Dave B
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To have socialism or full communism you need two things.
1] A highly developed means of production and technology etc capable of producing sufficient abundance given expectations at the time etc with minimal effort.
2] And a communist consciousness; wherever that might come from.
If you just extrapolate 1] forward, for example, you may arrive at a situation where for instance 5 hours work a week is enough to satisfy everyone’s needs.
Then the cramping, restrictive and chaotic organization of production on a for profit system becomes increasing absurd and stupid and the communist alternative more rational.
As with Star Trek the next generation.
Thus communist consciousness isn’t even really that.
In that case it is just material egotism.
Or it is just better for me.
There is a kind moral dimension to communism even if some don’t see it like that but others do and have done.
There are obvious problems with 1].
First is that capitalism keeps expanding on what is necessary or to satisfy everyone’s needs.
In the western world advertising etc keeps on convincing us that we need more and more stuff like private swimming pools and boats and all the rest.
Actually taken as a whole the life style of fairly well paid workers in the ‘West’ is probably materially better than that of the capitalist class 100 years ago.
I wouldn’t exchange places with a member of the capitalist class from 100 years ago.
All they had that I don’t is maybe really big houses and flunkies to do the housework.
But with ‘us’ now more never seems to be enough.
At the other end of $10 a day or a lot less ie the vast majority of the world population they actually don’t want anymore than could be provided.
It is quite humbling to listen to their dreams and aspirations.
I think that world communism would have been a challenge 100 years ago or even 50 years ago.
I think it is only in the last 30 years or so that it has started to be more technologically feasible.
I think most have little idea what has changed so much in the last 30 years in manufacturing over that period with the introduction of robots into production.
There are probably a few more technological ‘breakthroughs’ required that are in fact ongoing
eg cheap solar power that is cracking along with material chemists.
And electricity Super-conducting materials that are surging forward.
The downside has been the anti-communist ideological brain washing power of the modern technological media.
But they are beginning to loose control of that as well with the internet and twitter etc.
They are fighting back of course.
Like they did when the bible was translated into English and printed; it was one of the first cases of mass book burning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndale_Bible
They at least understood the potentially seditious stuff in it about the rich having as much chance of getting into heaven as a jumbo jet flying through a keyhole.
But they eventually did just rework that again like Stalin did with Marxism.
Anti communist ideology can survive in other forms where sort of ruthless competition and the consequences of failure and success brings out the ‘best’ of us and pushes us to realize our full potential etc.
Eg Nietzsche.
He can be hardwork as he spends a lot of time attacking other philosophers and thus you need a background in that to follow it.
However I thought this following was a good wrap up of his ideas?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antichrist_(book)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19322/19322-h/19322-h.htm
thus he says that;
What is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge.—The anarchist [by which he meant us, or libertarian communism]
and the Christian have the same <u>ancestry</u>….
Which is true after a fashion.
We just want to put the ruling class up against the wall or guillotine them or something.
The Early Christians were more vicious and wanted then to burn for eternity whilst spitting on them to relieve their suffering.
There was an interesting article today as linked below.
It could have in fact gone onto the ‘anti-semitism’, social media or socialism overnight thread.
Maybe she has been reading our forum.
But I think I will put it here as L bird is obviously derailing threads again with his claptrap.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50532.htm
As it was touched on before?
Re socialism before the full development of the productive forces and technology; thus capitalism.
I will include a ‘Schoolboy stupidity!’ quote from Karl.
………..Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people………..
………. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level […] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution….
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
As background it was and still is to some extent the Anarchist position that the ‘Marxist’ stagiest position of the necessity for the full development of capitalism; and thus the development of means of production and technology is a load of bollocks.
It was also the left SR position circa 1917 etc.
It presented a bit of problem for the Marxists and Marx circa 1875 or whatever when the stuff about the communistic Mir stuff seeped out of Russia.
It wasn’t straightforward getting that kind of ‘anthropological’ data out of Tsarist Russia at the time.
The proposition was that they were already communists as I suppose the Kalahari bushmen etc are now; as where the then more contemporary Christian Shakers.
Or the Scottish saint Kilda anarcho-syndicalist commune on saint Kilda in the 1920’s
The example Christian Shakers were widely used as an example of ‘communism’ in the 19<sup>th</sup> century.
They all have there own associated and definitely non Marxist ideology and culture etc.
