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Thank you.The amazing thing is how deeply Marx understood all this, long before the three shattering crises of 19th century physics — relativity, quantum mechanics and deterministic chaos of nonlinear systems — proved the universality of deterministic development by evolutionary change of superstructure and revolutionary change of base. The more amazing thing is how superficially Marx's academic followers, who have all the advantages of leisure and all the disadvantages of finding themselves answerable to an academic junta, misunderstood exactly what he so clearly wrote.The class-conscious Party, shut out of the highly-technical academic debates, could only bide its time in quiet confidence of its own case for socialism based on the Party's Object and Declaration of Principles, while the academic marxian economists ripped Marx and marxism to shreds. As always, the Party's Object and Declaration of Principles — which derive from Marx, and embody his conclusions on capitalism and socialism — shielded the Party from taking seriously the dispiriting near-universally acknowledged demolition of marxism by the marxists from the late 1970s until the recent demolition of the perpetrating academic marxian economists by Andrew Kliman of a few years ago.As always, class-conscious science is our most powerful weapon. And that science is deterministic in the 2300 year-old base–superstructure sense of determinism.
Complex Adaptive CapitalismHardy's Solution shows precisely why capitalism survives.It also suggestively reveals the complex-adaptive-system that human society, which unfortunately includes capitalism, clearly happens to be.I list its complex-adaptive-system hallmarks.System is human society — human society conceived of as a single unit, an entity, an object in its own right.Consequently the word "social" refers to society as a whole. A class-divided society is therefore a wounded thing — something ideally whole but materially divided.It cries out to us to heal its wound.System driving force is social production — social labour acting on social resources by means of social instruments — or class labour acting on class resources by means of class instruments.Production is constant and periodic.System invariant is fixed social property relations — social or class ownership and control over social production.In Marx's terminology, social relationships of ownership and control over production are called the social base.System behaviour is a Marxian "reflection" arising from the foundation — a feedback mechanism that limits possible development trajectories for system behaviour. It is a consequence of the social base.In Marx's terminology, system behaviour is called the social superstructure.System trajectories evolve through persistent periods of self-similarity.In capitalism, we see an evolving self-similar free-market superstructure raised upon an evolving self-similar social base of fixed but shifting capitalist-class ownership-and-control relations.System transitions transform one persistent self-similarity state into another persistent self-similarity state by revolution — periods of stability punctuated by phase transitions.When a system trajectory exhausts the superstructure's possibilities [behaviours], there follows a system crisis characterized by the remarkable Marxian mechanism of the base determining the superstructure to redetermine the base. This is the social revolution. The crisis is overcome by the superstructure deterministically changing the system's base to correspond better to its already deterministically-changed superstructure.System agents are us. We social human beings acting out our social needs.
Yes, Hardy is correct. For Marx, the following three conditions hold. Here is Andrew Kliman's summary Reclaiming Marx's Capital, (2007) p. 144 [prior to Kliman, mathematical economists failed to prove Marx's conditions, and triumphantly demolished Marx's scientific reputation]:"Marx's three aggregate value–price equalities follow immediately from his conception that competition leads to a different distribution of the surplus-value without altering the total amount already produced:total profit equals total surplus-valuetotal price equals total valuethe "aggregate" price rate of profit equals the "aggregate" value rate of profit""In Marx's view, these aggregate equalities were immensely significant. They confirmed both the law of value and his theory that all profit has its origin in the exploitation of the workers." [Andrew Kliman]ProductivityFor Marx, "aggregate" productivity is precisely "aggregate" rate of exploitation. Here are four equivalent expressions for it:total surplus labour time / total necessary labour timetotal profit / total wagetotal surplus-value / total labour-powertotal profit / (total price – total profit)So the annual growth rate of productivity for this year´ relative to last year, has these equivalent expressions:(total-profit´ / total-wage´) / (total-profit / total-wage)(total-profit´ / total-profit) / (total-wage´ / total-wage)relative increase in total profit / relative increase in total wage.The last expression clarifies exactly what Hardy is saying:the rate of productivity increases in direct proportion as the total profit increases the rate of productivity decreases in direct proportion as the total wage increases.So, if total wages keep pace with total profit, then — in purely capitalist exploitative terms — total productivity hardly changes! Of course. Hardy is absolutely correct. [That is certainly not what I expected.]But Hardy's Solution must also be understood as a uniform gloss upon the terrible disproportionalities that lurk beneath the apparently serene "statistical lie" of social averages.We need to unmask the un-serene actuality in future posts.
