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Yes, Adam, I agree that:Andrew’s argument relies on Marx’s passage (above),Marx implies common ownership-and-control of the means of production but individual ownership-and-control of personal consumption.However, Andrew seems to be arguing for:individual ownership-and-control of personal means of production, within common ownership of social means of production (!)If you can manage 2½ hours to spare I’d be interested in your take on what I find incoherent.

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LBird, yes.Yes, when Engels is investigating society — from pre-historical primitive communist modes of production (of which he is a pioneer), through pre-capitalist social-class modes of production, the capitalist mode of production (of which he is a pioneer, before Marx) and a future socialist mode of production (of which he saw clearly before anyone else) — he is talking about the implications of ‘social production’. Always without exception.Yes.  Engels’s celebrated account, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, of the materialist conception of history, which is effectively his popularization for workers of Marx’s Preface to the Critique (which I excerpted for you, in continuous sequence, above) is social.Yes. I have affirmed this, and have always affirmed it, and have no need to re-affirm what I’ve never denied.I stand by my word.

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LBird, you are the only person to state here that Engels thought the materialist conception of history was about matter.Read (above) what Engels wrote about the materialist conception of history in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. It’s clear enough.So far you have decided on matter,  Nobody else has.  Surely that’s clear enough.

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LBird wrote:

Once we've clarified … that Marx and Engels were talking about 'social production' (and not 'matter')…

If the passages (which you mocked) from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific can’t change your opinion about whether Engels was saying the “same thing” as Marx’s Preface to the Contribution, then my opinion can’t.Since, in your idealist–materialist [sic] view, thought can never break free from opinion, the onus falls squarely on you to explain, in your opinion:Why your idealism–materialism [sic] misled you to your former opinion — that Engels was not saying the “same thing” as Marx’s Preface to the Contribution?Why, in idealist–materialist [sic] terms, you have now changed your mind?

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LBird wrote:

Engels said something different to Marx.Marx was talking about 'social production', not 'matter'.

Engels is saying the same thing as Marx’s Preface to the Contribution.So is Engels.

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And these also for LBird.Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific.[Here we find the greatest use of the word Materialism is by Marx, and not by Engels.  This is where Marx recounts his critical history of philosophical Materialism]Engels:  “I am perfectly aware that the contents of this work will meet with objection from a considerable portion of the British public [e.g., LBird].Engels:  “This book defends what we [=Marx and Engels] call “historical materialism” [although LBird claims Engels lied about Marx calling it “historical materialism” and that feebly Marx acquiesced in this foundational lie in order to appease Engels, whether for honourable personal or grubby mercenary reasons remains unresolved.]…Engels:  “…and the word materialism grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers [certainly upon the ears of LBird].Engels:  “Agnosticism” might be tolerated, but materialism is utterly inadmissible. [to LBird]Engels:  “And, yet, the original home of all modern materialism, from the 17th century onwards, is England.Here follows Karl Marx, The Holy Family, p. 201–4:Karl Marx:  “Materialism is the natural-born son of Great Britain.  Already the British schoolman, Duns Scotus, asked, ‘whether it was impossible for matter to think?’Karl Marx:  “In order to effect this miracle, he took refuge in God’s omnipotence — i.e., he made theology preach materialism.  Moreover, he was a nominalist.  Nominalism, the first form of materialism, is chiefly found among the English schoolmen.Karl Marx;  “The real progenitor of English materialism is Bacon.  To him, natural philosophy is the only true philosophy, and physics based upon the experience of the senses is the chiefest part of natural philosophy.  [Anaxagoras and his homoiomeriae, Democritus and his atoms].  According to him, the senses are infallible and the source of all knowledge.  All science is based on experience, and consists in subjecting the data furnished by the senses to a rational method of investigation.  Induction, analysis, comparison, observation, experiment, are the principal forms of such a rational method.  Among the qualities inherent in matter, motion is the first and foremost, not only in the form of mechanical and mathematical motion, but chiefly in the form of an impulse, a vital spirit, a tension — or a ‘qual’, to use a term of Jakob Bohme’s — of matter.Karl Marx:  “In Bacon, its first creator, materialism still occludes within itself the germs of a many-sided development.  On the one hand, matter, surrounded by a sensuous, poetic glamor, seems to attract man's whole entity by winning smiles.  On the other, the aphoristically formulated doctrine pullulates with inconsistencies imported from theology.Karl Marx:  “In its further evolution, materialism becomes one-sided. Hobbes is the man who systematizes Baconian materialism.  Knowledge based upon the senses loses its poetic blossom, it passes into the abstract experience of the mathematician; geometry is proclaimed as the queen of sciences.  Materialism takes to misanthropy.  If it is to overcome its opponent, misanthropic, flashless spiritualism, and that on the latter's own ground, materialism has to chastise its own flesh and turn ascetic.  Thus, from a sensual, it passes into an intellectual, entity; but thus, too, it evolves all the consistency, regardless of consequences, characteristic of the intellect.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes, as Bacon's continuator, argues thus: if all human knowledge is furnished by the senses, then our concepts and ideas are but the phantoms, divested of their sensual forms, of the real world. Philosophy can but give names to these phantoms. … Man is subject to the same laws as nature.  Power and freedom are identical.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes had systematized Bacon, without, however, furnishing a proof for Bacon’s fundamental principle, the origin of all human knowledge from the world of sensation.  It was Locke who, in his Essay on the Human Understanding, supplied this proof.Karl Marx:  “Hobbes had shattered the theistic prejudices of Baconian materialism; Collins, Dodwell, Coward, Hartley, Priestley, similarly shattered the last theological bars that still hemmed in Locke'’s sensationalism.  At all events, for practical materialists, Deism is but an easy-going way of getting rid of religion.”

