Ours to Master

[Richard]

I've only read a few of these articles but they seem fairly good. In general they cover the relationship between technology and society. The magazine is a US socialist publication.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/issue/ours-to-master/

"Red Innovation" is the best of the articles I've read so far. The author pulls apart the myth that technological progress must be based on a capitalist economic system; in fact, capitalism may be a hinderance to greater technological development. It's worth the read!

[SocialistPunk]

Hi Richard,The "Red Innovation" article is very interesting.How many of us realised that so much of the technology we take for granted today, was actually state funded.So much for the favourite complaint of the "right wing" about too much State intervention in the marketplace.

[Richard]

True enough, SocialistPunk!Capitalists use publicly funded organizations to get their long-term R&D done; all that they're interested in is producing something that they can sell to make a profit (an F-35, an iPhone, it's all the same). Scientific research is necessary but it's something that they can outsource to government run agencies or universities that are largely maintained through public funds. I guess the bottom line for corporations is that State intervention in the "market" is a bad thing while State intervention in scientific research is a good thing because it shifts the expense of scientific research onto the public.

[Anonymous]

Richard wrote:

…….while State intervention in scientific research is a good thing because it shifts the expense of scientific research onto the public.

No, it spreads the burden of this expense across the capitalist class as a whole.

[Richard]

gnome wrote:

No, it spreads the burden of this expense across the capitalist class as a whole.

I suppose that depends on your definition of "the capitalist class". Is someone who sells their labour, owes money on a mortgage, a credit card and a car loan a part of the capitalist class? Is someone whose ability to earn a living is dependent in large part on the whims of large corporations a capitalist? We may live in a capitalist society but that doesn't mean that everyone in our society is a capitalist. This is especially true in a corporate capitalist society.Money paid in taxes by the general public, by the working people, is money meant for public projects: public transit, healthcare, the social safety net, infrastructure, etc. Corporations sponge off the public purse by shifting the expense of scientific research to publicly funded agencies and then appropriating the results of that basic scientific research to develop consumer goodies that earn them a profit but often don't have much social benefit. Basic scientific research is not all that profitable and so corporations make minimal investment in research.This is to be expected in a society in which the government answers to corporate lobbyists and not to the voters.

[Anonymous]

Richard wrote:

gnome wrote:

No, it spreads the burden of this expense across the capitalist class as a whole.

I suppose that depends on your definition of "the capitalist class".

The capitalist class is comprised of those individuals who, because they possess the means of production and distribution, whether in the form of legal property rights of individuals backed by the state or collectively as a bureaucracy through the state, do not need to work and live on privileged income derived from surplus value produced by the working class. The capitalists personally need not – and mostly do not – get involved in the process of production. Social production is carried on by capitalist enterprises which are overwhelmingly comprised of members of the working class who have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live.

Quote:

Money paid in taxes by the general public, by the working people, is money meant for public projects: public transit, healthcare, the social safety net, infrastructure, etc. Corporations sponge off the public purse by shifting the expense of scientific research to publicly funded agencies and then appropriating the results of that basic scientific research to develop consumer goodies that earn them a profit but often don't have much social benefit. Basic scientific research is not all that profitable and so corporations make minimal investment in research.This is to be expected in a society in which the government answers to corporate lobbyists and not to the voters.

True up to a point but it should be remembered that in the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class only. Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Furthermore, it is in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position – though of course that doesn’t stop them complaining about the cost and demanding cuts in its running charges. Rises in tax (direct and indirect), by increasing the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are generally passed on, through the operation of market forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages and salaries. However, this process is not automatic or inevitable: workers have to struggle for higher wages and salaries.

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

The capitalist class is comprised of those individuals who, because they possess the means of production and distribution, whether in the form of legal property rights of individuals backed by the state or collectively as a bureaucracy through the state, do not need to work and live on privileged income derived from surplus value produced by the working class. The capitalists personally need not – and mostly do not – get involved in the process of production. Social production is carried on by capitalist enterprises which are overwhelmingly comprised of members of the working class who have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live..