As did the Early Christians?
The Marxist position was that once the labouring classes were completely dispossessed of the means of an independent livelihood and reduced to wage slavery for the owning class.
And dreams of self employed Little House on the Prairie of making your stuff and selling has gone down the toilet.
That is unfolding in dramatic style in India at the moment.
[There are still lots of first generation south east Asians over here sinking ‘remittance’ wages from working in capitalist boiler making factories into lame duck 10 Acre farms in the Punjab for instance.]
There was nothing left but to collectively re-appropriate it all and start something new.
Actually in 1905 Lenin prophesised his own disgrace.
He said that if people attempted to try and make some-kind of ‘socialist’ experiment in Russia they would make twits of themselves.
It was obviously then a pop at the left SR’s, the Anarchists and the novel Trotsky permanent revolution thing;
….. If Social-Democracy [ ie the Bolsheviks] sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim, it would assuredly discredit itself. It is precisely such vague and hazy ideas of our “Socialists—Revolutionaries” that Social-Democracy has always combated.
For this reason Social-Democracy [Bolshevism] has constantly stressed the bourgeois nature of the impending revolution in Russia and insisted on a clear line of demarcation between the democratic minimum programme and the socialist maximum programme.
Some Social-Democrats, [ …Trotsky…] who are inclined to yield to spontaneity, might forget all this in time of revolution, but not the Party as a whole. The adherents of this erroneous view make an idol of spontaneity in their belief that the march of events will compel the Social-Democratic Party in such a position to set about achieving the socialist revolution, despite itself. …….
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm
Lenin’s novel twist of introducing ‘socialistic’ state capitalism in 1918 was just a ‘formal’ variation on the content of the formerly disgraceful ideology of others.
The Mensheviks made much of that Lenin quote later and translated it as disgrace.
They didn’t seem to forget much.
They had the leftwing populism thing as well.
It was reassuring to me that I didn’t seem to have missed much when ploughing through the Lenin archive after reading some rare Menshevik material from the 1930’s.
I was never sure whether or not I had skipped over some important stuff as I read most of it half pissed of the internet in a chaotic fashion.
I think party members who finance the Guardian Newspaper should be expelled.
And all L Birds contributions should be moved to a special Peer Gynt/ Bishop Berkeley L Bird Truth and materialism thread.
I am hacked off with his shit and responses cluttering up otherwise potentially interesting threads.
I think when it comes to RT news Al jazerra and the Iranian Press TV it is sensible to pay close attention to all three as well as our own Western Media.
As Karl recommended?
It is an old English proverb that “when thieves fall out, honest men come by their own,” and, in fact, the noisy, passionate quarrel between the two fractions of the ruling class about the question, which of the two exploited the labourers the more shamefully, was on each hand the midwife of the truth.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm
Re RT news, for example, there is a hazard of falling into the trap of an enemy of an enemy is a friend and overlooking the operations and interests of the Russian capitalism and its state run media outlets.
However stuff appears on it, like Lee Camps “Redacted Tonight” which is extremely radical and off our kind of page really. And the kind of material that you won’t find anywhere on western originated terrestrial TV.
And there is stuff like ‘Going Underground’ which is a bit more like far left whining but still not the stuff on our air waves.
In things like ‘Cross Talk’ it also discusses issues with a kind of panel that likes to get people with radical opposing views on it.
Which goes beyond the normal short sound-bite stuff on western media.
And the patsy and puff-ball questions you get on BBC question time.
Lavalle who does ‘Cross Talk’ is a bit of a ‘conservative’.
Offcom and its political masters obviously want shut down RT news like they did with Press TV.
So RT news have to go over the top with balanced reporting to dodge that bullet.
So you get the ‘anchors’, when interviewing people with other opinions, putting questions from within the framework of the standard western narrative.
And leftist gorgeous George Galloway in his Sputnik programme has to act as if he is ‘treading on egg shells’ when deal with some stuff.
It will also do some quite excellent stand alone documentaries, many on shitty things for the working class in the US; I suppose it might not all be bias as a topic anymore than just an extensive subject.
There is plenty of crap like ‘Boom and Bust’ and Max Kaiser (which is entertaining from an insider ‘anarcho-capitalist’ perspective) but you pick useful stuff up from them as well.
These anti fiat paper money people can be a useful resource.
