Marx and Automation

[Anonymous]

   I just think your being overtly dictorial Marcos, by throwing away a legitmate new take on Anarchism, called Structural-Anarchism, because it does not fit your ideology.  I am not opposed to you having different ideas, why are you against mine? A federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, which I advocate in the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, can accomodate different point of views, different ways of life, we do not have to live according to exactly the same political-economic framework, as long as certain core principles, can guide our mutual-aid relationship.   You seem, Marcos, to want to send me to the Siberian Gulags, for not holding the same Marxist point of view. You say I don't understand, or have not read Marx correctly, like there is a genuine truth out-there. I ascribe to an Althusserian view point. I think he got Marx correctly.    I do believe capitalism must go in favor of anarcho-socialism, but I also, know that economic dynamism, requires a certain tolerance of hierarchy to operate, aking to a Mondragon cooperative. I really suggest you read the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, its all in there.   Bullshitter? You can look in the mirror as well, Marcos (maybe the whole far-left can do as well). At least, I've put my neck out for what I believe, and written a document for the world!  I've been pepper-sprayed for my creed, have you? WHo is behind the moniker "Marcos" and "robbo".    As for Lenin, well…….       

[Anonymous]

Marcos wrote:

Like someone that I knew wrote many years ago:, We must ideologically  break away from capitalism in order to understand socialism

@Marcos,Have you considered the converse?  that you must ideologically break away from Socialism in order to understand Capitalism?  I'd like you to consider the phrase "know thy enemy".

[alanjjohnstone]

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in order to understand Capitalism…I'd like you to consider the phrase "know thy enemy"

Ummm…Didn't someone already do that and wrote a book called "Capital" 

[alanjjohnstone]

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capitalism has changed since the writing of thebook Capital.

 Perhaps you could elaborate on that since it seems apart from some superficial changes, such as coming off the gold standard or changes in ownership from one factory owner to the development of share-holding joint-stock corporations or state-owned entities, the fundamentals haven't seemed to have changed that much. If he was alive today, he may well change the history narrative and include certain events but would he have needed to changed his analysis that much. Much of contemporary economics would simply be Marx saying "I told you so" which indeed he (or Engels) did. But i am interested in hearing what notable differences you consider have occurred within capitalism since the mid-19th C.   

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Marx was pretty clear in capital that there are other alternative ways of writing his concepts down that would be unrecognizable and might extend his work to or even revise it to be more consistent as well as his interest in having capital re-written from another perspective to fill in the gaps for people who just don't get it the way it's written and promoted.

 Indeed Marx's project did not go as he planned. I recall there were to be several volumes of Capital. Our September issue of the Standard should be of interest to you since it commemorates the 150th anniversary of it.  He did rectify the content of an earlier pamphlet 'Wage, Labour and Capital' where he recognised his error in not understanding fully and using the term "labour-power." His later pamphlet 'Value, Price and Profit' certainly was written to clarify the basic economics for the non-academics of the First International to easily comprehend and is highly recommendable. There seems to be a lull in forum activity at the moment so i think we can persevere here and i am sure our ever-vigilant moderator will advise us if we are straying too much off-topic.

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

in order to understand Capitalism…I'd like you to consider the phrase "know thy enemy"

Ummm…Didn't someone already do that and wrote a book called "Capital" 

Yes, he did a very good job.  Unfortunately as all good jobs, it was slightly incomplete and has become slightly obsolete as times have changed.  It's good work, just needs to be updated.  The bigger problem is people who use an aberviated understanding as capital or even the complete understanding of capital and then close the book on further inquiry.  Reading capital does not necessarily equate to understanding capitalism, expecially since capitalism has changed since the writing of the book Capital.  Also Marx was pretty clear in capital that there are other alternative ways of writing his concepts down that would be unrecognizable and might extend his work to or even revise it to be more consistent as well as his interest in having capital re-written from another perspective to fill in the gaps for people who just don't get it the way it's written and promoted. p.s. let me know if yo prefere this should be in a private message to you instead of a forum discussion post. I'm concerned we may be going off topic and I think that's probably against some sort of princple shared by both communist and capitalist as a dogma.  I'm not trying to hide my words with a private message, but others have complained if I private message them and insinuated this is some kind of violation fo their property rights to privacy or non-interference (regardless of how marx felt about people who claim property rights).  So if you feel this is a message I should sent to you in a PM then let me know and I"ll try to do better next time. 

[Anonymous]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

Marcos wrote:

Like someone that I knew wrote many years ago:, We must ideologically  break away from capitalism in order to understand socialism

@Marcos,Have you considered the converse?  that you must ideologically break away from Socialism in order to understand Capitalism?  I'd like you to consider the phrase "know thy enemy".