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I’ll supply them for LBird.Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific :Engels:  “The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.Engels:  “From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in men’s better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.  They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch.Engels:  “…  From this it also follows that the means of getting rid of the incongruities that have been brought to light must also be present, in a more or less developed condition, within the changed modes of production themselves.  These means are not to be invented by deduction from fundamental principles, but are to be discovered in the stubborn facts of the existing system of production.Engels:  “The socialized appropriation of the means of production does away, not only with the present artificial restrictions upon production, but also with the positive waste and devastation of productive forces and products that are at the present time the inevitable concomitants of production, and that reach their height in the crises.Engels:  “Further, it sets free for the community at large a mass of means of production and of products, by doing away with the senseless extravagance of the ruling classes of today, and their political representatives.Engels:  “The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties — this possibility is now, for the first time, here, but it is here.Engels:  “With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer.   Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization.Engels:  “The struggle for individual existence disappears.  Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones.Engels:  “The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization.Engels:  “The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him.Engels:  “Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action.  The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history, pass under the control of man himself.  Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him.Engels:  “It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.

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ajj wrote:

I thought the basis of science is that a hypothesis is set up…it is examined and argument and counter-argument takes place to resolve differences and for the hypothesis improvement. In other words, the "truth" of it is always being questioned.

No.  This is Karl Popper’s method of conjecture and refutation.The particular refutation Popper had uppermost in mind was Marx’s Capital.Conjecture might start out as hypothesis, inspiration, imagination, or mere stab-in-the-dark, but it remains forever grounded in thought.  Popper’s conjectural science glorifies thought but relegates practice to the refutation of thought.The method of drawing on practice to falsify thought is not Marx’s scientific method in Capital.  For this, see http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/marx‘s-scientific-method.

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LBird wrote:

Marx was talking about how we collectively control our own natural production, which we are compelled to do by our natural existence.  This ‘compulsion’ isn’t a trick by the bourgeoisie…  We can’t ‘retire’ from it, as a species.

LBird’s natural compulsion operating upon ‘our species’, independent of our will, is the foundation that opens up the (otherwise closed) possibility of a deterministic science of society.A science that comprehends external necessity has no choice but to recognize that thought is not the determiner of the necessity, but is the determined, just as LBird asserts against ajj.LBird acknowledges that social reproduction is subject to external necessity, from which he has abstracted a deterministic social law, and that society (as a whole, despite some members of it) isn’t free to practice just as it desires nor to think just as it pleases.And herein lies the germ of Marx’s materialism and Marx’s deterministic science of society which investigates the social forms that arise under the compulsion for social practice to reproduce society:“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.  The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.  The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.  It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” [Marx, A Contribution…].