There was an interesting article below on control of mainstream media etc.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50438.htm
A recent major survey indicated that about 50% of the population in UK, Europe and the US did not trust the mainstream narrative on Russia.
Which was quite an astonishing number as we are obviously being ‘groomed’ for a potential escalating conflict or war.
I personally from my own contacts find it quite variable.
So you can get these older self described intellectual Guardian readers and BBC watchers who think Putin is a monster etc.
And ordinary online tweeting working class blockheads who think it is all a pile of shit.
But stuff flies around if it is ‘amusing’ enough.
Thus?
And Our Skripal Assassin’s were gay lovers [ still a problem in Russia- they are still about 40 years behind us on that kind of thing] involved in the murky world of peddling growth hormones and steroids.
Probably lured to Salisbury on a fake deal.
The ‘content’ of conspiracy theories is a deep cynicism of what our masters portray as the truth through the mainstream media.
That is healthy.
It is obviously susceptible to being poisoned by more outrageous claims.
This so called “Darwinian” view was not in fact the view of Darwin at all as regards ‘man’.
As this ‘moral sense’ and ‘conscience’ will causes a lot of buttock clenching with materialist ‘Marxists’.
What it is about is a social instinct or instinctive co-operative behaviour.
Eg Pannekoek and Kropotkin
Fred employed the idea and phrase ‘social instinct’; after Darwin’s second book.
Actually Darwin’s position in 1871 was the same as Fuerbachs and Karl’s before 1844.
Karl dropped it later after Stirner because there was no materialist or natural explanation for it, or Fuerbach’s human essence.
Darwin provided a theoretical explanation for it; “from the side of natural history”.
“……….I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers1 who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh2 remarks, “has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action;” it is summed up in that short but imperious word ought, so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment’s hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause. Immanuel Kant exclaims, “Duty! Wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always
This great question has been discussed by many writers4 of consummate ability; and my sole excuse for touching on it is the impossibility of here passing it over, and because, as far as I know, no one has approached it exclusively from the side of natural history. The investigation possesses, also, some independent interest, as an attempt to see how far the study of the lower animals can throw light on one of the highest psychical faculties of man.
The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,5 would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as
3 ‘Metaphysics of Ethics,’ translated by J. W. Semple, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 136.
4 Mr. Bain gives a list (‘Mental and Moral Science,’ 1868, p. 543-725) of twenty-six British authors who have written on this subject, and whose names are familiar to every reader; to these, Mr. Bain’s own name, and those of Mr. Lecky, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, and Sir J. Lubbock, as well as of others, may be added.
5 Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a social animal (‘Psychological Enquiries,’ 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, “ought not this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral sense?” Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, ‘Utilitarianism,’ (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a “powerful natural sentiment,” and as “the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality;” but on the previous page he says, “if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural.” It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, ‘The Emotions and the Will,’ 1865, p. 481) and others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable.
[page] 72
its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. The services may be of a definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association.
Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of dissatisfaction which invariably results, as we shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration; and after being satisfied are not readily or vividly recalled. Thirdly, after the power of language had been acquired and the wishes of the members of the same community could be distinctly expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good, would naturally become to a large extent the guide to action. But the social instincts would still give the impulse to act for the good of the community, this impulse being strengthened, directed, and sometimes even deflected by public opinion, the power of which rests, as we shall presently see, on instinctive sympathy. Lastly, habit in the individual would ultimately play a very
[page] 73
important part in guiding the conduct of each member; for the social instincts and impulses, like all other instincts, would be greatly strengthened by habit, as would obedience to the wishes and judgment of the community. These several subordinate propositions must now be discussed; and some of them at considerable length………….”
http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1871_Descent_F937/1871_Descent_F937.1.html
Of course if we are motivated or feel the urge to do something and it is for our own self gratification or egotism then any blockhead like Stirner, or a Marxist materialists, can understand that without much trouble.
However if we are motivated by something altruistic, or observe it, we are inclined to attempt to make some ‘sense’ of it; as we are with everything.
Eg Kant.
But we can also attempt to make sense of things ‘metaphysically’ eg by supernatural forces at work etc.
Thus it is possible that the observations and experience, or in this case feelings of ‘moral sense’ and ‘conscience’, could generate a ‘flawed explanation’ or idea.
Rather than the other way around.
Thus;
If you were too look at the Essence of [early] Christianity; in a Fuerbachian sense.