 Flipping to a new mode, a new personality, now you are in the pro-capitalist mode,  you must be taking classes with Donald Trump. Again getting lost in phrases instead of conceptionsThat impossibility only would take place from a person living in a worldly socialist society, and it has not existed yet. A person living in an advanced socialist society will never want to go back up to the old system, how does that person want to move away from a free access society,  to a society of private possession, and wage slavery ?  I have not neurons to understand thatIt would be like saying that a capitalist wants to go back to Feudalism, or that Feudalism was born from Capitalism. Socialism-communism will emerge from capitalism, it is not the opposite wayYou need some serious history lessons on Historical Materialism, every class society has generated its own class ideology, in a classless society we would not have any class ideologyThe enemy of the working class is the capitalist class, and most workers do not know that, but I do know who my enemies are,   and who are my allies. Do you know yours?  

[Anonymous]

@AlanJohnstone,Thanks for the friendly reply. You wrote. . . 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

capitalism has changed since the writing of thebook Capital.

 Perhaps you could elaborate on that since it seems apart from some superficial changes, such as coming off the gold standard or changes in ownership from one factory owner to the development of share-holding joint-stock corporations or state-owned entities, the fundamentals haven't seemed to have changed that much. If he was alive today, he may well change the history narrative and include certain events but would he have needed to changed his analysis that much. Much of contemporary economics would simply be Marx saying "I told you so" which indeed he (or Engels) did. But i am interested in hearing what notable differences you consider have occurred within capitalism since the mid-19th C. 

