[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Why won't you address these points?

Because they are irrelevant.I've tried to talk to you about hunter gatherer society on a thread dedicated to that, but got nowhere.

 Well ,you are the one who claimed that individuality and the concept of the " individual" was invented by "bourgeois society".  I merely pointed out to you that that claim is patently false (see post 38). If you want to bury your head in the sand and continue ignoring the evidence on the grounds that it is "irrelevant" then that is entirely up to you.  Ignorance is bliss but who am I do deny you a bit of bliss in your life

LBird wrote:

I've tried to talk to you about 'individualism' on a number of threads, but got nowhere.You won't discuss your ideology.

Rubbish. I have several times pointed out to you that my ideology is libertarian communism.  I am neither an "individualist" (as you continue to misrepresent me as being) nor a holist (as you are) but take the view that individuals constitute society AND are constituted by society.  Surely this will ring a few bells – even for someone as forgetful as you evidently are!

LBird wrote:

You apparently think 'scientific knowledge' is 'true', rather than a social construct, created by 'theory and practice'.

 Rubbish again!  And it all goes to show how little you bother to read what other people are writing.  You criticize without attempting to get to know the first thing about what or who it is you are criticising.I have never said scientific knowledge is not a social construct or that it is somehow "value free".  I am as strong an opponent of "positivism" as you are if not more so.  All I did was to criticise your crackpot idea of 7 billion people democratically voting on the truth of thousands of scientific theories which totally ignores the reality of the social division of labour and the simple fact that no individual however scientifically gifted can ever acquire more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of scientific knowledge

LBird wrote:

I've asked you to say what ideology you use to understand hunter gatherers, individualism, and science. But you won't answer. 

as above

LBird wrote:

I've tried patience, comradely appeals, abuse, contempt, fawning, trickery, blackmail, violence, gang warfare…

 You've forgotten "misrepresentation" in that list but I suppose "trickery" might cover that

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I didn't say that LBird.   Stop misrepresenting my position!

Don't take things too seriously, robbo.Although I'm pretending that you've said things that you haven't, the purpose is to illustrate where what you are saying leads.

 That too is a misrepresentatation LBird .  Because where you claim what I am saying "leads to", doesnt actually lead to at all  but in quite the opposite direction as I explained And I'm still waiting to hear from you regarding 1) the question of individuality in a hunter gatherer society and 2) what you make of Marx's view that the establishment of socialism/communism presupposes the development of the fully rounded individual rather than the other way round Why won't you address these points?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

For those who can't understand what a 'relationship' is, yeah.You'll be telling us next that, as long as a slave or a worker FEELS 'free', they ARE FREE!Individual feelings, eh? 'They can't imprison our minds!'

 I didn't say that LBird.   Stop misrepresenting my position! What I said is that the slaves' reaction to their  class exploitation in Ancient Rome  would have been fuelled by a sense of anger at the treatment meted out to them.  In fact the very opposite of what you are saying, is my position –  namely the fact that those slaves would have reacted in the way they did  because they consider themselves to be NOT free but, as you put it,  a mere tool of the ruling class.  My interpretation is thus fully compatible with a structural analysis you claim to present –  though your conservative and ahistorical way of approaching the whole question completely prevents you from explaining why those slaves would have reacted in the way they did in the form of a slaves revolt.  That is because you deny to them any semblance of individuality, any kind of inner subjective life at all. You are at one with the Roman ruling class in regarding them as mere "tools" in your mechanistic worldview.  Your position is an elitist Leninist one whether you recognise this or not. Incidentally, I'm still waiting to hear from you regarding 1) the question of individuality in a hunter gatherer society and 2) what you make of Marx's view that the establishment of socialism/communism presupposes the development of the fully rounded individual rather than the other way round Or have you chickened out of volunteering a response? It wouldnt surprise me and it wouldnt be the first time either….

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

 the point is how did they FEEL about  it.

Yeah, individual feelings.Not an analysis based on socio-economic exploitation, ie. 'the point is' class.