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Suspension of Marcos:Re: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/marx-and-automation?page=28#comment-43036 …

moderator1 wrote:

First warning: 1.  The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.2nd warning: 15.  Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.3rd and final warning: 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.This warning will stay in place for the next 30 days.  I this [sic] breaches the rules within this period he'll be immediately suspended.3rd [sic] and final warning: 15.  Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.

This has been tactlessly handled.The author of the topic initiated the alleged “derail” — as in, MBellamare:“I see the advent of return to the dark ages… I call this the rise of  micro-fascism…”Marcos can’t possibly “derail” a thread by responding to a claim made by the original author.Moderators might reconsider turning first warnings into recommendations, e.g.,“Your post on XXX is off-topic.  To continue posting on XXX, please do so in a more-appropriate thread or start a new thread on XXX”.Most self-respecting writers would be tempted to defend themselves, as Marcos did, in the open, and to resist the ignominy of having to defend themselves in private against unexpected charges laid against themselves in public!Marcos has “derailed” nothing.  He believes himself innocent of implied intent.  As a result he has compounded his “offence” by openly defending his integrity.Marcos has taken his stance in the very same public arena in which his integrity was unfathomably impugned — in the open forum.  Why should he grovel to private appeal and await private judgement?Serial derailment is one thing, but unintended derailment is quite another.Moderation is difficult, but something is wrong with its current implementation.

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Full-automation and Marx’s theory of valueIn 1898, a Russian economist, Vladimir Dmitriev, ‘demonstrated’ that the rate of profit would be positive in a fully automated economy.Capitalists can get “profit on capital without human labour … when all products are produced exclusively by the work of machines” (Economic Essays on Value, Competition and Utility, p. 214).In Dmitriev’s model economy, where machines make machines, the annual turnover is as follows:Annual input = 4 machinesAnnual output = 5 machinesInput price of machine = $100Output price of machine = $100Annual profit = $500 / $400, or 25%Consequently Dmitriev’s fully automated economy creates $100 annually out of thin air.In Reclaiming Marx’s Capital, Andrew Kliman points out that this “slipshod” argument absolutely convinced professional Marxist economists like Maurice Dobb, Meghnad Desai, Howard & King (History of Marxian Economics Vol 2)!Kliman exposes Dmitriev’s celebrated so-called ‘demolition’ of Marx’s theory of value as follows:As no labour is performed, there is no valuePrice of machine ≠ $100 (it rapidly falls to zero)Input price of machine = $0Output price of machine = $0Thus, profit = $0 / $0 (it rapidly becomes meaningless)Kliman points out that, while Dmitriev incorrectly asserts that non-Marxian machine ‘labour’ can produce value (as we have seen), he quite correctly asserts that non-Marxian animal ‘labour’ cannot produce value.  Yet, both non-Marxian cases are entirely analogous.(‘Debunking’ economist Steve Keen snidely hints that non-Marxian animal labour, e.g. mules and donkeys, can produce value independently of the human labour-power of their tending.  Such lack of clarity of thought is characteristic of the economists who would “improve” Marx!)I leave Andrew Kliman’s substantive criticism of Dmitriev and his long line of followers for another occasion.It merely remains for me to emphasise that Kliman’s exposure of Dmitriev simultaneously exposes Michel Luc Bellamare’s reproduction schema (above).

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MBellamare wrote:

I will comment on creative-power…Much of what is going on [in our ‘post-modern’ capitalist society] is transpiring outside or beyond the Marxist definition  labor-power and the law of value (to me, that’s the problem in a nutshell).