 To back up this might I recommend"The Rise of the Working Poor and the Non-Working Rich"http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29395-the-rise-of-the-working-poor-and-the-non-working-rich

[Richard]

 

gnome wrote:

The capitalist class is comprised of those individuals who, because they possess the means of production and distribution, whether in the form of legal property rights of individuals backed by the state or collectively as a bureaucracy through the state, do not need to work and live on privileged income derived from surplus value produced by the working class. The capitalists personally need not – and mostly do not – get involved in the process of production. Social production is carried on by capitalist enterprises which are overwhelmingly comprised of members of the working class who have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live.

1.) Could you please define "social production"? How is this different from production for private profit? What is the social value of an existing drug simply remarketed as a "new" treatment for a different medical condition? Drug companies often do this to save money on research and to increase profits coming from an existing product; it's pure marketing.2.) There is a large pool of CEOs who simply move from one corporation to another collecting large incomes and bonuses based on the mental energy that they sell (albeit at grossly inflated rates). Your definition as given above would make these CEOs members of the working class. Is the managerial class a part of the working class? 

gnome wrote:

…in the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class only.

I don't understand what you mean here. In the long run taxes are less of a burden on the capitalist class due to tax loopholes for individuals and corporations. The wealthy lobby for lower income tax rates on the highest marginal income brackets as well as lower tax rates on passive income such as investment income. In the long run, they play while we pay.

gnome wrote:

Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Furthermore, it is in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position – though of course that doesn’t stop them complaining about the cost and demanding cuts in its running charges.

Agreed that it is obviously in the interests of the capitalists to maintain as much control of the state as they can, however that control is not absolute and the state does maintain some autonomy and is responsive to public pressure. Corporations realise this and avail themselves of the research done by the state at public expense. They sponge off publicly-funded scientific research.

gnome wrote:

Rises in tax (direct and indirect), by increasing the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are generally passed on, through the operation of market forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages and salaries.

Okay, you've lost me on this point.  Please understand that I'm not trying to be difficult. I think we're approaching these issues from different but not entirely discordant directions.

[Anonymous]

Richard wrote:

1.) Could you please define "social production"?

Modern production is social in character, the wealth produced is by the common effort of the whole of society, but it is not owned in common; it remains the private property of a few.

Richard wrote:

2.) Is the managerial class a part of the working class?

Yes, providing those individuals who are managers do not possess sufficient means to enable them to live without selling themselves for a wage or salary to an employer.

gnome wrote:

…in the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class only.

Richard wrote:

I don't understand what you mean here. In the long run taxes are less of a burden on the capitalist class due to tax loopholes for individuals and corporations. The wealthy lobby for lower income tax rates on the highest marginal income brackets as well as lower tax rates on passive income such as investment income. In the long run, they play while we pay.

gnome wrote:

Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Furthermore, it is in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position – though of course that doesn’t stop them complaining about the cost and demanding cuts in its running charges.

Richard wrote:

Agreed that it is obviously in the interests of the capitalists to maintain as much control of the state as they can, however that control is not absolute and the state does maintain some autonomy and is responsive to public pressure. Corporations realise this and avail themselves of the research done by the state at public expense. They sponge off publicly-funded scientific research.

gnome wrote:

Rises in tax (direct and indirect), by increasing the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are generally passed on, through the operation of market forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages and salaries.

Okay, you've lost me on this point.

Marx wrote:

If all taxes which bear on the working class were abolished root and branch, the necessary consequence would be the reduction of wages by the whole amount of taxes which goes into them. Either the employers' profit would rise as a direct consequence by the same quantity, or else no more than an alteration in the form of tax-collecting would have.  Our argument is that although some taxes are paid by the working class, the burden of taxation rests on the capitalists and has to be paid out of the profit accruing to them in the form of rent, interest and profit, the basis of which is the unpaid labour. Criticism and Critical Morality (Marx and Engels Collected Works—Volume 6.)

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-myth

[Richard]

gnome wrote:

Modern production is social in character, the wealth produced is by the common effort of the whole of society, but it is not owned in common; it remains the private property of a few.