 Is that the best you can come up with, LBird?No response to my detailed argument about hunter gatherer society exhibiting a marked degree of individuality?No response to my argument that your mode of explanation makes for a thoroughly static and ultra conservative view of history?No response to my suggestion that contrary to you, Marx and Engels saw the all-rounded development of the individual as a precondition of communism rather than a result? Of course, I haven't gone into a detailed analysis of the socio economic exploitation of the slaves in Ancient Rome (I rather assume that on this forum we can take this for granted!). That doesn't mean i don't think they were exploited as a class.  Certainly they were and I am not denying that in the least.  But in the context of this debate we are talking about their sense of individuality which you deny they had ("the individual" was only invented by bourgeois society, you claim). I say your whole argument is thoroughly flawed from start to finish and that you could not begin to explain why the slaves occasionally revolted if you suppose that they had no feelings about the treatment they received but just meekly accepted or internalised the ruling class view of them as "tools"The feelings of resentment they undoubtedly felt (which presuppose a subjective inner life and thus a sense of individuality)  are inseparable from the fact that they are exploited as a class,. The two things go hand in hand but as usual you cannot see  this in your simplistic black-or-white, all-or-nothing  view of the world…

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Richard wrote:

Individuals obviously exist and have existed since before capitalism.

You're wrong, Richard.You're making a common mistake, based upon your socialisation/education/brainwashing, which we all suffer from, and have to fight, of equating 'biological existence' with 'ideological concept'.The universal statement that 'I'm an Individual', which everybody is taught to repeat like a mantra, would not be made in other societies in the past. In a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual' (an concept which contains the belief in autonomy, which they knew that they didn't have).

 Not this again.  I repeat again the point that has been made on numerous occasions to LBrid which he still does not seem to have heeded.  For the vast majority of existence on this planet we lived in a hunter gather form of society.  In such a society individuals exhibit an extremely high degree of individuality. I can cite numerous sources in support but just at random check out this excellent article by Peter Gray http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/1-4-article-hunter-gatherer-social-existence.pdf.  It is a long article but well worth reading through…. Gray contends that a hunter gatherer mode of governance is characterised by  voluntary participation, autonomy, equality, sharing and consensual decision making.  He compares this mode of governance to social play. There are numerous passages in the article that illustrate the individuality of hunter gatherers but at random here's one"A crucial ingredient of play is the sense of free choice. Players must feel free to play or not play and must invent or freely accept the rules. Workers who must follow blindly, step-by-step, the directions of a micromanaging boss are the least likely to consider their work is playful. Hunter-gatherers have developed,to what our culture might consider a radical extreme, an ethic of personal autonomy. They deliberately avoid telling each other how to behave, in work as in any other context.  Each person is his or her own boss." "Individual autonomy" is the essence of their individuality and goes  hand in hand with their "fiercely egalitarian" (Richard Lee) culture.  It is also the basis of their mode of conflict resolution: internal conflicts within the band are resolved through a process of group fissioning.  The aggrieved individuals simply break away from the group should others within the group seek to encroach on and diminish their personal autonomy.  Punishment and revenge was also radically decentralised and typically concern only the immediate parties involved in a disputeIn his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest, Christopher Boehm put forward evidence in support  for what he called the  "reverse dominance theory" – that is, early human society broke away from the pattern of primate society by instituting an arrangement which suppressed or negated the influence of alpha males within the group. In its place the personal autonomy, or individuality, of every individual in the group was fundamentally asserted LBird has asserted that " the individual" was something that was invented by bourgeois society a few hundred years ago. He could not be more wrong if he tried.  A marked degree of individuality was a characteristic of over 95% of our time as a species on this planet and is inseparable from the egalitarian mode of existence that our hunter gatherer forbears enjoyed 

LBird wrote:

To the Romans, a slave was an instrumentum vocale (a speaking tool). An agricultural implement was an instrumentum mutum (a non-speaking tool), and a farm animal was an instrumentum semi-vocale (a noisy tool).In this society, many people were 'tools' not 'individuals'. We can analytically separate out them as 'biological individuals', and still understand that this is nothing to do with the bourgeois belief that everybody holds of being 'an individual'.

Inadvertently, this reveals more about LBird's ideology than it does about anything else.  To a Roman slave owner, a slave may well be just a tool  but what of the slaves themselves?  LBird is embracing the ruling class view of the slaves. He contendsIn a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual'This is to totally miss the point. The slaves might have dully recognised that they were institutionally enslaved but the point is how did they FEEL about  it. That is surely the litmus test of  their individuality..  Did they or did they not have an inner life, a subjectivity, that chafed against the social oppression they endured? Apparently not according to LBird In fact  what LBird is expressing here is an ultra conservative ideology of holistic totalitarianism -that individuals are totally malleable to the dictates of something called "society" .  He is a Durkheimist, rather than a Marxist, who reifies this thing called society and invests it with an objective existence over and above individuals . A Marxist would take a radically different perspective to LBird and would see the relationship between individuals and society as a reciprocal one in which the individual both constitutes society and is constituted by society: Or as Marx  put it "It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances. (German Ideology)LBird's ultra conservatism makes also for an utterly static conception of history.  He cannot begin to explain why for example there was such a thing as slaves revolts in Ancient Roman if, as he contends, the slaves thoroughly internalised their masters' view of themselves as mere "tools" and disregarded their own feelings of resentment at the way they were treated

LBird wrote:

Within this socio-historical framework of understanding ourselves as humans, we can see that only with the dawn of Communism will a society exist which aims from the start to produce all-round 'individuals'.