Thank you for asking. Previous to 2010 you the limited information exchange infrastructure limited the exchange of value to only currencies that use a capital or tangible material based unit of measure. Previous to the mid-19th century information about the value of goods and services was technically difficult to distribute, verify, and enforce in case of fraud. It was also hard to transmit information about a product over distances reliably except in the case where the value of the good could be easily and accurately assesed by physical inspection of the material object locally. Trading and exchange using a non-capital based unit of currency is essentially limited to local communites who can mentally track and tally exchange units of exchange such as "good will" or "a favor I owe you" or "1 hour of my time since you helped me for an hour",  in the 19th century you could not trade "good will" with a stranger on the other side of the planet you have never met, but you could trade a unit of gold with a stanger on the other side of the planet whom you have never met.  So value exchange had an ill-liquid accounting technology that prevents communism from scaling larger than the number of people that can be tracked by an informal, mental estimate in the 19th century.  The liquidity of information has seen an exponential increase and has reached near perfect liquidity.  Trade and barter of capital goods is successfull because it scales well in low information environemnts compared with tradeing or bartering based on less-tangible units of measure such as "hope" or "time".  However, trading in non-tangible currencies, such as "loyalty" or "promises" or "friendship" is often more efficient which is why it's done locally and in housholds and small communities where it's technically feesible to keep track of the accounting in your head without a tally sheet or formal currency for counting the value of "loyalty" or "trust" or other intangible unit of measure that is used as the currency base unit.As the liquidity of information increases towards perfect liquidity in market transactions the economic question of information Asymetry in any negotiation for labor price or sell price takes on greater significance.  Instead of information Asymetry being a mitigating factor as in the mid 19th century, Information Asyemetry is now the determining factor in the price setting of any negotiated price for labor or sell in a market for most products.  Information Asymetry is what information scientist like me understand as solidarity.  If you had perfect information advantage over a an employer for example then you would know exactly how much your labor was worth to the employer and the employer would know knothing about how much your labor was worth to you.  So from an information exchange economics perspective Solidarity and information advantage are synonymous.  Currrently the employer and the seller has the inforrmation advantage in most market transactions for labor or selling products and it's fair to say that business has more "solidarity" than "consumers" because every business has data on millions of consumers but consumers do not have much data on business.  the busiess can look at past receipts for sale of a widget the but consumer does not have that ability in our current market because of the inherent information assymetic advantages of a seller in a one seller to many consumers information market.   So that all looks pretty bad for the socialist cause, but there's a silver lining that's great.  Since information is reaching near perfect liquidity, it's actually becoming increasingly easy for consumers to get information about products and product pricing history technically. Socially, it's still not done for mostly reasons of initeria, but in theory we can imagine how our business technology could be applied to level the information playing field.  There's nothing technically stoping a person with current digital technology from upvoting or downvoting a corporation on the other side of the planet.  You could not do exchange or pay your approval or disaproval publicly with an upvote to a manufacturer on the other side of the world with mid 19th century.So now we have the technology to create new currencies based on intangible traits.  One particular interesting currency is based on a unit of an hour of your personal time.  How much is an hour of your time worth to you?  By using an hour of your actual individual personal time as a unit of value measure for exchange we separate the value measure from the capital value.  So now, instead of trading in gold coins we trade in time.  Now there's an interesting overlooked aspect to all monetary systems that becomes relevant to the disussion.  Every monetary or currency system ever created has increased the production of the unit of measure for the currency.  So when you use gold as a unit of measure that increase the production of gold and how much gold you have determines how much gold you can get and we know how this turns out. If you use silver as a unit of measure for the currency you get a society with more silver mines and very efficient use of silver.  What if you based a currency on a unit of a tree? would that result in more trees being grown?  Actually yes.  and you can base a unit of currency on abstract things with 20th century information technology exchange liquidy.  For example, we can now make a currency based on the volume of water flowing out of the colorado river, and that would result in society and the profit motive and the invisible hand working to produce more water flowing out of the colorado river.  And with todays technology it's relatively easier to say  "oops we need to change our curency unit of measure to be 1% of the water flowing out of the colorado river averaged over the last year excluding any non-drinkable water with impurities".  So we can now quickly trade out currencies with our technology, but it's not done for reasons of tradition and people need to get practice buying and selling in multiple currencies.  But, there is one special currency that we like because it's easily converted into capital based currency to hijack the existing market exchange information infrastructure. If we can easily convert a non-capital based currency to a capital based currency then we can use things like a cash register without much change to the hardware or software.  Also personal time is completely non-capital based, it's completely non-material, it's not what economist call "fungible".  if you use personal time as a unit of measure, how can you deprive a person of the means for producing personal time?  With material based unit of measure, yes you can stop a person from producing gold and caputure the means of exchange.  But with "a personal hour of your time" based currency, It's not possible because everyone produces exactly the same hours in a day.  because everyone has the same 24 hours in a day in a currency based on a unit of a persons personal time. Now it happens this pricing things based on a unit of a persons time isn't actually a new idea, it's just a new way of looking at the old concept of a sliding scale price tag.  A sliding scale price tag works by charging more to rich people and less to poor people.  Doctors use it sometimes and medical profiders sell on a sliding scale or at a reduced price to the poor.  And as theory predicts, this actually makes business money in most markets.  Evil Epipeen has a discount price for low income people and we know they wouldn't do it if it didn't make them money.  You can send in your tax records to epipen and qualify for their reduced price epipen. But have you ever wondered why you can't buy a coffee on a sliding scale price tag since that would also make Starducks more money?  So now it seem like a profit making scheme and the socialist and the capitalist freek out and censor me. finally there's one more solution possible now.  What we see when we look at different currencies is that in many cases the currency carries the law with it.  you can purchase some things in japanese yen that you can not purchase legally in USA dollars.  even paying with a visa card gives you extra consumer protection for using the visa based dollar as your unit of exchange for the purchase.  As a visa user you get additional protections against fraud that a plain old dollar sell doesn't allow. And visa can lock your account without involving the law or government.  So Visa in this case is currently acting as a government regulating what you can and can't buy and a profiteer by capturing value in any exchange for it's operations.  Visa gets you discounts on some purchases and can make other price adjustments to your value exchange. When you buy with ViSA, you get the Visa government and laws and limitations and terms of service too.  Wouldn't it be great if some group of world wise socialist owned VISA?  It's too late now, but it's no ones made "terms of service" aka laws, enforcement, government, judiciary for a currency based on a unit of time.  it looks like who ever designs the currency based on a unit of time could write the terms of service to be favorable to communisme or not favorable to communism.  And "terms of service" is effectively serving the role of price adjuster,law creator, enforcement police, and governance of all purchases made with that currency.  So governments and laws used to be linked and determined by geography and which nation you lived in. But now, the exchange economy informatin infrastructure allows laws and rules and governances (aka terms of service) to be attached to a single purchase.  What we see is that government, laws, pricing adjustments, etc can be chosen by individiual consumers in individual market transactions. Simply by chooosing to buy with VISA or instead buying with mastercard, or instead just buying with cash means accepting and agreeing to a set of laws and rules and government that will enforce all dispute resolutions as much as legally possible regardless of the local geographic and government based laws which are usually non-interfering in nature anyway.  So if a group of world wise socialist made a something like VISA they could call it "socialist VISA" and they could adjust prices to be based on something other than capital value, perhaps some non-hysical non-material unit of measure like time would work good for their unit of currency?  If it made the seller profit and people use it voluntarily then it would grow and become more common and people would get in the practice of using "socialist VISA".   "Socialist VISA" would effectvely then be functioning like a distributed government and distributed economy that extends to every purchase made with "socialist VISA".  Would a group of world wise socialist have a use for something like that? Finally, If I were building a new currency based on an hour of a persons time, whichi I am, I wouild go even further thanks to some great insight I picked up from some world wise socialist and I'd distribute the ability to make laws and rules and adjust prices down to the individual consumer.  I don't like the ideas of some elites writing the terms of service for me even if they are the elites who run the "socialist visa" card.  So I would build my "socialist Visa" card that uses a personal hour of your time as a unit measure and I'd make sure that indivdiual consumers could write their own terms of service they personalize or re-use on each trasaction. That then gives them the individual consumer to spontaneously write some terms of service that act as government with it's own laws and dispute resolution process and it's own price adjustments.  And I'd need to limit the format in some way with a protocol that specifies any terms of services needs to include a section on limitations based on "abiities" and a section on acceptable forms of payment labeled "means".  that would then make sure the currency protocols for exchanging information were compatible with the goals of a socialist exchange currency and seems a fitting choice for "socialist Visa" to make it truly leaderless and non-material and mostly independent of any geo-political based government.    As a last step before going public and letting the world know about the profit potential of a currency based on a unit of time, I'd probably try to get some attention from some worldly wise socialist who can think flexibly about economic value flows of both capital and non-material based currencies in a multi-currency market.  I'd be hoping these worldly wise socialist could take a good hard look at my protocols and check my reasoning and logic and design specefications to help advance the project and make it a better currency. So I'd probably open up the design and development process to the whole world for input and crowdsource the design of the new currency so it turns out how the people want it to work.  But first I need to find an enlightened class and economy concoious group of worldly wise contributors who voluntarily will review my specs and proposal and fill out surveys telling me how to make it better.  I'd like to do all that before some capitalist like John Gault gets a hold of this idea and takes much of the substance potential out of it and makes a cheep knockoff that's very hostile to socialism and communism.  and none of that was easy and some of all of what I propose and wrote was definitely impossible in the mid19th century.  So I hope that was a satisfying answer. I'd ask you help if you can with any feedback or criques if you can.  And if you want to ask for a link I can share you more in a slideshow or let you contribute to the direction of the development with a survey form.  But again, that would get me in trouble here.  So thanks for reading and good luck.

