Natty article in New Statesman
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https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2018/06/if-capitalism-ended-what-would-replace-it
Quote:Which of these futures prevails, Frase emphasises, ultimately depends on human agency. Four Futures is a resounding corrective to technological determinism of all kinds. Men and women will continue to make their own history – if not in circumstances of their choosing.Actually, although of course humans make history (they act), there is something to be said for technological determinism. After all, it's always worked in the past, in the end in one form or another.
Yes, the invention of the pointed stick didn't mean humans had to use it, but once someone came up with it, then hunting mammoths and killing each other became increasingly possible to the point of certainty.In the context of the four scenarios outlined, it's a case of making an active effort to prevent someone holding all the sticks.
I've picked up the frase book, and it's quite interesting, and well worth reading (it's short, more of a pamphklet, really).Just to pick out one thing I want to drill into a bit more: with the Communist Utopia it describes, the book suggests Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a mechanism for the rapid abolition of buying and selling. The argument runs, as the UBI is raised, labour becomes scarce, and leisure time abundant: capitalists will spare labour, and invest in labour saving technology, while the free time of workers becomes redirected to servicing communal needs.There is some justice in this idea: to take a Marxian model, dividing economic activity into Surplus Value (S), Constant Capital (C) and Wages (V):S/V is the rate of exploitationS/(C+V) is the rate of profit.It is possible to increase V at the expense of S, but this drives the rate of profit down. However, if V increases at the expense of C it is possible for the rate of exploitation to fall, while holding up the rate of profit: E.g.|S=33||V=33||C=33||S/V = 100%| |S/C+V = 50%| > |S=33||V=43| |C = 23||S/V=77%| |S/C+V=50%| This gives us a plausible model (beyond Socialists win election and proclaim socialism) of how the abolition of commodity relations could be managed as a rolling programme.A socialist majority throuigh political action could institute UBI and a deliberate programme of cheapening productive capital (an attack on rent seaking, strategic nationalisation, subsidies, etc.), so long as it was clear in advance that this was not an end in itself, but a means ot achieve the socialistic goal, it would work. With the added advantage that such moves would divide the capitaalist class, as some would benefit while others lost out.In this version, our standard critique, that wages paid directly would fall as employers compensated for the living costs of UBI, would actually work in its favour, as it would keep those capitalists still in business running, and aid labour intensive industries.It would enable a decentralised change to a new society, without having to go through central planning.4350%
i I think it is a bit more ‘complicated’ than that. C is raw materials. So if we took a simplified ‘example’ car manufacturers might use steel as a raw material. If we suppose it takes the same amount of steel to make a car as it did 50 years ago we could expect the value of the steel to be lower now and thus C would be lower and therefore c/v lower? However in modern car manufacturing fewer workers or less v work with the same amount of steel. So whilst they are operating from slightly different causes and might not be necessarily changing in tandem as we progress. C drops because of higher productivity and thus lowering of value of the steel. V also drops due to increased productivity in assembling steel into cars. Or the ratio of workers wages [value] to the steel [value] they work with; hypothetical can remain the same. The non raw material fixed capital, machines and plant , which is falsely left out, inexorably rises. Thus Fx/v rises. Depressing P’. You could argue that the value of fixed capital should fall with increased productivity in the fixed capital sphere of production. {This is an interesting point; so for instance recently, 12 months ago they, chemists and engineers have developed a much better more energy efficient, amongst other things method to extract platinum from ore. So that is going to have a catastrophic effect on Platinum prices which was quite energy dependent. Actually it was correctly anticipated that Platinum prices would rise as more productive mines became exhausted. But these things happen.} But I guess you have three interdependent ‘simultaneous equations’, as we mathematicians call them. There is stuff being made for workers, or humans if you include the consumption fund of the capitalist class [1] According to Karl, stuff being made as raw materials [2] He drops [3] which you would have thought is the most obvious is the production of fixed capital; roads, machines, water supply, electricity pylons, railway bridges etc etc. Which just grows and grows and is in your face everywhere. When they had gold money there was a [4] as well which was production of the money commodity. That absorbed labour time as well. You could counter argument Rosa by saying that the gold miners consumed the surplus value of the ordinary manufacturing produced and couldn’t by back. The gold miners had to be fed and watered to produce gold money which the capitalists could hoard instead of using it to expand production by making more coats and linen. [4] is interesting now with fiat money and Federal reserve QE low cost or zero cost electronic and inexhaustible green paper mine. So the manufacturing capitalist class are exchanging their real surplus value for something that has no value and hoarding it thinking that it has. Which must be a good game.
Young Master Smeet wrote:I've picked up the frase book, and it's quite interesting, and well worth reading (it's short, more of a pamphklet, really).Just to pick out one thing I want to drill into a bit more: with the Communist Utopia it describes, the book suggests Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a mechanism for the rapid abolition of buying and selling. The argument runs, as the UBI is raised, labour becomes scarce, and leisure time abundant: capitalists will spare labour, and invest in labour saving technology, while the free time of workers becomes redirected to servicing communal needs.(…)This gives us a plausible model (beyond Socialists win election and proclaim socialism) of how the abolition of commodity relations could be managed as a rolling programme.A socialist majority throuigh political action could institute UBI and a deliberate programme of cheapening productive capital (an attack on rent seaking, strategic nationalisation, subsidies, etc.), so long as it was clear in advance that this was not an end in itself, but a means ot achieve the socialistic goal, it would work. With the added advantage that such moves would divide the capitaalist class, as some would benefit while others lost out.In this version, our standard critique, that wages paid directly would fall as employers compensated for the living costs of UBI, would actually work in its favour, as it would keep those capitalists still in business running, and aid labour intensive industries.It would enable a decentralised change to a new society, without having to go through central planning.Peter Joseph of Zeitgeist has suggested a similar idea. A standard objection would be it would be just as difficult to convince a majority to support such a course as to convince them to go the whole hog and establish socialism straightaway.Also, others such as Ernst Mandel in his book on Marxian Economics have suggested other economic mechanisms to bring about "the withering away of commodity production" and money. The trouble is that these assumes the existence side by side of a capitalist (producing for the market, and profit, and employing wage-labour) and a socialist sector (producing direcctly for use) of the economy, which couldn't work.
Dave,Raw materials are a good example. So, the state effectively seizes the rental value of iron ore and coal (lets say through nationalisation rather than taxation), and so sells them at cost (no mark-upo for profit) to a steel manufacturer. This depresses C, however, due to the tight labour market created by UBI (plus the taxes on profits that would have to accompany it), the steel maker has to pay higher wages: my model above, whilst preserving rate of profit actually showed a marked decrease in labour productivity, this would be true, ceteris paribus, of any situation of raising wages. The push then is for the employer to try and spare capital to achieve a higher rate of profit.Adam,agreed, which is why my point was that UBI only works if people are both first convinced of the need to abolish commodity relations, and are in political position to it, but need to visualise a mechanism of how they can go about making that change.
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