Okay, understood.

gnome wrote:

Yes, providing those individuals who are managers do not possess sufficient means to enable them to live without selling themselves for a wage or salary to an employer.

Fair enough, although that means there must be a fairly arbitrary cut off point between working class and capitalist.

gnome wrote:

Marx wrote:

If all taxes which bear on the working class were abolished root and branch, the necessary consequence would be the reduction of wages by the whole amount of taxes which goes into them. Either the employers' profit would rise as a direct consequence by the same quantity, or else no more than an alteration in the form of tax-collecting would have.  Our argument is that although some taxes are paid by the working class, the burden of taxation rests on the capitalists and has to be paid out of the profit accruing to them in the form of rent, interest and profit, the basis of which is the unpaid labour. Criticism and Critical Morality (Marx and Engels Collected Works—Volume 6.)

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-myth

Thanks for the link. I've read the article on "The Taxation Myth" as well as the article on "Where Do Profits Come From?" and I think I understand. Although I still have some questions.The article on taxation states: "The worker's wage, remember, is the price of his or her labour power, which, all other things being equal, will tend to gravitate around the 150 mark in this instance, which is the real sum received all along". Why will it gravitate around the 150 mark? In this age of globalisation a corporation can move to a lower-wage labour market or even bring in foreign workers to replace indigenous labour (this has happened more than once recently in Canada). Marx was writing well over one hundred years ago, did he take into account (could he have taken into account) the rise of global capital able to move quickly to exploit differences in labour costs?There are some good articles on this site and I look forward to reading more!

[LBird]

Richard wrote:

Fair enough, although that means there must be a fairly arbitrary cut off point between working class and capitalist.

One thing you should bear in mind, Richard, is that ‘class analysis’ (ie., including the identification of ‘workers’ and ‘capitalists’) is not concerned with placing every individual in a ‘perfect category’. In the sense meant by non-Marxists, this will appear ‘fairly arbitrary’, because non-Marxists tend to have an ‘individualist’ perspective, and so are far more concerned with identifying the ‘cut off point’ between which every individual can be placed.I’m not sure of your views about Marx and class analysis, but if you do not share those views, it’s important not to misunderstand what’s being said. You can disagree, of course, whilst still understanding why this ‘fairly arbitrary cut off point’ is perfectly acceptable and not a problem for Marxists, even if it isn’t acceptable for liberals, for example.The best way that I’ve thought of explaining this is by analogy to a colour spectrum. No rainbow has clearly defined ‘cut off points’ between its various colours: there are zones of blurring of adjacent colours. If one is concerned to accurately specify every particle of colour, then one has a problem, because there are numerous ‘mixed colours’ outside of the seven core colours, which we regard as making up a rainbow. But if one is merely concerned, for one’s purposes, to identify the seven colours, to teach what a rainbow is, then this is sufficient.In the same sense, if one is concerned with indentifying every individual’s class category, for one’s own reasons, then the ‘fairly arbitrary cut off points’ of Marxists are, well, fairly arbitrary and so unscientific and useless. But, if one is concerned, as a Marxist, to understand the dynamics of a class society, these ‘fairly arbitrary cut off points’ are perfectly acceptable, because the blurring of individuals' positions does not prevent us from understanding the society, which is like a spectrum.The placing of individuals within the categories of ‘working class and capitalists’ is not an important concern, rather the understanding of the relationship between these two ‘colours’ is our concern.As I’ve said, you can disagree that this is acceptable in helping to analyse society, but you can still come to understand the difference in these two approaches, the ‘individualist/pointillist’ versus the ‘society/spectrumist’, in understanding ‘classes/colours’.Hope this helps.