 Except of course and this is what is so damaging to LBird's whole thesis,  Marx and Engels took the very opposite position to the one he advocates. The all rounded individual is a precondition for the dawn of communism to materialiseWe have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces  (German Ideology)

[robbo203]

Thanks Gnome – that is a very useful quote, indeed.Atkinson's various points are quite damaging to the argument that Rifkin makes about the prospect of a so called "zero marginal cost society"  but his passing reference at the end to the Communist Manifesto reminds me again that there is a school of thought out there that predicates the possibility of communism/socialism on precisely the kind of stuff that Rifkin is talking about – where there is a technologically based superabundance of everything and where the costs of producing anything  is so low as to be hardly worth putting a price tag on them. I think we need to be very wary of these technological cornucopians and their techno utopian ideals.  They are sending out quite the wrong message – that it is technology rather than human beings that is the master/mistress of our fate.  I suppose I am like most people here in believing that a socialist or communist society was technically feasible decades ago – certainly long before IPads were a twinkle in somebody's eye  – and that what was, and is, lacking is simply the subjective preconditions for such a society – mass revolutionary consciousness We don't need for capitalism to be so crippled by it's own contradictions to the point where it can barely function at all as a viable system in Rifkin's sense in order for socialism /communism to become possible.  Because if we are going to have to wait for a "zero marginal cost society" to materialise under capitalism we are going to have to wait forever.  At least in my book.

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I don't know if  Jeremy Rifkin's ideas have been discussed on this forum.  He is a bestselling futurist writer somewhat  in the style of Alvin Toffler and has written numerous books the most recent one being  The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Actually, there was a bit of a discussion on this here about a year ago:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/zero-marginal-cost-society

  Thanks Adam. Interesting discussion.  I wonder if anyone has come across any critiques  looking at the economics of what  Rifkin is proposing. Like the argument that employment is going to dry up because of robots etc replacing human labour, I find Rifkins claim about the  spectacular increases in productivity brought about by technological innovation and causing costs to dramatically plummet, a little hard to swallow.  Capitalism generates all sorts of costs that dont have much to do with technology as such.  The growth of structural waste within capitalism  which is a cost born by industry still has to be paid for and will tend to offset any productivity gains made through technological innovation and the like…

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

One fine day, robbo, you'll actually read what I write.

 One fine day  I hope you'll actually read what you wrote.  Because you are not making much sense a lot of the time. You are flatly contradicting your own words time and time again

LBird wrote:

It's not 'individuals' but the relationship between them, that is the focus of 'class'.If one stresses the 'individual' existence, and think that enquiring closely into that reveals what we want to know, then we will miss the most important factor: not the individuals, but the nature of their relationship.

Indeed, I wouldnt disagree with this  but this is not what you said earlier, is it? Now you are talking about the "stress" placed on individuals whereas earlier you were questioning the very existence of" individuals". It illustrates once again how you are constantly changing your tune.  I remind you once again what you said in post 26:robbo regards himself as an 'individual'. I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society. It suits the purposes of the bourgeoisie for everybody to regard themselves, as does robbo, as an 'individual'. Incidentally , flatly contradicting what you said even earlier – in post 24:The problem is, Richard, is that no-one argues that society is not made up of individuals.If you are not an individual but a worker and everyone else is not an individual either (but a worker too or a capitalist)  then according to you there are no individuals anywhere.  Yet capitalist society you confidently assert invented the idea of individuals. You could also by that logic assert that it also invented the idea of "workers" and "capitalists".. Do workers and capitalists exist then according to your logic? The truth of the matter and one seemingly has to drag you kicking and screaming to finally come to accept it , is that of course there are individuals and indeed, there could be no such thing as class or society if there were not individuals. Being an individual does not preclude you from being a worker as well notiwthstanding your black-or-white view on this question.  Class is indeed a relational concept  but class relations don't exist in the ether; they connect individuals and would not be relationships if they did not. All this incidentally kicked off when you questioned my point  in post no 14: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. You then twisted this to suggest I was intent upon 'placing every individual' in an 'individualist schema' of society.  How is trying to sort individuals into classes an "individualist schema"?  I'm not trying to differentiate between the individuals on the basis of their accent or education or whatever – that is the conventional definition of class which I'm not putting forward here at all – but on the basis of how much capital they possess and "capital" or more to the point, the expanded reproduction of capitai,  as you will be aware implies an exploitative relationship . So I will throw back the question to you. Its all very well talking about an exploitative relationship but how would you distinguish between exploited and exploited in this relationship?   The mere possession of capital is not sufficient to qualify one as a capitalist because on that basis since most workers have some form of saving or investment that would mean most workers would be capitalists . If you are going to distinguish between exploiters and exploited within capitalism society then the only reasonable criterion you can use is how much capital you as an individual possess.  If you know any other way of differentiating between workers and capitalists then show me!  And don't tell me that no capitalists earn wages as well as draw an unearned income.. Some do like the top CEOs corporations some of whom have an income of many millions of dollars per year.  They are capitalists nevertheless

