two aims: he wanted to disprove one of the core points of classical economic theory, and he wanted to create a theoretical foundation for the overthrow of capitalism. I think his whole theory is based on an error in reasoning. To him, work was the only source of value. But he overlooked the fact that capitalism does not function by exploiting workers, but through continual technical progress. At the core of his theory, he underestimated other sources of wealth, namely innovation, entrepreneurship and technical progress…Most of his theories have been made obsolete over time or were wrong from the beginning.

[Anonymous]

@Robbo  post number #241, the last paragraph Again, in post-industrial, post-modern capitalist society, every moment of a workers life is immersed in production and in consumption, simultaneously, both mental and physical, whether he is at the office and/or at home and/or on holiday. So the lines are blurred between production and consumption, as a result, surplus value is realized in the two forms, both quantifiable and unquantifiable. Why do you hold on to the idea that somehow value must be solely produced in production, as Marx did. Marx seem to think production and consumption were rigid, separated, definite spheres, and maybe, in 1867, they were. But they are not anymore, they are blurred.  Increasingly, in this thread, me and some are speaking from two different epistemes, paradigms etc. I am speaking from the 21st century, dealing with real 21st century issues such as inflated CEO salaries that have nothing to do with labor-time expenditures, while, many of the responses on this thread are speaking from a by-gone era, really, out of date stuff.I understand Marx quite well, I've been reading him for 20 years, and I don't think another 20 years will bring me to ever accept that his 1867 analysis is whole-heartedly valid, across the board, for the current post-industrial era, we are currently living in.The fact that capitalism has not come to an end, as Marx predicted a long-time ago, is because capitalism has found a way to subvert socially necessary labor-time as the determinant of price, value and wage. Capialism has unshackled itself from any rational labor theory of value. Hence, capitalism's jump to post-industrialism and post-modernism in many spheres of production and consumption. This incongruity in capitalism and in its relation to a rational labor-theory of value has made Marx's analysis suspect. Hence, for the last 5 years, I've been reading Marx trying to pin-point areas where capitalism has overturned his rational analysis. Where capitalism has out-done itself in relation to Marx's analysis. And a primary area where capitalism, is outdoing Marx's analysis, is the area concering value, price and wage. Another glarring area, I have discovered, is where Marx discusses decreasing production costs in relation to decreasing prices. I have found the socio-economic phenomenon of decreasing productions costs in relation to ever-increasing prices. This is fundamentally, a post-industrial, post-modern, socio-economic phenomena, not a modern one. Where modernity still holds then Marx's notion still exists. But the post-industrial, post-modern, socio-economic phenomena, I've outlined, is real and is occuring, as well.It may be that both the socio-economic phenomena, the one I outline and the one Marx outlines, are part of one mechanism by which capitalists can shift gears. (That is where my thinking is at with this socio-economic analysis).I am not on this forum to argue whether I am right or wrong, whether I have understood Marx correctly or Not!I am here to explore, constructively, our contemporary socio-economic situation, specifically, these areas. Not to get Marx regurgitated at me, verbatim. Because my socio-economic analysis does not fit his analysis. My analysis is not suppose to fit Marx's analysis verbatim, we are living in two different eras, two different types of capitalism.I would like to hear from others on this forum where my socio-economic analysis overlaps with Marx's analysis, instead. Where are our points of agreement, rather than our points of disagreement.                 

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