Marx and Automation

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

If it is workers' democracy we want, …workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…

So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!

Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!

Tim, you could try reading the political discussion, and then making some political comment, about both sides, but you regard yourself as a 'Genius Jester', whose 'witty quips' keep us all in tucks of laughter, 'The Joker'.Perhaps 'A Joke' would be more accurate for your knowledge, if only you had Rabbie's power.Anyway, back to the grown-ups' political discussion…

The point I am making, L B, if I may call you that, is that what Alan was saying, i.e. that workers in the Soviet Union, were pissed off with being corralled into taking meaningless votes about fuck all, in no one's mind other than your own, could possibly be construed as "arguing that the Soviet Union's version of consultation amounted to "workers' democracy"". Which is what you stated. However your elitist stance is that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow your intellectual inferior. As an aside I wonder what kind of life events have made you have such a fragile sense of self esteem that you have to continually buld up your intellectual prowess, at the expense of others.The point I take from Alan's quote from Lee Harvey Oswald, is that choice, selection, voting, in whatever form it takes is meaningless unless it has an impact on individual experiences. This is of important and relevant to this discussion, not because Alan equates the Soviet Union to Worker's Democracy" but because have proposed a system of society where regular plebiscites are held over every theoretical aspect of science.Moreover your proposal gives rise to several questions, which have been repeatedly asked by posters on this forum, none of which you have given substantial answers to. So I will put these questions to you again in the vain hope that you will use your "massive" intellect to provide any form of answer to themQuestion 1 – You repeatedly state that you are in favour of workers' (or sometimes you have used the phrase proletarian) democracy, if that is the case, how can this be implemented in a classless society, where by definition there is no working class or capitalist class?Question 2 – You state that you are in favour of plebiscites to establish the "nature of truth" and of "scientific theory". In the event of these plebiscites taking place, what is the fate of any minority who do not agree with the outcome of the vote? Would they be free to continue to hold their views, despite the democratic vote? Would those that voted for scientific theories that lost the vote be banned from applying the theories that lost the vote in their research? Would those who persisted in holding these views be subject to any form of sanction?Question 3 – Which leads on from question 1, if, as could be construed from the phrasing you use, only "workers" i.e. those that contribute useful work, are part of the franchise, what are the rights of those who do not contribute useful work, fro example the retired, people with disabilities, the seriously ill, etc.? If as could also be possibly construed the franchise for these plebiscites was open to all, how far would that franchise stretch, would there be any exclusions?Question 4 – Although you state that this system relates to science, where do the boundaries of this start and stop? What, effectively is science and what is not? It would be very easy to define research into cell formation as science, but what about perception of the world, is that scientific?Question 5 – What about resources? as scientific theory is built up of lots and lots of interrelated theories, presumably each plebiscite decision has a knock on effect on all of the other theoretical positions that are built up from that theory. therefore it is conceivable that, in your system, if a major theoretical concept is overturned, hundreds, if not thousands of subsequent votes would need to be taken. Where is humanity going to find the time and the resources to conduct these seemingly endless series of plebiscites? I fully expect that you will waffle on about your superior intellectual power, or my bourgeois individualism, or accuse me of being a Leninist/Trotskyist, materialist fuckwit, but I am a kind of a glass half full kind of character, so here's hoping.

[twc]