[Anonymous]

MBellemare wrote:

   I just think your being overtly dictorial Marcos, by throwing away a legitmate new take on Anarchism, called Structural-Anarchism, because it does not fit your ideology.  I am not opposed to you having different ideas, why are you against mine? A federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, which I advocate in the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, can accomodate different point of views, different ways of life, we do not have to live according to exactly the same political-economic framework, as long as certain core principles, can guide our mutual-aid relationship.   You seem, Marcos, to want to send me to the Siberian Gulags, for not holding the same Marxist point of view. You say I don't understand, or have not read Marx correctly, like there is a genuine truth out-there. I ascribe to an Althusserian view point. I think he got Marx correctly.    I do believe capitalism must go in favor of anarcho-socialism, but I also, know that economic dynamism, requires a certain tolerance of hierarchy to operate, aking to a Mondragon cooperative. I really suggest you read the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, its all in there.   Bullshitter? You can look in the mirror as well, Marcos (maybe the whole far-left can do as well). At least, I've put my neck out for what I believe, and written a document for the world!  I've been pepper-sprayed for my creed, have you? WHo is behind the moniker "Marcos" and "robbo".    As for Lenin, well…….       

New take in Anarchism and socialism? Both have been defined already, it is not a matter of dictatorship, it is a matter of conception. Socialism and Anarchism ( both are related ) were defined a long time ago. Since the very beginning your message is incorrect, first,  Socialism is not an ideology, it is a theory of liberation, ideology is the prevailing ideas that prevail in any class society, and socialism is going to be a classless and stateless society therefore, class ideology will not exist, and socialism is not going to be an economic system either. I know Marx was you have said, you should have known that it was Marx definition of ideology, the so called false consciousness described by Engels is wrong, and it is the term that he used in a private message to his close collaborator. It was a term used by the French leftist and is totally wrong including the LacanianCooperatives, islands of socialism, communes, are not new conceptions, they were created by the Utopian Socialists and the Owenians, and they were opposed by Marx and Engels, and most of them were a total failure, even more, there are many of this experiments in Bolivia, and Mexico and none of them have conducted mankind toward a socialist society, on the contrary, they are part of the capitalist society, that is not Anarchism because they depend of the benevolence of the state, and many of them are part of the state infrastructure.We had a long discussion about those topics on the WSM forum, and most of the proponents did not demonstrate that they would work, and we proved to them that those experiments will not take us toward a socialist societyI do not want to send you to Siberian Gulag, now you sound like one of those typical anti-communists of the old days, and peoples were not sent to that place because they had opposite Marxist point of view, they were sent because they opposed the state capitalist regime of the Soviet Union, even more, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks which were sent to the Gulag did not hold Marxists or socialist point of view, most of them support Leninist or anti-Leninist point of view. Within the Russian the only one who held socialist and Marxist point of view was Martov and he was not sent to the Gulag, he died  as an exileAlthusser was a member of the French Communist Party which was a Stalinist political party or a follower of state capitalism, and his view about socialism was totally incorrect, and then, he moved toward Maoism, which was the worst conceptions, and then he moved into opposition with the Marxist-humanists conception and he held the so called ethical point of view of socialism, but the things is that socialism is not ethical or morals, those are bourgeoise conceptions,  he never held any Anarchist stand, and he never broke with Leninism.The combination of Anarcho-socialism is not new either because socialism per se is Anarchist, and one of its main proponents was Marx, and anarchism since its very beginning have advocated for a stateless society, and your model does not advocate for world wide stateless society, it is based on local programs. Socialism must be established as the world society.That you have been pepper sprayed for your ideas, I have seen reactionary and right wingers being pushed by the police. If I tell how I came to the working class movement, you would get scared.Capitalism will never move in favour of socialism, it must be done by the working class, they are the ones who can replace capitalism with socialism, that historical mission belongs to the proletariat. I think Adam from the SPGB  did a pretty good job on his book  known as The Alternative to Capitalism ( No Alternatives like the books written by Peter Hudis )