Productivity from Top to BottomHardy is correct to remind us not to forget "indirect" production costs, but he is wrong to dismiss the effects of productivity growth within these not-to-be-forgotten "indirect", or "preliminary", production commodities, which — just like "direct" or "final" products — are also produced for a specialist market, even if that market is a restricted market for capitalist-class productive consumption. All actual markets are equally restricted in scope, but are nevertheless free markets.It is notorious that the producers at the bottom of the production chain squeal loudest about being robbed by those above them. That's the hallmark of their good capitalist productivity. Those at the top of the chain compel the producers of their productive "components" to be productive by switching from one to other component manufacturer based primarily on their perceived productivity.Both Direct and IndirectIt seems to me that capitalist productivity is recursive all the way up and down the production supply chain. This is how the social "coercive laws of competition" operate globally throughout capitalist production.As "social laws of nature" every capitalist manufacturer must obey them like a natural "law of nature" so long as he doesn't absolutely monopolize the market — for it is market competition alone that operates as the coercive force that drives productivity everywhere throughout capitalist production.An Example. The semiconductor industry relies on so many independent "final" parts manufacturers [component manufacturers of wafer chips, digital displays, camera lenses, lasers, microphones, speakers, software apps, …] whose social productive function is primarily to be mere "preliminary" products for productive consumption in the production of "final" consumer goods.Each of these component manufacturers is determined to outcompete the productivity of his equally determined rival component manufacturers — equally as determined as the "final" product manufacturer he supplies his "preliminary" product to.So I assert that no commodities are exempt from productivity gains at rates that are appropriate to their level — whether they be "preliminary" or "final" products. In a production chain, one process's "final" product is another process's "preliminary" product.The productivity embedded in the "final" product at the top of the chain is likely to be shackled by the lowest productivity of the weakest link in the supply chain below it [which I now belatedly see is Hardy's precise point]. The productivity embodied in the "final" product at the top of the chain embodies all the productivity gains along the chain, and so its own productivity is more socially "averaged" than the individual productivities of its components.It's just dawned on me, that this social "averaging" of productivity embodied in the "final" product is precisely what the precient Hardy is using to explain why overall social productivity is relatively low. To the extent to which Hardy's case depends on the 'socially averaged' productivity embodied in "final" products, I am compelled to agree with him, but it took me quite a while to realize that I actually did.But my substantive point remains — increasing productivity gains are compelled to occur at every stage of capitalist production, and to become embodied in every saleable product on the market — in every commodity, whether a component or a whole. To argue that — socially wide — the productivity of "final" products is shackled by weak productivity links in the whole social supply chain beggars belief.Surely capitalism doesn't work [or more correctly, fail to work] in that way?Surely, capitalism doesn't tolerate incompetent productivity sabotage on a grand social scale? Surely the socially "averaged" productivity embedded in "final" products is ever increasingly getting higher!At least that's how I see it.And so I feel compelled to revisit Hardy's problem — if ever-increasing productivity doesn't manifest itself in ever-increasing growth, profit and interest rates, what's actually going on?