And these also for LBird.Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific.[Here we find the greatest use of the word Materialism is by Marx, and not by Engels.  This is where Marx recounts his critical history of philosophical Materialism]Engels:  “I am perfectly aware that the contents of this work will meet with objection from a considerable portion of the British public [e.g., LBird].Engels:  “This book defends what we [=Marx and Engels] call “historical materialism” [although LBird claims Engels lied about Marx calling it “historical materialism” and that feebly Marx acquiesced in this foundational lie in order to appease Engels, whether for honourable personal or grubby mercenary reasons remains unresolved.]…Engels:  “…and the word materialism grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers [certainly upon the ears of LBird].Engels:  “Agnosticism” might be tolerated, but materialism is utterly inadmissible. [to LBird]Engels:  “And, yet, the original home of all modern materialism, from the 17th century onwards, is England.Here follows Karl Marx, The Holy Family, p. 201–4:Karl Marx:  “Materialism is the natural-born son of Great Britain.  Already the British schoolman, Duns Scotus, asked, ‘whether it was impossible for matter to think?’Karl Marx:  “In order to effect this miracle, he took refuge in God’s omnipotence — i.e., he made theology preach materialism.  Moreover, he was a nominalist.  Nominalism, the first form of materialism, is chiefly found among the English schoolmen.Karl Marx;  “The real progenitor of English materialism is Bacon.  To him, natural philosophy is the only true philosophy, and physics based upon the experience of the senses is the chiefest part of natural philosophy.  [Anaxagoras and his homoiomeriae, Democritus and his atoms].  According to him, the senses are infallible and the source of all knowledge.  All science is based on experience, and consists in subjecting the data furnished by the senses to a rational method of investigation.  Induction, analysis, comparison, observation, experiment, are the principal forms of such a rational method.  Among the qualities inherent in matter, motion is the first and foremost, not only in the form of mechanical and mathematical motion, but chiefly in the form of an impulse, a vital spirit, a tension — or a ‘qual’, to use a term of Jakob Bohme’s — of matter.Karl Marx:  “In Bacon, its first creator, materialism still occludes within itself the germs of a many-sided development.  On the one hand, matter, surrounded by a sensuous, poetic glamor, seems to attract man's whole entity by winning smiles.  On the other, the aphoristically formulated doctrine pullulates with inconsistencies imported from theology.Karl Marx:  “In its further evolution, materialism becomes one-sided. Hobbes is the man who systematizes Baconian materialism.  Knowledge based upon the senses loses its poetic blossom, it passes into the abstract experience of the mathematician; geometry is proclaimed as the queen of sciences.  Materialism takes to misanthropy.  If it is to overcome its opponent, misanthropic, flashless spiritualism, and that on the latter's own ground, materialism has to chastise its own flesh and turn ascetic.  Thus, from a sensual, it passes into an intellectual, entity; but thus, too, it evolves all the consistency, regardless of consequences, characteristic of the intellect.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes, as Bacon's continuator, argues thus: if all human knowledge is furnished by the senses, then our concepts and ideas are but the phantoms, divested of their sensual forms, of the real world. Philosophy can but give names to these phantoms. … Man is subject to the same laws as nature.  Power and freedom are identical.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes had systematized Bacon, without, however, furnishing a proof for Bacon’s fundamental principle, the origin of all human knowledge from the world of sensation.  It was Locke who, in his Essay on the Human Understanding, supplied this proof.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes had shattered the theistic prejudices of Baconian materialism; Collins, Dodwell, Coward, Hartley, Priestley, similarly shattered the last theological bars that still hemmed in Locke'’s sensationalism.  At all events, for practical materialists, Deism is but an easy-going way of getting rid of religion.”

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Yeah, this, though, is a 'problem' that I'll be prevented from addressing on this thread, since I've addressed this 'problem' over several years, over probably a hundred other threads, where I've provided in great scholarly detail all the 'proof, sources and references'.  

This is a lie. You have not read Engels or Marx, let alone could you quote from them in any meaningful way to support your  idealism. .  Your argument is based on misrepresentation, hersay and a psuedo-intellectual front. You are, however, a clever troll.Others are beginning to agree with me on that one. 

[LBird]

But all you've showed, twc, is that I (along with many other Marxists) am correct.1. Engels said something different to Marx.2. Marx was talking about 'social production', not 'matter'.I've shown this time and again, but you won't discuss it. Posting long passages, stripped from political context, and without our critical historical appreciation of their meaning, is not a discussion.All you're doing, is following the religious method of priests, and quoting uncritically from your interpretation of an allegedly infallible scripture.Unfortunately for the medieval priests, once the Bible was published in English (and other languages readable by the vast majority), their interpretation of 'The Holy Word' was shown to be debatable.Thus, we have revolutions.It's not enough to imperiously present 'The Holy Word' before us, as if that elite act is enough.Hitting workers over the head with Capital, to prove its 'Truth', will prove 'the truth of its materiality' through their headaches, but not necessarily 'the truth of its conscious content'.Discussion and persuasion are vital, if we are to build a democratic socialism, twc.