[alanjjohnstone]

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, but I also, know that economic dynamism, requires a certain tolerance of hierarchyto operate, akin to a Mondragon cooperative.

 Arrrggg…i wish you had not mentioned Mondragon. I've lost count on how many times i had to disabuse folk upon its claims. (They have also increased the pecuniary reward for those in management positions, rather than endeavour to equalise them.) But i take your point, fully, MB, although i think "hierarchy" might be the wrong word, one which an anarchist would be reticent to use. Both Marx and Engels referred to the necessity of some form of "authority" (another loaded term) within socialism and the revolution much to the displeasure of the anarchists. Marx made the analogy of the conductor of an orchestra and Engels to a captain of a ship, both having special relationship authority over others. (i once read an interesting article about the democracy of pirates in selecting their ship-captains and the limits applied to his authority) We have discussed this topic on the forum, and the need for some sort of rule of "law" (again, is there an alternative word, i wonder). After all, there requires being a body to authorise the competence of a pilot or surgeon which means denying some who are not suitably qualified, for example, and that means possessing a degree of social power. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Yet another article very much similar to the previous one i posted where i was critical of that proposes to be working for reforms that improve capitalism as a strategy for achieving socialism as if capitalism has not already long ago developed the material basis of a future cooperative commonwealth.https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/30/rethinking-socialism-in-the-twenty-first-century/

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We should work towards policies that encourage a return to manufacturing; particularly high-tech manufacturing. We should endeavor to persuade industry, government, and educational institutions to build an educational infrastructure that would create, at a young age, a class of highly skilled workers thus forming the basis for a strong tradition of economic and industrial apprenticeship. We should powerfully advocate for a “Manhattan project” like initiative for alternative energy. Incentives, bonuses, resources should be lavished on potential technologies that lower energy costs and, as an extra benefit, help to heal the environment…We should advocate for a return to a high level and well funded industrial/scientific policy. Pure research and seed development has languished far too long in this country… we should begin to speak out about the abominable levels of cultural attainment in this country and seek to build a network of special institutions that would, at low cost, bring those who would normally be excluded from it…

All those proposals to make capitalism better is justified by "a pro-technologist, rationalist Marxian viewpoint".I think the author has overlooked that when he declares, "Capitalism, at its simplest, represents the application of the scientific method to the economic life of man…" it was a phase of capitalism, now long gone, and today capitalism imposes fetters on progress. I suggest that these writers seek to re-invent the wheel just so to justify their claims to intellectualism. 

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

, but I also, know that economic dynamism, requires a certain tolerance of hierarchyto operate, akin to a Mondragon cooperative.

 Arrrggg…i wish you had not mentioned Mondragon. I've lost count on how many times i had to disabuse folk upon its claims. (They have also increased the pecuniary reward for those in management positions, rather than endeavour to equalise them.) But i take your point, fully, MB, although i think "hierarchy" might be the wrong word, one which an anarchist would be reticent to use. Both Marx and Engels referred to the necessity of some form of "authority" (another loaded term) within socialism and the revolution much to the displeasure of the anarchists. Marx made the analogy of the conductor of an orchestra and Engels to a captain of a ship, both having special relationship authority over others. (i once read an interesting article about the democracy of pirates in selecting their ship-captains and the limits applied to his authority) We have discussed this topic on the forum, and the need for some sort of rule of "law" (again, is there an alternative word, i wonder). After all, there requires being a body to authorise the competence of a pilot or surgeon which means denying some who are not suitably qualified, for example, and that means possessing a degree of social power. 

