The singularity and socialism
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It is a pity this discussion has become a little bogged down in bristling antagonisms on both sides and quite unnecessarily. It is not reasonable to expect people to first read the book in its entirety and doing the" in depth mental work" first before being entitled to ask questions. Questioning is part of the process of mental work from the word go, leading to greater understanding. At the same time, it is important not to just jump on the author and take up a dismissive attitude for whatever reason. One should cut him a bit of slack and let him elaborate and develop his theme. I will say straightaway that I haven't read the book though I hope to at some point if I can get my hands on it. So my views on the subject are fairly provisional and tentative. Its seems to me that the author belongs to the camp of technological optimists in which the development of science and technology is portrayed as the only real driving force in social evolution which is pushing us Willy Nilly towards an "age of abundance" and, thus, the long awaited transcendence of market capitalism. The author is not alone in propounding this theme; he mentions a few others like Desai and Jeremy Rifkin of "Zero Marginal Cost" fame. There is also Paul Mason and his Postcapitalism which was discussed on this forum here http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/paiil-mason-proper-thread-his-book What worries me about this whole approach is its underlying technological determinism and the presumption that technology is some sort of independent variable or neutral force that pushes society, albeit kicking and screaming, in a given direction. But science and technology are never neutral, they have always been informed and shaped by social values which derive from the kind of society in which we live. It puzzles me this basic argument – that a post capitalist society of abundance is going to somehow materialise, as it were, behind our backs without us having to undergo a conscious (and political) evolution to bring it into being. I struggle to understand the mechanism by which these technological determinists contend this transformation will take place. It seems to me to be based on nothing more than an unwarranted extrapolation of cost reducing trends brought about by technological advances under conditions of market competiton. But this does not seem to take into account countervailing forces that work to retain the status quo and necessitate the very thing that is here being downplayed – a change in consciousness in order to bring about a post capitalist society I'm skeptical of this whole meme of the technological optimists that technology is driving us towards a system of zero marginal costs. There can be such thing as a costless society; costs in this sense are opportunity costs which will always be with us in a world in which we always have to make choices and forego alternative uses for resources. There is also the whole problem of externalities – the externalisation of costs on others be this society in general or the environment which is being ravaged in the pursuit if profit. From that point of view it could be argued that costs are rising not falling. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that a small minority in capitalism own and control the means of production and they are not going to relinquish this without stiff resistance. Nor are they going to sign their own death warrant as a class by permitting these developments to reach a point at which the profit system is fatally undermined. Rather they will use their ownership and control of means of production to ensure that these developments will ultimately serve them The thing is , and I think this where Cjames1961 and the technological optimists-cum-cornucopians go wrong – repudiating this rather mechanistic view of social transformation which underlies their worldview, does not have to mean repudiating technological progress itself. Opposition to technological determinism does not translate into Luddism and embracing the reactionary romantic conservatism of old fashioned guild socialism. The case for a post capitalist or socialist society rests at least in part on awareness of the discrepancy between the huge potential that modern technology offers and the actual application of this technology for the benefit of humankind. This discrepancy is not going to magicked out of existence, merely by the further development of technology itself. It will require a social revolution, a sea change in consciousness leading to a change in the very organisation of society itself, to close this gap This, I'm afraid is preisely what the technological determinists overlook
I still welcome the fact of the term, 'post-capitalism' entering into the social discourse. It is one of my favourite starting points for a discussion about the new society and the meaning of common ownership.