[The Essence of [early] Christianity has as much to do with modern Christianity as early Marxism has to do with Stalinism. It probably took about 400 years to flip early Christianity the self described Marxist did it in less than 40.]
Then, if that was the case, the social co-operative [‘base’] instinct comes first and early Christianity is the ‘super-structural’ paraphernalia that is supposed to fit around it.
And if that was the case; it would turning things on its head so say that that ‘super-structural’ paraphernalia causes some kind of ‘moral sense’ rather than being an effect of it.
That was why people like Fred, Kautky and Rosa felt it safe to revisit early ‘communist’ Christianity after Darwin’s second book.
The Bolsheviks were being sent huge amounts of money by the German government from around middle of 1917 through 1918.
It became more open and incontrovertible in the 1950’s with the discovery, translation and publication of ‘boxes’ of German foreign office communiqués and telegrams etc.
In a book or publication by Zeman in Cambridge university press?
It was a small part of the book as it had wider interest as regards other aspects of German foreign policy.
The Germans of course had nothing but contempt for the Bolsheviks but just wanted to mess things up in Russia and keep them out of the war etc.
It probably had a political impact what happened in 1917 as people correctly, as it turned out, suspected that that was going on.
Thus the Bolsheviks were not asked by the Petrograd soviet to join the new provisional revolutionary government around May as there was plenty of patriotism still around and they were suspected as being German proxies or whatever.
Lenin was wanted for questioning over it which was why he went on the run.
He said that he would only answer or address the planned constituent assembly when it was convened as planned in 6 months time.
That kind of stuff in Lenin’s collected works.
Of course the Bolsheviks shut down the constituent assembly on day one in January 1918.
The German’s carried on funding the Bolsheviks after that and that was probably when the serious money came in; as much to do with economically propping up the Bolshevik state or government that going into the pockets of the Bolshevik party.
The conduit for the German funding of the Bolsheviks up until April was this guy below;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Mirbach
At that time the left SR’s in particular were starting to fall out with the Bolsheviks.
They were hacked with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk
This is often portrayed as a pro-imperialist pro war position by the lying Leninist historians.
But in fact the left SR’s were pissed off with the Bolsheviks for surrendering huge swathes of ‘revolutionary territory’ to the capitalist imperialist scumbags of the Kaisers Germany.
The left SR’s had a strong political base in the area’s given up to Germany and the leadership had to flee to Petrograd.
The Bolsheviks taking money of the German’s for it was a little too much.
They attempted a counter coup in the beginning of July 1918.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_SR_uprising
Things are a bit more complicated when you go into it in a bit more as regards the attitude of the capitalist class to the Bolsheviks and the overthrow of the Tsarist system; at first.
The international capitalist class, as well as the local Russian capitalist class, didn’t like the Tsarist system that much and wanted it opening up to capitalist exploitation without some regressive Mohammad bin Salman gangster in charge.
And the ostensible political position of the Bolsheviks up until 1917 was to facilitate a bourgeois [capitalist] democratic revolution.
As a necessary stage along the road to socialism that according to Lenin could and shouldn’t be skipped over.
Eg;
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm
Standard oil or Rockefeller were interested in the oil wells and exploration rights etc in the Azerbaijan area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
That kind of thing sort of ran on even under Lenin with giving concessions to foreign capitalist re ‘mineral’ extraction etc.
That is in the Lenin archive as well.
Trotsky was obviously not short of funds before he turned up in Russia or after he was exiled circa 1925.
I suppose he may have skimmed of a lot dosh and squirreled it away from 1917 onwards.
According to German foreign office material the early money was going to fund the paper Pravda I think which was run by Leon?
There is ‘Jewish’ thing and probably there was a disproportionate number of ethnic ‘Jews’ amongst the Russian leftwing in general; most non religious.
However the ‘Jews’ in Tsarist Russian were institutionally ‘racially’ discriminated against, religious or not.
Eg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
There was no cop out by conversion to Christianity like the was in Western Europe, Prussia; and England in the 19<sup>th</sup> century with its;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_Relief_Act_1858
So I suspect that could lead intellectual ‘Jews’ to be more radical?
A significant proportion of Russian RSDLP or the party was in before the so called Bolshevik- Menshevik split were the ‘Jewish’ Bundists who were mostly atheist ultra leftist, by todays standards, working class.
