Marx and Automation

[Alan Kerr]

@YMSYes thank you I gave answer at post #408

[Anonymous]

MBellemare wrote:

l, didn't the soviet union do this? didn't they go from an agrarian society to a socialist society, by-passing the bourgeois captalist phase. They utilized force to initiate the by-pass, but there are more democratic manners by which to skip a stage of production. Don't you think?

No it was never socialist, the Material conditions for socialism (advanced capitalist production and a majority conscious socialist working class) did not exist. The only way the SU could have 'skipped a stage' would be if there was a majority working class throughout the world organising for a revolution; which was not the case. The MCH was vindicated by the susequent events which was the development of Capitalism

[Anonymous]

MBellemare

Quote:

So, in answer to your question, Alan, how can we skip a stage of production? Well, didn't the soviet union do this? didn't they go from an agrarian society to a socialist society, by-passing the bourgeois captalist phase. They utilized force to initiate the by-pass, but there are more democratic manners by which to skip a stage of production. Don't you think?

Nonsense. An absurd statement.They had what was essentially a bourgeois revolution, from feudalism into capitalism and the Bolshevics mounted a coup, introducing  state capitalism.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1934/no-353-january-1934/bolshevism-past-and-presentSocialism/communism is a post-capitalist development.

[moderator1]

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[Young Master Smeet]

Alan Kerr #408 wrote:

To inform their choice the people need to know and to compare human labour hour cost.  Only then, is choice clear.  The Socialist Preamble says that capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production. The boards cost the new society a lot of human labour hours. People choose to work in the easiest way. Any new society, if it is to be a step forwards, must save on rather than waste human labour hours. And any society needs a way shift total labour around in a way which keeps producer alive.

I'm afraid labour time calculation is insufficient, as it fails to tak into account invested labour time.  What (abstract) labour time measures is the ease of performing a task under current productive conditions : for instance, using petroleum based products is labour cheap at the moment, because of the vast oil extraction investment over the past century (plus externalities associated with that).  To make a rational decision we need to examine the whole in itself.As Kautsky notes, labour calculation is an inefficient way of doing this, and money and markets are actually better at performing under this capitalist logic.Also, I would dispute that saving labour time is the social metric of activity.  I would argue, instead, that we are setting out to achieve definite social ends, and what matters is that we achieve those ends, not that we go around trying to do them in the most efficient way.  Socialism could, and should, solve problems by chucking labour at them.

[Form F]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Form FThank you,Of course, the manager of the capitalist firm tries to make most profit in shortest time. 

This doesn't answer my question. How does the manager make the choice?

[Alan Kerr]

@YMSSorry but what’s Crusoe’s “invested” labour which he fails to take account of?http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#anchor_n38It’s not possible to argue that money and markets are actually better on Crusoe’s island. I mean how could money and markets work at all on Crusoe’s island?It’s only possible to argue that money and markets are actually better for one time and place but not for another time and place.If you like let’s discuss Karl Kaustky. He’s a good writer.But first let’s discuss small-scale.Should Crusoe waste his labour time?Why?

[Form F]

Paradoxically, the incoherence of this reply speaks volumes. Does the manager of the capitalist firm base her choice of input on something other than market price. If so, what?

[Alan Kerr]

Form F wrote:

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Form FThank you,Of course, the manager of the capitalist firm tries to make most profit in shortest time. 

This doesn't answer my question. How does the manager make the choice?

I’m no expert. But I would choose 1) on money cost and 2) on the way to turn capital over in shortest time. For a big firm I would get the best deal I could for kiln. 

[Young Master Smeet]

Alan Kerr wrote:

Sorry but what’s Crusoe’s “invested” labour which he fails to take account of?  http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#anchor_n38It’s not possible to argue that money and markets are actually better on Crusoe’s island. I mean how could money and markets work at all on Crusoe’s island?  It’s only possible to argue that money and markets are actually better for one time and place but not for another time and place.  If you like let’s discuss Karl Kaustky. He’s a good writer.But first let’s discuss small-scale.Should Crusoe waste his labour time?Why?

 Why shouldn't Crusoe waste his time?  He might want to achieve his ends beautifully, he might want to kill some spare time and take his while, he might just want to take it easy.  What matters is he achieves his ends he sets himself.Crusoe might well have built himself an archimedes screw : lets say for now he does that for shits and giggles, but it would mean forever more, so long as it lasts, it means it is easier for him to draw water from a well, than from the stream.  Labour time accounting would say, then draw the water from the well (but ignore the time previously spent on building the screw, maybe).  Despite the fact that this could diminish the well faster than occasionally provisioning water from the stream from time to time.Now, if we are taking into account the time involved in the screw, well, for rusoe it doesn't matter, but ifhe starts to exchange water with Friday, we're basically back to capitalist accounting, so we might as well use money and save us the time spent in the time accounting.

[Alan Kerr]

@YMSFirst, you say that Crusoe’s way fails to take account. But Crusoe does take account.“His stock-book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations necessary for their production; and lastly; of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him.”(Marx)In the end, you ask why Crusoe takes account.For Crusoe, it’s because he’s British. But he also needs to stay alive.For us, it’s to see the real difference. 1) Producing for the market and 2) Producing simply for use. 

[Bijou Drains]

Alan Kerr wrote:

Form F wrote:

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Form FThank you,Of course, the manager of the capitalist firm tries to make most profit in shortest time. 

This doesn't answer my question. How does the manager make the choice?

I’m no expert. But I would choose 1) on money cost and 2) on the way to turn capital over in shortest time. For a big firm I would get the best deal I could for kiln. 

my experience is that assuming the manager is a man he would either;a) give the contract to his mate from the same Masonic Lodgeb) give the contract to a bloke he knows who will take him down to the golf course and then fill him full of lagerc) give it to the same bloke he always does, cos he can't be arsed to look any further.d) undertake some basic research and award it to the one which meets his half baked ideas of how the job should be done, with no real reference to the people who are going to use the wood or live in the house that was made by the wood.Which is the real nature of capitalism, not the ultra efficient notional vision of the Thatcherites or the Adam Smith Institute

[Young Master Smeet]

Alan Kerr,the substantive point is that accounting for the cost in labour time of abstract time embodied in capital just reproduces the logic of the market, so you might as well use the market, and save yourself the effort: all labour time can tell us is how easy it is to achieve things under current conmditions, we need to take a broader look.Crusoe be buggered.  HIs stock-book can only deal with him as the immediate consumer of the invested labour time, not as intermediate goods in eexchange.  I don't even know how/why he cept into a discussion of Air Kilns.

[Alan Kerr]

@Tim KilgallonUltra-efficient only compared to the firms that fail. 

[Alan Kerr]

@YMSWith Crusoe’s way (small or full-scale), I vote to air dry the wood. This will cut average labour hour cost.We need to make this more workable and better than the market. 

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