Four observations…Observation 1. Hardy is describing actual capitalist production as we know it to be.Current capitalist production can be described abstractly as Production by Workers — firms of workers using automation [or robots] to make consumer products competing against rival firms of workers using automation [or robots] to make competitive consumer goods.Hardy makes the point that automation reduces the variable capital [human working hours] in the "final" stage and not in the "preliminary" stages of the production of a commodity, and so the overall reduction in variable capital in the consumer commodity turns out to be much less than it actually is in the "final" stage of production alone.That is Hardy's reminder of Marx's representation of a commodity's value as being made up of two components [one living and one dead].1. Past Labour — the Means of Production that comprise the resources and depreciating instruments that are productively consumed in producing the commodity2. Present Labour — the "final" Labour that is productively consumed in producing the commodity.Hardy's point is predicated on only the "final" labour being displaced by automation and not the "preliminary" labour.It is hard to see this situation still characterizing capitalist production today, where all stages of the production process are increasingly automated and robot-ized.Observation 2. The topic under consideration is not the actuality of capitalist production of today but a presumed tendency of capitalist production today, which can be described abstractly as Production by Robots — firms of workers making robots making robots making consumer products competing against rival firms of workers making robots making robots making competitive consumer goods.In this form of production, not only is Hardy's "final" labour displaced by "valueless" robotic labour but his "preliminary" labour is also displaced by "valueless" robotic labour. This annuls Hardy's argument, at least if the displacement of labour by robotics occurs equally throughout both "preliminary" and "final" labour, which includes an equal reduction in the human component embodied in the production of the robots as well.Unlike Hardy's realistic version of capitalism, this form of production may not actually exist, or at least it may not currently predominate. But it is worth considering because it is a theoretically possible implementation of capitalist production, and its preconditions are being generated naturally by current production. [Of course, Marx and Hardy were aware of this tendency toward full-stage, rather than just "final" stage, automation occurring in their own lifetimes.]We defer consideration of the countervailing forces that may offset these preconditions until Observation 3 below.Recursion simply means using A to produce A to produce A … In our case, robots to produce robots to produce … Recursion going on and on forever is only possible for Mother Nature. In actual human production, we only need to swamp costly human labour by cheap robotic labour to approximate humanless production — to approximate a valueless condition of capitalist production.Valueless capitalist production would, of course, be catastrophic for capitalism and for the capitalist class, as a capitalist production process only generates value through human labour and not through robotic labour, which [if truly humanless] is valueless in Marxian terms.Valueless capitalist production would, of course, also have dire consequences for the working class, since labour power would become socially valueless. The working class in such a capitalism would be rendered socially jobless and so socially useless, like the free proletariat of Ancient Rome [that was the same drone class that had the leisure to spread its comforting delusion Christianity].If social labour at all stages of capitalist production ever becomes predominantly robotic, then consumer products become predominantly valueless. In a competitive capitalist economy — one which through competition enforces strict value production — the prices of consumer goods would plummet. Could this happen?Observation 3. What do we make of all this?The consequences of whole-scale robotic production under capitalistic conditions rely on whether:1. it is actually possible to predominantly robot-ize all stages of commodity production,2. it is actually possible to sustain a competitive capitalist market for goods and services provided predominantly by whole-scale robotic production.It is quite possible that the answer to both questions is No! In which case, we need to understand why, e.g. preliminary production may always remain human intensive, unlike final production, presumably through increasing difficulty of obtaining resources without predominantly human involvement.But if the answer is yes, then the problem remains of whether the working class is any longer necessary to capitalism as inactive producer and so unnecessary purchaser of consumption goods — whether the working class in such a capitalism has forfeited its social right to its social existence. It's hard to conceive of a competitive capitalist market surviving whole-scale robotic production. Something like what YoungMasterSmeet raises as a prospect may come to the capitalist market's rescue — but his vision is of a class-monopolistic artificial market, to the dismay of the great defenders of a free and open market.Observation 4. Capitalism is a survivor. It is a supreme example of an adaptive self-organising system, what Marx and Hegel called an organism. We are the agents of its adapting and self-organisation — its perpetuation as well as of its abolition.So far capitalism has met all challenges, even if it is we who, unwittingly, save it. It could conceivably survive this presumed robotic crisis with our help. But should we save it?Capitalism, as a social system, uses us to maintain its daily sustenance and ensure its survival. It has long since ceased to deserve our allegiance. We must consciously put it out of its [and our own] misery.