I have been told that the Turkish communist party is dominated by ethnic and discriminated ‘ethnic Kurds’ for example?
I have read Sweezy’s 1942 book now.
Actually he is not a Rosa collapse theorist; that is the one theory that he completely rejected.
He summarizes and discusses all the various under-consumption and overproduction theories of which there were several.
He considers under-consumption and overproduction as two sides of the same coin.
Later he appears to take the view that capitalism will become more monopolistic by which he means certain industries will become dominated by just a handful of companies.
And that may or could lead to under-consumption and overproduction.
However he does do a more modern post Marx analysis of capitalism and some of the issues he raises are interesting and thought provoking whether you go along with his analysis of it or not.
I think he gets a bit carried away with himself with his monopoly theory towards the end of the book.
The big downside is that he clearly did not think Russia was state capitalist.
He discussed the theory that fascism re Germany and Italy were state capitalist following on from the Rizzi – Burnham stuff?
But rejects that as well because for they didn’t meet his criteria for it.
He doesn’t analyze the Russian system at all however it seemed to me that his own state capitalist criteria that he applied when analyzing fascism did.
His analysis of the opening chapters of volume one agrees with my own and in 1942 didn’t seem to be aware of any controversy with that simple commodity production analysis.
And like Engels thought
……….This makes clear, of course, why in the beginning of his first book Marx proceeds from the simple production of commodities as the historical premise, ultimately to arrive from this basis to capital — why he proceeds from the simple commodity instead of a logically and historically secondary form — from an already capitalistically modified commodity. To be sure, Fireman positively fails to see this. ………
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm
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.
iI wouldn’t be surprised if Sweezy is going to come up with some crap like Rosa did. But that is not the point really the issue for me is what chapter one is actually about; where you choose to take it a long way after that is another point. I am finding about up to 40 pages in that he seems to understand chapter one like I do. Which is no longer mainstream; in fact was attacked for his simple commodity theory by the vulgar Marxists which was why I thought I would give him a go. I read bit of him before and I was really impressed with his mathematical manipulation/ transformation of Karl’s rate of profit equation; Turning ; P’ = s/ [c+v] Into P’ = (s/v) / [c/v+v/v] And thus; P’ = s’/ [ c/v +1] Getting P’ expressed by s’ , rate of surplus value or exploitation] and c/v the organic composition of capital thing. Or in other words the ratio of our wages to the value of the stuff we work with. Which might be 500 or something for steel workers and 5 for sweat shop labourers kind of thing. Rosa’s under consumptionism thing and maybe Paul’s wasn’t their fault it was Karl’s with his two departments of capital that excluded the third of fixed capital. In fact Karl cocked that up, fixed capital, right from the start in volume one. It was a fault in the analysis. The [surplus] value that workers produce and can’t buy back because they don’t. Is used or exchanged to expand , accumulate productivity enhancing fixed capital. It wouldn’t surprise me if Paul fell into the same mistake as Rosa because he ignored fixed capital in his equation as well. It should be or the correct version is the Sweezy- Balmer transformation;P’ = s’/ [ Fx/v + c/v +1] When it comes to the ratio of our wages to the value of the stuff we work with Fx/v can be about 100 x what. It is about that where I work and we are even a more than general higher c/v set up eg expensive raw materials coming in and having a bit of value added to it. When you come up with a scientific theory or hypothesis by a process of serial simplifications which are documented and noted. And then apply it to the real world then you realize that you have to go back a bit and tweak it but make sure that it is not a fundamental deal breaker. So in a dynamic, which means unstable changing environment, with the empirical market you need to change value to the amount of labour time required to reproduce something. Just like the caveat of SNLT that knocks original works of art on the head and people being shipwrecked with crates of coca cola and gold etc. And then there is the peculiar issue of old use values. So you might have a old TV set or bicycle that is working ok. Bicycle is important for me, part of its use value is of course how long it is likely to last before one thing goes wrong with it then another and use value restoration costs mount and you end up throwing ‘good money after bad’. Hence there is often a catastrophic temporal nature to use value? On profit or surplus value volume IV should have been volume one really. On the abuse of the skilled labour argument. Karl analysis was based on comparing concrete skilled labour which is a use value for the capitalist class with unskilled concrete labour of the same use value to the capitalist class. So it is qualitatively comparing like with like, as far as they are concerned. But a quantitatively good programmer is worth five crap ones because they are more productive. But the ergo flaw that ‘skill’ in general or generalized is more productive is a leap. I mean Karl even talked about capitalism de-skilling things and brain dead Irish muscular Navies earning more than intellectuals. There is a tendency amongst the intelligentsia as they find themselves that their remuneration levels are an accurate reflection of their ‘productivity’. So a left leaning university professor will justify and rationalize their wages on the basis that their work is more socially productive somehow. Or more socially useful hour per hour than toilet cleaning. In the late 19thcentury the capitalist class that ran mills and organized production etc said the same thing. They were wage workers like everyone else; it was called the wage of supervision argument. I think I will stop here.