LBird wrote:

We need to bring to the fore the relational aspects of society, and not the 'individuality' of all.'Individuality' is a bourgeois ideological concept, which keeps us victims separated into our own little world of one.

 You repeat this crass claim again and again so I ask you once again – since hunter gatherer societies exhibit a very marked degree of individuality would you consider them to be bourgeois societies?  Yes or no

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

But then conveniently you don't exist, you are not an "individual".

I predicted to Richard that you'd say this.As long as Richard, and any other comrades trying to get to grips with 'class' and why it should be used for analysis of our society, and want to find a better way of explaining it to other workers, so that we can help develop our consciousness, I'm happy.You stick to 'individuals', robbo. And you keep helping to explain to others, whilst using a bourgeois concept.Ooooo… I know what comes next: "LBird says individuals aren't real, He says we're all just a concept!"

 To my tongue in cheek comment that you are "not an individual", you respond by saying that you "predicted" I would say this.  Meaning of course that you think  that my predicted interpretation of your position would be false and that you are, as it turns out, an individual after all.  This is reinforced  by your latest  "prediction" – that I'm going to say "LBird says individuals aren't real; He says we're all just a concept!" by which you really mean to say that you think individuals are real and do exist.But hang on LBird,   you have only got yourself  to blame for the muddle you have created.  You did say did you not, that:I think that the real ideological issue, between robbo and me, is in our ideological identification of ourselves. robbo regards himself as an 'individual'. I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society.So according to you in your previous post, individuals don't exist in that you and I are not individuals but merely "workers" (talk about reinforcing bourgeois instrumentalism!). Now you seem to be complaining when I point out that is what you are saying!  You seem to be complaining now that I am saying  that your position is that individuals are just a concept when oddly enough you yourself earlier said that the "individual " is a concept" that  "emerged historically with bourgeois society",  You have so completely tied yourself up in knots that you've forgotten half the things you earlier said! I note, incidentally,  that you have nothing to say about  my refutation of your ridiculous claim that individuality was something that only emerged historically with bourgeois society and that our hunter gatherer forbears exhibited a high degree of individuality.  Why the silence on this point  LBird? Lastly of course, I don't "stick with individuals" , I  fully recognise also the existence of classes.  There two different kinds of entities can coexist , you know. but you with your totally simplistic black-or-white view of the world just cant seem to get your head around that one, can you?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

But, why would we want to 'identify individual capitalists'?Surely, it's their social role that is the key to understanding them as 'individuals'? In fact, not their individualness, but their exploitative role within a society. Their class position within a society. Not them as biological entities.

Once again, LBird, and for the umpteenth time – such individuals are socially constituted. Why would we want to identity individual  capitalists? I would have thought that was fairly obvious, don't you? Because if there is no such thing as individual capitalists that we can point to then how can you meaningfully talk of there being a capitalist class? I have news for you, LBird.  A class consists of a group of individuals who in Marxian terms all have the same relation to the means of production in contradistinction to some other class.  If you cannot identify  a capitalist class because you cannot, or don't want to identify, the individuals who comprise such a class then how can you even meaningfully talk of capitalism being a system of class exploitation? So to answer your question, to identify individual capitalists is to put flesh on the bones of a theory of exploitation that might otherwise comes across as purely abstract , totally unconvincing and frankly meaningless

LBird wrote:

Yes, why the hell are you so concerned with 'individuals'? Well, I ask rhetorically, because I know your view of future "workers' power" requires it, because you think, like anarchists do, that 'communism' equals 'free individuals', rather than a social power, a structural role for democracy..