That’s how capitalist society appears to everyone:  price and profit motivate everything;  value and surplus-value motivate nothing, and the theory of capital is inapplicable in our ‘post-whatever’ society.It’s no different from how capitalist society showed itself to Marx himself, although he refused to adopt the vulgar criterion of l’art pompier and mistake the appearance, or sign of the beast, for the beast itself.Capitalist economics is the ‘science’ that revels in the capitalist world of appearance.There you’ll discover your own ‘novel’ perception enshrined in two of its three commandments, namely that (1) human behavior is driven by perceived outcomes, which (2) motivate profit maximizing.Capitalist economics quantifies the “unquantifiable”, because it faithfully mirrors what its quantifying practitioners actually manage to do in practice, and they are perfectly capable of transforming anything into a desirable possession that can be price-tagged and traded for profit.In capitalist economics — a ‘science’ effectively written by the diarists of capitalist practice — you’ll find your own ‘novel’ creative-power conceived as a quantifiable ‘commodity’ called intellectual capital, and codified as human, structural and relational capital.The sign on the beast may read “unquantifiable”, but the profit-seeking capitalist estimates it and sells it nonetheless.The sole activity left for a critic trapped inside the capitalist conceptual world, is to protest loudly over the perceived ‘injustice’ and ‘immorality’ of established market practice that has long since been enshrined as ‘just’ and ‘moral’.The real answer emerges from Marx’s Capital, but that requires a lengthier article.  For the meantime, read the Wikipedia entry on “Fictitious Capital”.

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Alan, I respect your intention.However, I write in conformance with our Declaration of Principles in pursuit of our Object.I embrace Clause 7, and do not embrace “alleged labour or avowedly capitalist” opponents.It is impossible for a Socialist to “resolve” [= get mutual agreement on] Socialism with someone who disagrees with our Declaration of Principles and Object.It is impossible to demand that others will always “follow and understand discussion”, even with personal effort.In honouring your intention, I submit to the Forum moderator in conformance with Forum rules.  In return I expect not to chafe under personal micromanagement in an open Forum.

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Michel Luc Bellemare wrote:

The SPGB Forum claims that structural-anarchism economics is linked to the currency-crank economists who believe that value can be created out of thin-air by the central banks, etc.I claim it is founded on the same ground as Marxist economics, namely, labor-power, or “more specifically and more broadly speaking” upon creative-power.[twc: Consequently he is actually claiming that it is founded on different grounds from Marxist economics]The ruling enterprising-networks of capitalism establish values, prices and wages arbitrarily.[twc: Consequently he is actually claiming that the central banks, etc. create value out of thin air].

So Michel Luc Bellemare rebuts the SPGB Forum by affirming the SPGB Forum!Such blindspot delusion betrays the crank who neither detects nor prevents himself contradicting himself to save himself.Bellemare wants to base economics, “more broadly” than Marx, upon creative-power.The virtue of creative-power as value is that it is unquantifiable.  It is value that has no value, that lacks value, that is valueless.As a foundation for comprehending a social mode of production, nebulous creative-power is indistinguishable from “central banking thin-air”.  It cannot support a social system in the way that quantifiably expended labour-power is inescapably condemned by natural necessity to.  At most creative-power can only found non-economics.Any imaginative talent can create the fiction it seeks, by any means he/she “theoretically” desires, upon the rock-solid [sic] foundation of valueless value.The appropriate way for any talent to proceed “theoretically” with the rarefied thin-air of creative-power is by expending equally rarefied hot-air on it — the vaporific literary drivel that Marx spent his entire scientific life opposing.Forget Bellemare’s vapid creative-power for unravelling the complexities and the constraints upon the capitalist class’s carve up of the surplus-value it extracts from the working class.Let Bellemare first demonstrate that he can tackle some difficult economic problem and provide a uniquely creative-power based non-obvious solution.Until then his unquantifiable creative-power “economics” rightly languishes as a virginal fantasy — pristinely crank economics grounded in its author’s creative imagination.

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Michel Luc Bellemare Ph.d wrote:

Consequently, in the end, it is the ruling enterprising-networks of capitalism that, arbitrarily, establish values [sic], prices and wages.

“Consequently, in the end,” it is Michel Luc Bellemare Ph.d who proves Structural-Anarchism Economics is currency crank economics in which value not only “can be created” — as the mere average run-of-the-mill currency crank asserts— but “actually is created”, arbitrarily, by the “ruling enterprising-networks of capitalism” — e.g., the central banks!

[Author]

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