iBefore I deal with this anti scientific drivel in detail. It worth briefly noting that this issue flaired up just after the publication of volume III. And Fred dealt with it in his ‘infamous’ supplement to volume III which is an excellent document and must read. But cut the crap and go back to the basic price argument it was thus; necessarily dropping and forgetting all ideas of value etc etc which is ok and also needed. The price of everything was determined by the requirement to make a general, average or normal rate of profit. Which is correct according to Karl’s analysis. Although even that isn’t strictly true as a capitalists making something in particular will just sell at the highest price they can. If that realizes a higher than average rate of profit then other capitalists will emulate them if they can and increase supply and decrease the price until it equilibrates to an average rate of profit. It is the identical process to that in the idealized ‘Rubin’ simple commodity production. If a maker of Blue Suede Shoes can get 40 hours of other peoples labour for 20 hours of other peoples; the other people switch to making Blue Suede Shoes. Or in the labour power commodity market if intellectual polyglot translators see the bottom dropping out of that market due to computers then they might want to retrain as well into what is good. With that example computers will do a rough translation of a big document and then a polyglot will just need to tidy it up. All the hard work is done. Anyway the price of stuff is determined by the rate of profit or accumulation of wealth or stuff. However what is missed is that rate of profit or accumulation of wealth or stuff, or surplus value was a total enigma, or the subject of raging debated in the 19thcentury to economist then. According to their models. Eg Ricardo and Adam Smith. The so called volume IV was an analysis of that. Karl went through a scientific [Logical] process of reductionism and dragged it down until there was nowhere else possible to go. To arrive at a basic hypothesis that made sense of and anticipated the average rate of profit determining prices. I have just started reading Paul Sweezy’s the theory of capitalist development. It is quite good really and I am onboard with his analysis of chapter one. He is understandably the anti Christ for post 1970’s neo Marxists as with his total un offending innocence as regards chapter one being about simple commodity production.
i Yes but more skilled workers can co-exist less skilled workers often in the same place doing the same thing eg with computer programming? The skilled workers get paid more because they get things done more quickly? There is an element of the quality and thus useful value of what they produce but that is yet another argument. Skilled labour can become ‘socially unnecessary’ like handloom weaving versus semi skilled machine operators or overseers. Or it can remain socially necessary but as a concrete labour power become “over supplied” ? So; The universality of public education enables capitalists to recruit such labourers from classes that formerly had no access to such trades and were accustomed to a lower standard of living. Moreover, this increases supply, and hence competition. With few exceptions, the labour-power of these people is therefore devaluated with the progress of capitalist production. Their wage falls, while their labour capacity increases. The capitalist increases the number of these labourers whenever he has more value and profits to realise. How well this forecast of the fate of the commercial proletariat, written in 1865, has stood the test of time can be corroborated by hundreds of German clerks, who are trained in all commercial operations and acquainted with three or four languages, and offer their services in vain in London City at 25 shillings per week, which is far below the wages of a good machinist. A blank of two pages in the manuscript indicates that this point was to have been treated at greater length. For the rest, we refer the reader to Book II (Kap. VI.) ("The Costs of Circulation") [English edition: Vol. II, Ch. VI. — Ed.], where various matters belonging under this head have already been discussed. — F.E. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm#2 The public education system that really took of in the 1960’s in the UK was to supply a need for certain types of intellectual labour and to stop the ones that had from taking the piss out of the capitalists and demanding too much remuneration for it. I suppose it was collectively funded, by capitalism, to generate a national infrastructure type ‘social’ capital. I suppose now it or that ‘social’ capital’ has been sort of privatised and the supposed increased productivity that it generates goes to interest bearing capitalist in terms loan repayments and the associated monetary interest. Karl’s questionable take on that I think as regards orthodox skilled labour in the 19thcentury was that taken generally skilled labour socially got paid more to offset the ‘family’ expense of recreating it. I grew up in a sort of semi skilled, skilled enclave in the 1970’s A person of more