 Why I am "concerned with individuals"? Because without acknowledging the existence of individuals you cannot begin to understand the social roles they play or the social entities they make up like classes.  The concept of exploitation is meaningless without the idea of some individuals exploiting others.  Individuals organised as classes are implied in the very premiss of exploitation itself. Exploitation doesnt just mysteriously "happen"; it takes individuals to make it happen. Even you must surely understand this point LBird.  To use your metaphor you cannot build a wall without bricks,.  Why are you constantly trying to ignore or deny the existence of these bricks? I do indeed believe  in the concept of "free individuals" in a communist society and unlike you take up a Marxist position on this matter that the "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all"  (Communist Manifesto). Of course I recognise that individual freedom has to be constrained or balanced against the needs of others and that, in communism, democracy  will have an important role to play, much more so than the case today.  But you don't seems to have any idea whatsoever within your black-or-white , all-or-nothing worldbview of a sense of balance or complementarity .  There is no individual freedom in your world,  only what you claim would be "democracy". That is why I considered your position to be a form of holistic totalitarianism 

LBird wrote:

'A class of individuals'. A concept guaranteed to shift focus from 'class' to 'individuals'. In fact, ideologically, it's doing the work of the bourgeoisie for them.

 Thats rubbish. How does pointing to individuals as representatives of a class of capitalists do the work of the bourgeoisie for them? I would have thought the very opposite was the case.  The bourgeoisie don't want to have themselves seen as a separate class who live off the fruits of their exploitation of the working class. 

LBird wrote:

Unless workers can start to get past their bourgeois-implanted fascination with 'individuals', and start to examine how the structure works, outside of looking at the individuals who make it up, then we'll remain static in this society.

 But you cannot "examine how the structure works, outside of looking at the individuals who make it up". It is just not possible.  As I keep on tell you the two things go together.  You cannot examine how a wall works without acknowledging the existence of the bricks.  You are in effect arguing that society can exist without individuals though you strenuously deny it. Your view of "society" is a completely reified one and you are wading unwittingly into the same theoretical quagmire that people like Durkheim found themselves and tried to extricate themselves from

LBird wrote:

I think that the real ideological issue, between robbo and me, is in our ideological identification of ourselves.robbo regards himself as an 'individual'.I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society. It suits the purposes of the bourgeoisie for everybody to regard themselves, as does robbo, as an 'individual'.

Again this is absolute nonsense.  Of course you are an "individual" – unless, perhaps, I happen to have been exchanging ideas with a computer generated hologram which I think is unlikely. You are confusing the fact of your own subjectivity which marks you out as  an "individual" with the fact that you have been shaped by the process of social interaction with others.And it is complete poppycock to argue that the concept of the individual only "emerged historically with bourgeois society". As was pointed out to you in the "hunter gatherer violence" thread,  hunter gather society was characterised by an extreme degree of individuality and independent mindedness. Conflict resolution was typically radically decentralised involving only the  immediate parties concerned.  If anything there is much more individuality in a hunter gatherer society than a capitalist society.  Another reason incidentally why the phenomenon of warfare was absent in such a society; the very individuality of hunter gatherers made it well nigh impossible to organise or muster a largish body of individuals to inflict violence on some other group

LBird wrote:

I'm a 'wallist', robbo, not a 'brickist', as you are. That's why you continue to talk about bricks. You can't even bring yourself to just say 'wall', but have to stress a 'wall of bricks'. And when I insist on discussing the structure of 'walls', you immediately shout 'What about the bricks? LBird says bricks don't exist!' And Richard is confused. He thinks 'wallists' deny the existence of 'bricks'.With your 'help', robbo, workers asking questions about capitalism will continue to be confused, by talk of individuals.

 But there is no wall without bricks is there LBird so what  on earth are you griping about? A "wall of bricks" acknowledges the existence of both.  You don't .  You just talk  airily about "the wall" as if the wall can exist with the bricks.  Laughably you seem to be implying that a "wallist" like you does not deny the existence of bricks but in that case how would you affirm the existence of those bricks except by talking of a "wall of bricks" exactly as I have done!?!If anyone is doing the confusing here LBird it is your good self,   But then conveniently you don't exist, you are not an "individual". So I really don't have anyone against whom I can level that accusation, I suppose. LOL

[robbo203]

Richard wrote:

This has turned out to be a very interesting thread. For now, I agree with robbo203 that society is made up of individuals. On the other hand, I agree with LBird that exploitation is the key to understanding capitalism.