This is a good article written by the SPGB in regard to those reformists experiments trying to be implemented by pseudo-Marxists, and tying their program with pseudo-Marxian terminology, it is like Lenin and the Bolshevik which used Marxist phraseology to implement their state capitalist programhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1313-january-2014/marx-co-operatives-and-capitalism-0Those type of experiments were also implemented in Argentina, and they were run like capitalist enterprises controlled by workers, when the enterprises started to produce profits the government passed law to take the enterprises from the workers and they were given back to the original capitalistshttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2005/no-1216-december-2005/argentinas-worker-run-factories-what-nextThere is no difference between  Tito's  workers self-management implemented in Yugoslavia.In the Caribbean there were hundred of Coop implemented by workers unions and they all failed, they went into bankruptcy, and others were taken over by banks, and some workers union ended collaborating with the capitalists and turning the coop into profitable business for the corporations

[Anonymous]

 Ok, you have a point about Mondragon and Argentine cooperatives, but any cooperative operating in a totalizing capitalist system will be in serious contradiction. Due to the fact that they have to operate first and foremost according to the logic of capitalism, i.e., to maximize profit by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible.   It is only when a new central-operating-code, i.e., logic, is implemented, while the logic of capitalism is fully marginalized, that cooperatives will cast-off their current contradiction. Cooperatives functioning according to the logic of capitalism are totally different from Cooperatives functioning according to the logic of structural-anarchism. Nonetheless, you can see that Mondragon, a limited hierarchical organization with a limit set on wages/salaries, i.e., a salary grid pertaining to top positions in relation to bottom positions, could operate under a different socio-economic system, i.e., logic. That is what is impressive about it.     As to the proletariat (working class), in my estimation, they are not revolutionary (Marx got it wrong, from my perspective), in fact they tend to be conservative, obedient and profit-driven, when pointed and contextualized in the capitalist direction. They have become so average and so (middle of road). The proletariat is so fragmented and divided that it is inconcievable at the moment that they could ever achieve class consciousness or the will to a new socio-economic formation.     The racism, anti-immigrationism, in America, currently, is indicative of the working population, projecting its fundamental socio-economic anger into the wrong channels and unto the wrong contradiction, i.e., the racial contradiction. Its easy for capitalists to befuddle the working population by scapegoating socio-economic problems upon racial differences. When jobs are limited and when a capitalist nation accepts ever-increasing immigration, the working population gets angry at their new job-competitors, which flood the job-markets and increase the financial pressures in all directions. The working population has to realize that immigration and race relations are eased, softened and eliminated when jobs are plenty and financial equality is at a maximum. Meaning that the number 1 problem is always capitalism, i.e., the logic of capitalism at the center of society, not race, gender, age, education etc. It always comes down to the political-economic framework and the logic upon which this framework is based, namely, the logic of capitalism. (This is a simple thing to grasp and the proletariat continually fails to realize such simple reasoning. It falls into the same racial clap-trap, set-up by capitalists, the best embodiments of the logic of capitalism, over and over again. So, I say, forget the proletariat as a liberatory agent, and focus on magnifying a rabble, it is only when the proletariat liquidates its proletarianism, its proletarian nature, a nature constructed by capitalism, into a real revolutionary rabble, that real social change has the chance to blossom.)       The proletariat are good people in general, who live with their hearts on their selves, but they can be easily bought-off or befuddled with a pay raise, a two-car garage, media-ideological-images etc., unless socio-economic conditions force them to cast-off their subjugated unionized proletarianism, becoming a revolutionary rabble.  I like idea of the revolutionary rabble, which is class-less, taking members from all socio-economic stratums. It is the working population, in general, that has the possibility of being revolutionary, not the proletariat in and of itself. All members of the capitalist society, from all social stratums can belong to and take part in a revolutionary rabble, not just the proletariat.         One last thing, I don't see class anymore, (I don't think it even exists) I see groups, affinity groups, from Goths, to Punks, to Mcdonald's employees, to car salesmens, activists, eco-activists, to Hipsters, to Hippies, to yuppies, to sport atheletes, to the super rich, to the moderately rich, to the average wealthy, to the below average wealthy, to the poor, to city employees (which I am), to teachers, to union-members, to educational-affinity-groups, to Marxist-groupings, to organized-religious-groupings etc…, each with their own forms of thought, dress, and actions. We have so many identities now, that class is seriously marginalized to the point of non-existence. The proletariat, that Marx saw, has disappeared into a vast jumble of microscopic groupings.    The reason for this de-proletarianization into a jumble of microscopic groupings, to return to my initial reason for joining the SPGB forum, is that value, price and wage is no longer primarily based on quantifiable value, price and wage, it is now based on "what an entity can get away with in the market-place", namely, unquantifiable creative-power. When a society jettisons Marx's rationalistic and scientific labor-power analysis, i.e., his quantifiable law of value and all its mechanistic functionings, value, price and wage-determinations become a matter of power, how much power a capitalist network can wield in establishing and in normalizing outlandish values, prices and wages. And this process of the unfastening of value, price and wage from any scientifically based set of measurements, has fragmented all class relations to the point where class is non-existent and/or marginalized, in favor of the micro-grouping based on all sorts of affinities. As a result, according to the Structural-Anarchism Manifesto, the rising financial inequality across the globe is because the economy no longer, or hardly ever, follows any economic laws, in the last intance, it is about power, the power to construct mental and physical socio-economic reality, regardless of reason, rationality and/or rational measurements. Now, the working population can be the authors of this mental and physical manufactured socio-economic reality, if they become a real revolutionary rabble, and wrestle the means of mental/physical production and reproduction from capitalists and the logic of capitalism, establishing graduallly, or all at once, a new socio-economic formation founded on a new central logic, (hopefully) the logic of structural-anarchism. Who among you is willing to throw the dice?(These are, in my estimation, the stakes. And I say this, not lightly, as the stakes are serious. And because the stakes are so serious, if things devolve too much, that reform, an inch by inch, or a "long march" towards a new socio-economic formation becomes really attractive and the only viable means for some).             