lumpen proletarian from a notorious council estate background moved in next door to us and up in the world. He had joined the Navy as grunt and somehow or another got trained as a deep sea diver. He was getting 10 times more than my father who was a skilled ‘electrical engineer’ fixing electrical machine problems in factories. There were regular free booze parties with invites to the extended family with fights and general council estate lumpen events spilling out onto the street. It was lumpen in the sense that not all poor people behave like that because they poor etc. They didn’t stay long as they moved up into true blue Tory country and a five bed roomed house with swimming pool. I next saw him 15 years later on TV leading a dive team recovering gold from a WW2 wreck. I am not just rambling, he was as fit as F**k and it takes balls and courage to do that kind of thing and cerebral intellect is less important. Hence the subjectivity of ‘skill’ ? I knew someone, ex asian peasant herself, who worked for a big UK finance company with an English IT department of 500. They decided to send the work out to Calcutta. Her job was to tidy up and keep an eye on what they were doing on the quality of work front. But it was a good idea as 5 less skilled or experienced Calcutta programmers could actually produce what more expensive British programmers could do In the 1970’s in the uk in the factory machine fixing electrical engineer where at the top they insisted on a pay differential from the ‘fitters’ who were more like mechanics. My father who was a shop steward hated the fitters and hated the semi skilled machine operators even more. When I went into the factory system myself in the 1980’s it was still there. It has I think dissolved a bit since then; there aren’t fitters and electricians any more where I am at just engineers and they are not as snobby as they used to be.
i In the travel accounts of the Venetian traveller Marco Polo the reader becomes familiar with the fascinating world of paper money production. This money has been put into circulation during the Yuan period by the Mongol chief Kublai Khan (1214-1294) : “It is in the city of Khanbalik that the Great Khan possesses his Mint. (…) In fact, paper money is made there from the sapwood of the mulberry tree, whose leaves feed the silk worm. The sapwood, between the bark and the heart, is extracted, ground and then mixed with glue and compressed into sheets similar to cotton paper sheets, but completely black. (…) The method of issue is very formal, as if the substance were pure gold or silver. On each sheet which is to become a note, specially appointed officials write their name and affix their seal. When this work has been done in accordance with the rules, the chief impregnates his seal with pigment and affixes his vermillion mark at the top of the sheet. That makes the note authentic. This paper currency is circulated in every part of the Great Khan’s dominions, nor dares any person, at the peril of his life, refuse to accept it in payment.”Marco Polo was amused at the thought that whereas the alchemists had struggled vainly for centuries to turn base metals into gold, the Chinese emperors had very simply turned paper into money. Once back home, Marco Polo amply reported about his experiences and adventures in the Chinese Empire but when he talked about paper money he only met disbelief. It is hardly surprising that it took a few more centuries before paper money was introduced in Europe. In fact, if we keep to the concept of paper money as notes issued with a monetary reserve as a warranty, the first Chinese notes date from the 10th century. Which means a headstart of no less than seven centuries on the West!
i Karl sensibly didn’t go directly from linen and tailored coats He went in between To Linen weaving being equal to tailoring And what they have in common is labour. However in capitalism concrete labour or labour power becomes a commodity. The price of that can fluctuate according to supply and demand. But it should gravitate or equilibrate to its natural price. Where X hours of tailoring labour = X hours of linen weaving labour. As people move if they can from under priced concrete labour power to higher priced concrete labour power. It is not always the case that more skilled labour, [which has a bit of a ‘subjective’ element they way it is often incorrectly thought off] they it is often is under supplied and in demand and commands a higher price. Karl gave several examples. Skill as far as it affects value concerns and is only valid when comparing two identical commodities and should be used in that respect when comparing different ones. Thus the value of 5 hours of skilled bricklaying is twice as much as unskilled bricklaying because it produces a bigger wall in the same time.
i I don’t believe in UFO’s and stuff. What is interesting for us is the 7thof 7 parameters in the Drake equation. Put simply ‘civilization’ or barbarism and what it means; the recognition of self destructive potential of capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Lifetime_of_such_a_civilization_wherein_it_communicates_its_signals_into_space,_L