[LBird]

Tim, I only got to Question 1, and since I've answered this time and time and time again (to you, Vin, robbo, YMS, etc.), it appears that you either can't read or won't read what I write.When you've gone back and read what I wrote in answer to this question the last few times, I'll then take your request seriously. Until then, I can't treat your post as a serious attempt at political discussion.So, post a quote of mine, answering that question the last time it was asked, and we might start to make progress. From Question 2.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

But all you've showed, twc, is that I (along with many other Marxists) am correct.1. Engels said something different to Marx.2. Marx was talking about 'social production', not 'matter'.I've shown this time and again, but you won't discuss it. Posting long passages, stripped from political context, and without our critical historical appreciation of their meaning, is not a discussion.All you're doing, is following the religious method of priests, and quoting uncritically from your interpretation of an allegedly infallible scripture.Unfortunately for the medieval priests, once the Bible was published in English (and other languages readable by the vast majority), their interpretation of 'The Holy Word' was shown to be debatable.Thus, we have revolutions.It's not enough to imperiously present 'The Holy Word' before us, as if that elite act is enough.Hitting workers over the head with Capital, to prove its 'Truth', will prove 'the truth of its materiality' through their headaches, but not necessarily 'the truth of its conscious content'.Discussion and persuasion are vital, if we are to build a democratic socialism, twc.

There is no substance to this post. It repeats the same insults and bullshit that LB has been repeating for years.  He is a TROLL   

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Tim, I only got to Question 1, and since I've answered this time and time and time again (to you, Vin, robbo, YMS, etc.), it appears that you either can't read or won't read what I write.When you've gone back and read what I wrote in answer to this question the last few times, I'll then take your request seriously. Until then, I can't treat your post as a serious attempt at political discussion.So, post a quote of mine, answering that question the last time it was asked, and we might start to make progress. From Question 2.

 No substance. Just the usual insults and bullshit LB has been posting for years. He has nothing to say. LBird is a TROLL

[twc]

LBird wrote:

Engels said something different to Marx.Marx was talking about 'social production', not 'matter'.

Engels is saying the same thing as Marx’s Preface to the Contribution.So is Engels.

[Anonymous]