[alanjjohnstone]

Are your ideas really that new, MB?Wasn't Bakunin saying the same thing about the working class and that it was the sans-culottes and the lumpenproletariat, revolutionaries should be looking towards as the vehicle for change. (Even Engels in passing referred to a passive labour aristocracy) But does the test of history support you and him? I'm not so sure it does.The failure of the rabble is that they tend to disperse and dissipate as quickly as they appear. They also become the tool of others better equipped which can co-opt their message and steer it into their own desired channels. Even Occupy's famous human mic faded out. What is required if you accept that The Revolution is not some sort of over-night phenomenon is a much more permanent organisation and like it or not – that's the labor unions and political parties like ours. A point made by Jo Freeman in the Tyranny of Structurelessness.I wouldn't so readily dismiss the revolutionary potential of the working class – it keeps re-inventing itself.But for sure the working class is contradictory and at times a nebulous amorphous mass. The solution, though, is not to accept this state of affairs but endeavour to re-organise and re-focus it. A tough order but not an impossible one…think CIO and the factory sit-ins of the 30s.But there was a SPGBer worth quoting, the late Pieter Lawrence..

Quote:

Because it is impossible for the capitalist system to serve the interests of the whole community it constantly throws up issues that demand action by those who are socially concerned and by many people who think of themselves as socialists. The great danger in being diverted from campaigning for socialism into campaigns to "Ban the Bomb", "End the poll tax", "Stop the War in Iraq", "Cancel Poor Nation's Debt," etc., etc., is that this becomes not just a diversion but an end in itself. Inevitably, it becomes a campaign for an "improved" kind of Capitalism. It is in this process of campaigning for a different or a reformed form of capitalism that the work for socialism tends to become lost. Those who in the past felt that action should be limited to making capitalism a better system, have contributed, albeit unwittingly, to the present state of things. A sane society cannot be postponed without accepting the consequences of the postponement.It is inherent in the capitalist system that it generates discontent and protest but it has also been unfortunate that the long history of protest has been empty of political action that could end the system. Inevitably, the causes of problems are left intact and lead on to a further need for protest. This reduces protest to political theatre in which each demonstration helps to set a stage for further demonstration. Though the scripts may vary and the actors may change the message is the same, "we demand that governments do this, that or the other!" The spectacle of thousands, demanding that governments act on their behalf is a most reassuring signal to those in power that their positions of control are secure. Repeated demonstrations do little more than confirm the continuity of the system. It is in this sense that mostly, protest is a permanent feature of the status quo. The point should be to change society not to appeal to the doubtful better nature of its power structures……Sadly, not all developments in ideas are progressive. It would appear that the consensual body of ideas which make up popular culture moves sometimes forward but sometimes backwards in cycles. The present lurch towards extreme religious nationalism, neo conservatism and the politics of hate is regressive and can only bring more misery. But this is not the whole story. However divided the world may seem to be, all people share common needs which can only be served, ultimately by cooperation. These needs arise from our human make up, are expressed in the best ways to live, and are inescapable. They rise above national divisions or differences of race, culture and language. Throughout the world, all people share a common need to live in peace and material security and to be at friendly ease with their communities and with other peoples in other countries……Under the clamour of conflict and the divisive politics that prevent people of all countries from coming together as a united humanity there is the unspoken voice of a common need which is always present. Whilst the oft shouted slogan of "peace, security and justice" may lack systematic thought and down the years has been empty of any practical means of bringing change, it does express a yearning for a different and better world. So when socialists argue for a world of cooperation organised solely for needs, in which all citizens will stand in equal relation with each other, this does express the universal interests of all people; it is therefore true for all time.These conditions of life are only possible in a socialist society. This means that whilst socialist ideas may seem, on the present face of things, to be estranged from popular politics, they are in harmony with the real hopes of all people. It is when socialist ideas become the conscious political expression of these hopes that socialism will become an irresistible force for change…