 Both these points are valid and do not contradict each other, Richard. You cannot have a society without individuals  but equally these individuals are, from the word go, socially constituted.  In that respect, as I have told him often enough, LBird is quite wrong to characterise my position as an "individualist" one.  An individualist perspective is fundamentally an atomistic one  which sees individuals as primary and society as a derivative phenomenon (the so called "social contract" idea). That is not my position but LBird cannot seem to get his head around that In any case, the argument is not about  this but about whether one identify such a thing as individual capitalists in this capitalist world we live in.  I assert that indeed we can.  A capitalist is defined as someone who possesses significant capital – sufficient to enable him or her not to have to work.  Bill and Melinda Gates are demonstrably "capitalists" by this criterion but LBird seems to take exception to my saying this. He seems to think this makes my position an "individualist" one because I can point to and identify such individual capitalists.  What he fails to understand is that just because one can identify  such individuals as capitalists does not in the least make the process by which they came to be capitalists a social one. Exploitation is indeed a social process but if you cannot identity a subset within society – a class of individuals – that exploits another much larger class – then notion of capitalism being an "exploitative society" becomes meaningless ("exploitation" is after all a relationship between people organised into classes).  It is meaningful precisely because we are able to identify a class of individuals – the capitalists – who are the beneficiaries of this social process of exploitation

[robbo203]

Interesting article thishttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29059-the-no-state-solution-institutionalizing-libertarian-socialism-in-kurdistan#As the article itself says there is a lot about the Rojavan  Revolution for Libertarian Socialists to feel encouraged about.  However, without knowing a great deal about the subject I wonder to what extent this revolution ticks all the boxes as far as institutionalizing "Libertarian Socialism" is concerned.  Like the fetishisation of the Soviets in earlier era, might "Democratic Confederalism" not just be a form of words that camouflages the existence of a state it has supposedly replaced.That of course throws up the question of what constitutes a state. The state in Marxian terms is an instrument of class rule. Does, then, the supposed institutionalisation of a stateless society in Kurdistan signify also the institutionalisation of a classless society?  Not much light is shed on the social structure and political economy of Kurdistan though we are told thatAccording to a member of a women's cooperative in Baglar, anarchists in twenty-two communes in Gewer have gone as far as to abolish money as a means of exchangeThe Rojavan Revolution is presented  as being anti capitalist in its thrust but we must be wary of such talk.  For the most part the anti capitalist movement  is not actually opposed to capitalism per se but rather to specific forms of capitalism or to particular symptoms of the system itselfI dont want to come across as a wet blanket and, as I say, there are certainly a number of ostensibly positive developments associated with the Rojavan revolution  but we have seen too many examples of situations which seemed initially to hold promise but which have turned out to be deeply disappointing in the long run.  Capitalism has an  uncanny ability to co-opt movements that claim to be working towards its demise

[robbo203]

So answer the question LBird – is Bill Gates a capitalist or not? The fact that he is he and not a she is irrelevant. Melinda Gates is equally and demonstrably a capitalist. And you misunderstand my point. I am not suggesting that the task we need to set ourselves is to differentiate between individuals one by one on the basis of class.  All I am saying is that in principle we can  broadly make such a differentiation since such differences clearly exist.  There are manifestly individuals in the world we live in who own very significant amounts of capital and others who own little or no capital at all Or would you deny this and continue to call yourself a Marxist with a straight face? If so, your ideas would have more in common with certain anarcho capitalists who argue that "we are all capitalists now" (because we have a post office savings account or whatever) or that there is "no such thing as a working class"

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

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.

 Society is indeed more than the sum of its parts but that does not mean that thereby the parts have somehow mysteriously disappeared from view by virtue of simply saying "class is a social relationship".  There is no such thing as a "class" or a "society" without the individuals that comprise it – even if those classes and individuals are socially constituted What that means is that of course you can in principle "place" individuals according to their class.  Or are you seriously denying that we can confidently claim Bill Gates is a capitalist?  That would be ludicrous! Of course, we are not saying he is a capitalist because of his habits, his clothes, his accent etc etc but rather because of his significant  ownership of capital.  That is what counts in the Marxian class schema and on that basis you can certainly differentiate between individuals. In fact. if you think about it,  if you could not do this then the whole concept of class would be rendered meaningless.

[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.

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