@Robbo Post #346    Your "Stateless Society" is a pipe-dream, (Robbo203), you need infrastructure to manage water treatment plants and/or nuclear power plants etc. I have suggested a federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, with the abolishment of the federal and provincial/state level government. This would maximize open-participatory-democracy and put emphasis on municipalities to manage such things as plants and infrastructure.    Plus, a federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, is not some local socio-economic phenomenon, it is a globalized endeavor, but one that is about the encouragement of differences, specifically socio-economic differences and experiments.  Also, you "kinda do" describe global capitalism as a lumbering, increasingly ineffective, Frenkenstein, when you discuss the increasing uselessness and impediments of the capitalist mode of production impeding its very own development. Also, you "kinda do" describe global capitalism as something that is sputtering, lurching from crisis to crisis. (Straight out of Marx's Capital)I see it more as a globalized, highly technocratic, military-industrial-complex, bent on world domination. From Iraq, to the devastation in central Detroit, capitalism is efficient and rutless in the implementation of its logic. It is not a hardline-totalitarian-state (which you want to pin on me). Eventhough, it utilizes hardline-totalitarian-methods, such as totalitarian surveillance and information gathering. Instead, I describe effectively in the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, that it is a Soft-Totalitarian-State, its parameters are elastic, it utilizes a flurry of strategies and tactics, to varying degrees, to marginalize and defuse oppositions and deviations to its rule. Post-industrial, post-modern capitalism is elastic, it wants cultural, gender, age, race differences within its exploitation processes, so as to make its exploitation processes gender neutral, age neutgral racially neutral, culturally neutral etc., so as to encourage people of types and forms to work and consume under the carefully constructed illusions of capitalist democracy and a capitalist meritocracy. The only thing capitalism does not tolerate is economic differences, it want to be the overarching economic logic, by which people relate, work and consume by.         Less we forget, Robbo, that totalitarian surveillance is already in place. "In CCTV, We Trust", a Neoliberal British Motto is it not? What could be more Big Brother than that. Of course, if one wants to sell books, one cannot mention this, hey, Robbo?Now, I get what your saying, (Robbo) "The Anti-Meta-Narrative of Meta-Narratives is a Meta-Narrative". However, my argument is the better argument and narrative, because it does not ascribe to a totalitarian view-point, i.e., a unified collective totality, i.e., meta-narrative homogenization, the achilles heel of all Marxists thinking, including any techno-utopian totality. Due to the fact that, instead, the anti-meta-narrative narrative ascribes to a patch-work of differences. And in the future these will include socio-economic differences as well, different types of systems of exchange, distribution, consumption and production.And differences will always win, in the end, over any overarching totalitarian unity, including a Marxist one. As you can see I do not have a bleak view of revolutionary protest, or do I think that resistance is futile, I simply acknowledge that their are sinister tendencies in global capitalism, influencing such things as value, price and wage, based on the the premise that the working population is increasingly "PAYING MORE FOR LESS". This means that price is artificially and arbitrarily increasing, as value and wage is increasingly decreasing.If I am not mistaken, Thomas Picketty's "Capital in the 21st century" hints at this process going on, when he argues that we are returning to some form of 19th century capitalism based on inheritance. As everything else stagnates.I am not saying that a MAY 68, generalized wild cat strike, cannot overturn capitalism and/or current economic trends, I am saying that these negative trends, I point out, are the reason for the current global protests, the current popularity in the works of Marx, but Marx cannot explain (although he inadvertently hints at it) what is going-on within contemporary, post-industrial, post-modern capitalism.        

[LBird]

twc wrote:

LBird wrote:

Engels said something different to Marx.Marx was talking about 'social production', not 'matter'.

Engels is saying the same thing as Marx’s Preface to the Contribution.So is Engels.

[my bold]This is a promising development, twc – your opinion.Right, now we're getting somewhere!So, twc, in your opinion, is this 'same thing', that you argue that Marx is talking about and Engels agrees, either:a) 'social production'; or,b) 'matter'?Once we've clarified that you agree that Marx and Engels were talking about 'social production' (and not 'matter'), which you seem to be doing above, then there's great scope for further discussion. A development about which I'm very pleased.

[Anonymous]

@ MBellemare Re: post #363

MBellemare wrote:

@Robbo Post #346. . . Also, you "kinda do" describe global capitalism as a lumbering, increasingly ineffective, Frenkenstein, when you discuss the increasing uselessness and impediments of the capitalist mode of production impeding its very own development. Also, you "kinda do" describe global capitalism as something that is sputtering, lurching from crisis to crisis. (Straight out of Marx's Capital)I see it more as a globalized, highly technocratic, military-industrial-complex, bent on world domination. From Iraq, to the devastation in central Detroit, capitalism is efficient and rutless in the implementation of its logic. It is not a hardline-totalitarian-state (which you want to pin on me). Eventhough, it utilizes hardline-totalitarian-methods, such as totalitarian surveillance and information gathering. Instead, I describe effectively in the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, that it is a Soft-Totalitarian-State, its parameters are elastic, it utilizes a flurry of strategies and tactics, to varying degrees, to marginalize and defuse oppositions and deviations to its rule. Post-industrial, post-modern capitalism is elastic, it wants cultural, gender, age, race differences within its exploitation processes, so as to make its exploitation processes gender neutral, age neutgral racially neutral, culturally neutral etc., so as to encourage people of types and forms to work and consume under the carefully constructed illusions of capitalist democracy and a capitalist meritocracy. The only thing capitalism does not tolerate is economic differences, it want to be the overarching economic logic, by which people relate, work and consume by.         Less we forget, Robbo, that totalitarian surveillance is already in place. "In CCTV, We Trust", a Neoliberal British Motto is it not? What could be more Big Brother than that. Of course, if one wants to sell books, one cannot mention this, hey, Robbo?. . . you can see I do not have a bleak view of revolutionary protest, or do I think that resistance is futile, I simply acknowledge that their are sinister tendencies in global capitalism, influencing such things as value, price and wage, based on the the premise that the working population is increasingly "PAYING MORE FOR LESS". This means that price is artificially and arbitrarily increasing, as value and wage is increasingly decreasing.If I am not mistaken, Thomas Picketty's "Capital in the 21st century" hints at this process going on, when he argues that we are returning to some form of 19th century capitalism based on inheritance. As everything else stagnates.I am not saying that a MAY 68, generalized wild cat strike, cannot overturn capitalism and/or current economic trends, I am saying that these negative trends, I point out, are the reason for the current global protests, the current popularity in the works of Marx, but Marx cannot explain (although he inadvertently hints at it) what is going-on within contemporary, post-industrial, post-modern capitalism.

This might not be safe to read and should be filed under crazy conspiracy thoeries and "down the rabit hole".the disturbing alternative to this depiction of capitalism as a lumbering beast comes with great distress.  A lumbering beast is stupid and easily controlled by a smart person.  There have been many smart persons since the dawn of time who develope great skill at manipulating and controlling lumbering beasts often without even the beasts understanding of how it being controlled or why.  if this lumbering economic beast is under inderect control of some number of men or women who have the abilty to act with great intelligence and forsight, then the solutions strategies change significantly.  Since the dawn of the internet there has been embedded deep in the structural code of usenet ArpNET and other seminal discussion venues triggers that relay and report information regarding prohibited discussions such as pornography, criminal activities, human traffiking and inexplicably discusions of the malthusian catastrophe and discussion of solution strategies to the malthusian paradox.  See wikipeida for malthusian trap.  Analysis of economic history over over the last 50 years seems to indicate one of the speculative solutions offered to the public for the malthusian trap problem is functionally equivalent to the course of economic history leading up to today.  Specificially concentration of resources into a select few who will survive the innevetable population collapse and who's limited number can be carried by the planet sustainably.  If you have a resource overexploitation problem that causes a population implosion, then the worst case scenario is if everyone is equally rich or equally poor because then the total population will symetrically implode all at once instead of incrementally implode and die off leaving a viable few surviving communities.  Additionally it would appear consistent that the eoonomy has been masterminded to reach this solution by "the cybernetics society" who seem to have held an insurmountable intellectual and theoretical advantage in the arts and science of managing and shaping the evolution of complex evolving systems such as the economy or politics. The activities of the cybernetics society rose to great significance in public attention during it's founding and then mysteriously concluded publicly that they had nothing much to contribute and have since been largely ignored except for obscure papers and research that no one really much reads or pays atention to publicly.  Since you are brom that area of the world you might be familiar with the Cambridge Cybernetic Societywhich is based in Brittain?  It is also possible the society naturally evolved to apear to match one of the proposed outcomes of the malthusian trap without any intellegent direction.  So my question is what likelyhood is this rather bizzare conspiracy theory valid or relevant and how would it affect the best course of action and timing of actions?  specifically, if you had a method for inducing a phase change in society to implement socialism globally, then would it matter if that occured before or after the population implosion due to resource over exploitation?  

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Tim, I only got to Question 1, and since I've answered this time and time and time again (to you, Vin, robbo, YMS, etc.), it appears that you either can't read or won't read what I write.When you've gone back and read what I wrote in answer to this question the last few times, I'll then take your request seriously. Until then, I can't treat your post as a serious attempt at political discussion.So, post a quote of mine, answering that question the last time it was asked, and we might start to make progress. From Question 2.