I think I would like to say that I agree in spirit with Robbo, as I often seem to to. I think when it come to orthodox Marxist theory from the early 20th century the ‘non political’ idea or purely materialist idea or whatever was; Eg Lenin Let capitalism rip as that would provide the technological potential for abundance and populate the world with dispossessed wage workers and get rid of reactionary petty bourgeoisie simple commodity producers and the ‘middle class’, aristocracy of labour, with little shop keeper ideology like Margaret Thatcher etc etc. People like ex Reaganite Paul Craig Roberts is constantly moaning on about the demise of the American middle class ‘wage levels’. The capitalist class have their own equalising version of ‘from each according to natural ability and to each according to need’ which is get as much work out of everyone as possible and pay them the same. And homogenise all the workers, the nirvana being when doctors are remunerated at the same ‘low’ level as refuse workers and the guy that cleans your pool. That is perhaps a bit of an idealised albeit I think shared perspective from both the capitalist class and high Marxist theory. I think Marxist theory like Hegelianism is mostly about trend analysis or extrapolation? I am a pure scientist so extrapolation is mostly bonkers for us but we are familiar with the utility of the concept, a bit. Or seeing what direction society is moving in and crystal ball gazing? The validity of the method in general can perhaps be looked at in terms of dystopian fiction like NSA electronic survielannce, Orwell’s 1984 and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? I think when it comes to consciousness, in the early 20th century or late 19th or whatever, our Marxists thought mostly that consciousness was some sort of amalgam of feudal throwbacks, simple commodity petty bourgeois property rights and intellectually challenged straw sucking redneck Hillbillies. Lenin in analysing it called it intellectual ‘torpor’ and that the industrial working classes economic conditions provided, they hoped, the potential material base for a mass autodidactic renaissance of enlightenment. I think maybe it did happen in Europe, and according to Chomksy in NW USA, from circa 1880 -1920 when the capitalist class took their eye off the ball when it came to thought control. All the seminal capitalists intellectual works on that were done post 1920’s. I do think we have a new revolution as regards that, which is the internet.
There is quite a useful discussion on the nature of technological determinism which is I believe the position adopted by the author of this book on singularity and socialism. See here https://communicationista.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/technological-determinism-vs-social-construction-of-technology/ Apropos the claim that the development of science and technology is THE fundamental driving force that is pushing us towards a "zero marginal cost" society, it might be worth mentioning that there is another school of thought which has emerged in recent years that takes a more pessimistic view in this regard – namely that technological progress has of late begun to display distinct signs of diminishing returnsBenjamin Wallace-Wells, a leading figure in the "declinist" school of thought, has mooted the idea that the progress of the past 250 years,driven by successive industrial revolutions , may have been a "unique period in human history.” As he put it in an article in the New York Magazine: "At some point in the late sixties or early seventies, this great acceleration began to taper off … The rate at which life is improving here, on the frontier of human well-being, has slowed. ("The Blip", New York Magazine, Jul 21, 2013). Similarly, Peter Thiel in his essay “The End of the Future”argues: "Technological progress has fallen short in many domains… While innovation in medicine and biotechnology has not stalled completely, here too signs of slowed progress and reduced expectations abound… By default, computers have become the single great hope for the technological future. (“The End of the Future”, National Review online, October 3, 2011) Thiel provides some interesting examples to back up his thesis – such as the rate of increase in the speed of travel. So, for instance, the decision to scrap supersonic flight in the shape of Concorde and the implementation of elaborate security measures in wake of 9/11 have served to slow down air travel considerably by comparison with just a few years back Of course, this does not exactly demonstrate some immanent trend at work within the process of technological innovation and discovery itself – after all, corporations continue to invest massively in R and D – but merely underscores the fact that technological innovation does not happen in isolation from other developments in society. But if the "declinist" thesis is correct what might that mean for the future of capitalism? The expansionist logic of capital imposes itself upon economic actors the injunction "grow or die". If we what we are witnessing is, indeed, the long term slowing down in the pace of technological innovation and its impact on society does this signify a system that is now on its knees and awaiting its imminent demise at the hands of its executioner – Fate? I don't think so. I think part of the misunderstanding arises from a tendency to conflate technological progress with economic growth itself. Technological progress aids the latter but it does not entirely account for the latter which can decline despite such technological progress This is precisely the point behind the " falling rate of profit" thesis – increasing capital intensity associated with technological development by changing the organic composition of capital impacts detrimentally on the rate of profit. But then nor does economic growth necessarily signify the "rate at which life is improving" which is to mistakenly assume that the purpose or effect of increased investment is to directly meet human needs as such and so enhance human wellbeing. That does not necessarily follow. The connection between economic growth and quality of life is tenuous and in some cases inversely related
OK, I have now had the opportunity to finally look at the book written by Cjames1961 . It is clear to me that he considers Mises et al to have won the socialist calculation debate "hands down" against the advocates of "central planning" and that this is the baseline argument he falls back upon in his critique of socialism – or at least of the socialist view of how to move forward. Unfortunately for him and so many others similarly draw to this conclusion, the assumption that socialism equates with society-wide central planning simply does not hold water and that it is only by recognising the possibility that socialism could indeed operate on a relatively decentralised and self regulating basis that you can even begin to see where the whole Misesian premiss goes seriously wrong.So I invite Cjames1961 to defend this position of his on this forum. The basic supposition he is making here is key to understanding why some of the other claims he is making fail to convince.
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