[SocialistPunk]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-myth

Quote:

In recent years many politicians have argued that if income tax is reduced "we will all be better off". However, this is incorrect and can be demonstrated to be so with a simple example. Say a worker's nominal wages are 200 a week, 50 of which is taken in income tax. If the income tax rate was halved and the amount taken in tax was reduced from 50 to, then Conservatives would presumably argue this would lead to an automatic rise in the worker's take home wages from 150 to 175, thereby making him or her "better off". But this is not what will happen in reality. The worker's wage, remember, is the price of his or her labour power, which, all other things being equal, will tend to gravitate around the 150 mark in this instance, which is the real sum received all along. The 'benefit' from the tax cut goes to the employer. If the situation was reversed and the income tax rate was doubled, the 'nominal' wage would then have to rise from 200 to 250 if take home pay was to remain around 150. The increase in this case would be borne entirely by the employer and would come out of surplus value.

The bit I've higlighted suggests the capitalist employer would reduce the wages of the employee to keep the wages around the 150 mark, though it doesn't actually explicitly state it. "tend to gravitate" is the term used. However the opposite example does state that wages "would then have to rise".I was wondering if any examples exist to show that tax cuts for the working class lead to direct wage reductions. Examples of this would be very helpful in explaining this idea, as simply saying it without any examples proves little. 

[SocialistPunk]

Come on people!I'm asking for some proof here. What's the point in roping in taxation from a Marxist viewpoint, if there is no evidence?Simple question. Does the reduction in taxation in the pay packet of the average worker, result in a pay reduction from the capitalist class in a rebalancing of their profits? No theory, evidence please.If my thinking is confused here, tell me. Please, put me in the picture. This is a place of learning isn't it? 

[robbo203]

Richard wrote:

2.) There is a large pool of CEOs who simply move from one corporation to another collecting large incomes and bonuses based on the mental energy that they sell (albeit at grossly inflated rates). Your definition as given above would make these CEOs members of the working class. Is the managerial class a part of the working class?

 Hi Richard I think it is important to understand that the notion of  "class" in the Marxian sense is an abstraction  and that, in reality, there is a grey area where one class shades into the other.  Some in the managerial "class" occupy this grey area  but many do not.  Lower and middle level management tend to be unequivocally working class albeit relatively well paid members of the working class.  The top CEOs, on the other hand, with so called "compensation packages" running in multiple millions of dollars per year tend to be unequivocally members of the capitalist class albeit on the lower rungs of that class. Increasingly their income and wealth is derived from exercising their share options as opposed to their supposed labour contributions. Here are a few facts derived from this site http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/ :Average CEO compensation was $15.2 million in 2013, using a comprehensive measure of CEO pay that covers CEOs of the top 350 U.S. firms and includes the value of stock options exercised in a given year, up 2.8 percent since 2012 and 21.7 percent since 2010.Longer-term trends in CEO compensation:From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, increased 937 percent, a rise more than double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation over the same period.The CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 29.9-to-1 in 1978, grew to 122.6-to-1 in 1995, peaked at 383.4-to-1 in 2000, and was 295.9-to-1 in 2013, far higher than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.If Facebook, which we exclude from our data due to its outlier high compensation numbers, were included in the sample, average CEO pay was $24.8 million in 2013, and the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 510.7-to-1.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

I think it is important to understand that the notion of  "class" in the Marxian sense is an abstraction  and that, in reality, there is a grey area where one class shades into the other.

Yeah, the Marxian perspective on 'class' has nothing whatsoever to do with 'placing every individual' in an 'individualist schema' of society.It is an approach to understanding, describing, criticising and analysing a society, at the level of a society.A society is not a collection of individuals. It is more than the sum of its parts.Marxian 'class' is nothing to do with individuals, their pay, their income level, their accents, their clothes, their habits, their education, or their cultural views. It is nothing to do with 'appearances', that can be easily seen.'Class' is a social relationship, a relationship of exploitation.It presumes exploitation at the societel level.If someone doesn't share that presumption, they will not agree with 'class analysis'. Other factors, rather than discussing 'class', will have to intervene, to bring people to that presumption.If someone is looking to place individuals in a comprehensive ladder of appearances, 'class' is of no use.They are better employing 'status', which liberal sociology often mistakenly identifies with 'class'. This is why some people think 'class' is about accents, clothes, attitudes, whippets, keeping pidgeons, going to the opera and ballet, speaking posh or rough, etc.

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