Sorry for the long quote…i still had to abridge it 

[Anonymous]

Nothing new in his propositons or his vacillation." The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois."(1879 Marx and Engels )

[Anonymous]

   I think you have two points on me, Alan, which shows the limits of how far my logic goes (I am always learning). 1. Its true that the working population can reformulate, reconstitute itself under a different set of parameters and conquer eventually the sum of decision-making-authority for itself. After all, it is the source of that which is most creative within the parameters of capitalism. I think, I overstated how easily the proletariat can be befuddled by capitalists. After all, the SPGB forum is proof that not all fall prey to the betwitchments and ideological spells of capitalism and its capitalists.   And your second point on me, Alan, is, that I agree, the revolutionary rabble is in a sense like throwing dice of fate up into the air. And like Bakunin, the unstructurality of an amorphous mass can have dire consequences if a revolution turns sour. For example, if a solid Bolshevik'esque party can capture the minds and hearts of a segment of the revolutionary rabble, things can de-generate and regress into the dark ages, pretty quickly. And it only takes a segment for the whole revolution to turn into some conservative counter-revolution for things to get ugly. But at the opposing pole, I would ascribe to a revolutionary rabble such as MAY '68' in France, where had the baricades and unruly revolutionary rabble sustain itself for a year or more, structural-anarchism and the federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives, might have come to pass, with little bloodshed.    However, I have anticipated this line of argument, pertaining to the revolutionary rabble, having read Bakunin. And this is why I am a structural-anarchist and not the usual type of anarchist or types of anarchists. And here is the kernel of structural-anarchism, Bakunin had it right, the national-state-model must be dissolved, when taken over, the economy will follow, once there is no State. Due to the fact that the primary safeguard of the capitalist economy is the state, the primary safeguard of the capitalist mode of production is the State. Dissovle the State and the economy will follow (Bakunin is right). No state, No capitalist mode of production. However, unlike Bakunin, who wanted to dissolve the State in all its forms, municipal, provincial/state and national, and the Marxists were correct in their critique on this point, Structural-Anarchism is about dissolving the national and provincial state-forms, not the municipal-form, which structural-anarchism would define as the craddle of decision-making-authority, it is the source of decision-making-authority. And as the source of decision-making-authority, the municipality is not subject to a particular mode of production, it accomodates itself to any ruling mode of production. It is the logic of capitalism, that wrenches away decision-making-authority from municipalities, from which it springs, and re-establishes this authority on provincial/state levels and national/federal levels. Capitalism does this, because it needs a constant level of abstraction from the everyday in order to be cruel, heartless and unfeeling in its exploitative practices. The federal/national and the provincial/state level of governments, which are completely capitalist-driven, smash municipalities into line by disinvesting municipalities constantly of their decision-making-authority. As a you can see, Alan, this is where structural-anarchism gets-off the Bakunin train of thought, and thus avoids the scathing critique of Marxists, as to the contradiction of the stateless state. Bakunin went too far. Municipalities, municipal-forms of government, if given the chance and are re-invested with the decision-making-authority now present in federal/national and provincial/state governments, can govern effectively and avoid bolshevism, while being closer to the everyday lives of people who actually live in these municipalities and live with the effects of policy. If municipalities are re-invested with the decision-making-authority now present at the national/federal and provincial/state levels, they will synergize in order to function better among themselves, over-time, manufacturing a federation.  And to volley-back unto David Harvey, his critique of anarchism and its call for a total stateless society, municipalities, the municipal form of government, can run such a thing a nuclear power plant. As Harvey said a few years ago, "God forbid the running of  nuclear power plants should ever fall into the hands of some unruly anarchist collective". Yes, I agree, David, but if the running of a nuclear power plant should fall into the governing hands of lets say the municipality government of San Franscisco, due to the fact that these unruly anarchist collectives have liquidated the federal/national government and the provincial/state governments of their decision-making-authority, I am perfectly fine with that. And Harvey should be as well, less he be a Bolshevik in disguise. Hence, why I am a structural-anarchist and not a Bakuninist anarchist. I ascribe to a federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives with the means of mental and physical production firmly in their hands.         

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