Actually L Bird, what you really mean is that you wont answer these questions, because you know fully well that you would look even more stupid if you did answer them. And you wonder why people take the piss, what a pillock

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

This is a promising development, twc – your opinion.Right, now we're getting somewhere!

 ""

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

@Robbo Post #346    Your "Stateless Society" is a pipe-dream, (Robbo203), you need infrastructure to manage water treatment plants and/or nuclear power plants etc. I have suggested a federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, with the abolishment of the federal and provincial/state level government. This would maximize open-participatory-democracy and put emphasis on municipalities to manage such things as plants and infrastructure.         

 Er   no , you are misunderstanding what is meant by a "stateless society".  It does not mean the absence of administrative structures as such  – though I understand there is a certain ambiguity about the use of terms such as " government" particularly with you yanks on the other side of the Pond.  (sorry about my flippancy) I am broadly sympathetic to the Marxist tradition and, in that tradition, the  notion of the state has a very specific  meaning:  It is an instrument  of class rule.  Consequently wherever there exists a state there exists a class based society and conversely wherever there exists a stateless society there does not exist any classes.  But there is still adminstration and various structures of decisionmaking obviously.  As Engels once put it the "government of persons is replaced by the administration of things" So saying that a stateless society is a "pipe dream "is tantamount to saying that classless society is a pipedream, in my book. The existence of an adminstration no more signifies the exstence of  a state than the existence of machinery signifies the existence of capital.  If I might quote Marx from  his early work, Wage Labour and Capital (1847):    A Negro is a Negro. Only under certain conditions does he become a slave. A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital. Torn away from these conditions, it is as little capital as gold is itself money, or sugar is the price of sugar.  The same could be said of the word  "administration" and its relation to the word "state". Actually the SPGB has written quite a bit on the nature of adminstration in a socialist/communist society.  You might find some of the stuff it has written of particular interest coming as you do from an anarchist perspective.  Can I recommend in particular this pamphlet http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative#ch3

[Anonymous]

 So, our famous Anarchist has declared himself as an anti-Anarchist. It is just a confirmation that we have too many ideological romantic peoples in this forum, who can be fooled by the cover of a book. At least the Anarcho-capitalist claim that they support a stateless capitalist society.( which is impossible ). Joseph Stalin, who was a supporter of state capitalism did a much better job on his book named: Anarchism or socialism? , at least Stalin knew the real definition of socialism, but he failed to understand that Proudhon was an anti-communist.  Our famous Anarchist  says that a stateless society is a pipe-dream without knowing what Anarchism and socialism really is, and confusing Anarchy with Anarchism, it is the same argument of the right wingers and the leftwinger, and the Leninists who advocate for a  system of oppression called state or the perpetuity of capitalism,  and he does not know that in an anarchist society there would be a system of  administration. It just reminds me the discussion that we had at the WSF forum with the Anarcho-capitalist. One of them was an ex-SPGB member, a wage slave who supports his own masters He considers that a stateless society is a pipe dream, but he supports the pipe dream of the utopian socialists, which is to run capitalism within capitalism, an experiment tried in the XVIII century and it failed completely, to reform capitalism have been tried thousands of times and all have failed. That is the real pipe dream. It is what Marx called Bourgoise communism in the Communist Manifesto. There is nothing new in the world of reformism, everything has been tried already, and all have failed, even more, Nazism/Fascism was a program of reform run by the capitalists, state capitalism is a system of reform also run by the capitalist known as the Soviets, the Orwellian did many experiments and all have failed, communes and coops have been tried and all have failed. Buying an airline ticket to Bolivia and seeing their experiments would be the best solution, in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica they had thousands of coops and all of them have failed, and many were run by workers unions. Confusing administration with state would be the same case as confusing the expression used by Marx of dictatorship which in his time meant government, instead of the negative connotation of our time The Quakers in Venezuela have tried to implement the same ideas and they failed too. Who is the pipe-dreamer?                 

[Author]

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