Young Master Smeet,Thank you.Your interesting analysis nicely supports the case I was attempting to make in other threads that a capitalist social base has many actual possibilities. We can only understand these possibilities in terms of the base that supports them. If your analysis ever turns out to be actualized [as I said, my "analysis" was only a directly naive application of Marxian economic theory] it will demonstrate how important it is for the Party case to be as scientific as possible — exposing capitalist actuality as being deterministically consequential upon the base of capitalist ownership and control of social production.The non-socialist implications of recursive-robotic production are terrifying. They make the socialist case ever more urgent!
Production by Recursive Robotics — firms making robots making robots making consumer products competing against rival firms making robots making robots making competitive consumer goods.In this Ideal capitalist community, according to Marxian economic theory, the robots cost nothing [have no value], the consumer products are free [have no value] and the firms get zero profit. The capitalist day of judgement is at hand!For a real capitalist community, rushing headlong into this capitalist-production abyss, Marxian economic theory asserts [at least in a directly naive application of it]1. the organic composition of capital skyrockets2. the value of constant capital plunges3. the market price of [the recursive-robotically produced] consumer goods falls4. the social rate of profit plungesIf recursive-robotic manufacturing becomes the social norm, descent into the abyss must accelerate through increasingly desperate attempts to realize ever-diminishing rates of profit.Production by recursive robotics therefore looms as the great test for Marxian economics. It may very well be the great test for Marxism itself, and so for Socialism, and by implication for all mankind.Sure, we have seen wide-spread robotics before, and we have been alarmist before. But, …If the trend toward production by robotics becomes competitively recursive, increasingly minimising capitalism's dependence on a productive working class [variable capital], the implications for the world's working class and capitalist class, and for the existing capitalist and future socialist systems of society are enormous.
TheOldGreyWhistle: I havent had time to read all your post …An incautious admission for someone advocating "free speech", which implies a courteous obligation on the part of the listener to listen to the speech, otherwise the speech might just as well be "unfree speech".You formerly encouraged me, in good fellowship, to simplify my writing style so as to reach out more readily to the working class, but after years of considering the socialist case I find I must write about socialism as simply as I think suits the case.In this trivial episode, it is you who unconsciously, but probably quite appropriately, attempted to limit [through your genuinely-felt concern for conveying the socialist case] my freedom of speech. This makes my point — "free speech" is simply not Absolute.[As an aside, I will never compromise, in an effort to simplify, the integrity of the case I make for socialism and so hold responsibility for making — that class consciousness is not some blinding insight, but rather it is a scientific understanding of society — the subtle robbing and ruling by the capitalist class of the working class.]TheOldGreyWhistle: … I can't see the Party changing its position on this one. Socialism without free speech is an idealistic dream. Socialism is impossible if workers can't talk to each otherOf course!I fully support the Party position on internal freedom of speech and internal democratic control. I carefully expressed my support from the start to avoid any such misunderstanding when challenging what I took to be making an Ideal out of "free speech". Internal "free speech" was immediately established by the Party upon its inception in 1904 — the Party broke away from the old SDF over the very issue of internal free speech and internal democracy for socialism.My point is theoretical. I assert that, from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history, the concept of "free speech" is a subservient concept to the only socialist Absolute concept we acknowledge, which for materialists can only be a material thing [well, actually a material process]. Our Absolute is something as prosaic as the material "social base of production" [precisely the Party Object] — common ownership and democratic control of society's resources and instruments.To arrogate anything else [such as "free speech"] to Absolute status for us is to float into the realms of Idealism. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't adopt "free speech". On the contrary we must, and do, adopt it internally. But we must also understand what we are adopting realistically, not imaginatively.Our own material Object is Absolute for us because, as Materialists [not Idealists], we hold the scientific Materialist position that everything that characterizes human society — the social being of us humans living in that society — follows as a consequence upon that society's social base. A capitalist social base of ownership and control produces and sustains capitalist social being — capitalist social behaviour and social thought — capitalist consciousness. A socialist social base of ownership and control produces and sustains socialist social being — socialist social behavior and social thought — socialist consciousness.Our Object is a material Absolute for us because it is the material agency that will produce and sustain the common sociability of the whole socialist society. What could be more Absolute for us than that?Emphasize Un-FreedomThe disturbing aspect of emphasing freedom of XXX, freedom of YYY, … is that we unwittingly undermine our case by emphasizing freedom, the very thing the working class doesn't possess in the only sense that freedom matters — the un-freedom the working class has over ownership and control of its very social existence. All other un-freedoms pale to insignificance.On the contrary, we must scientifically explain our material social un-freedom before we can unmask the ideal illusory social freedoms that arise out of our social un-freedom in capitalism.If the working class doesn't recognize its actual social un-freedom, why should it bother freeing itself while it continues to recognize itself as being already socially free?TheOldGreyWhistle: 'Free access!, 'Abolition of the wages system' Are they 'single issues'?From the strict standpoint of the materialist conception of history, they are 'single issues', just like 'free speech', whenever they are treated as goals superior to our Object. The only way to conceive them as not being 'single issues' is to conceive of them as meaning the very same thing as our Object.What would you say if we added the anarchist catch-cry 'Abolition of the State' to the list?Marx supported the socialist banner 'Abolition of the wages system' as a rallying synonym for abolishing capitalism. But strictly speaking it can only come after establishing our material Object.Marx also foreshadowed the 'Withering away of the state', yet he opposed Bakhunin's 'Abolition of the state' for the very same reason — that the capitalist state is a consequence of the capitalist social base, and can only be abolished and remain abolished as a perpetual consequence of establishing our material Object.In isolation of attaining our Object, all such clauses put the cart before the horse. Our material Object is the only Absolute that brings the above catch cries in its wake.
Dialectics of "Free Speech"Capitalism quite legitimately, from its standpoint, insists on honourable withholding of that vaunted Absolute "free speech".Capitalist companies demand commercial-in-confidence non-disclosure agreements [NDA] to prevent staff, suppliers or collaborators who, in a free market, are potentially staff, suppliers or collaborators of competing rival firms, from sharing the company's so-called "intellectual property" beyond the confines of the company. Such folks are expected to honour their NDAs as condition for their collaboration and work within the company. It is a legal offence to violate this confidence.Police and military demand a need-to-know "free speech" policy to prevent unintended disclosure of vital information that might jeopardize their operations. Folk are considered incompetent or saboteurs if they divulge such confidential or classified information. In many cases, failure to withhold "free speech" may endanger the lives of their active personnel.International diplomacy is the supreme task of unfreeing some other nation's withheld, or unfree, speech.And we all know about cabinet solidarity, which deliberately leaks cabinet-confidential "free speech" when expedient to fly a political kite or when its hostile band-of-rivals sneakily settle political scores against each other. There is often greater honour of silence among theives.What about a prisoner's "right" to remain silent in his own defence as part of his own defence?On the other hand, how about the coercive side of "free speech".Thrusting "free speech" upon people whether they like it or not must surely be a good thing! Well, what is enemy torture but a means of thrusting upon a captured enemy the great capitalist Right of "free speech"?The vaunted capitalist rights are absolutely not Absolute. Their multifarious concrete manifestations are all explained rationally as consequences of the capitalist social base of production — just like everything else that is social in capitalism.
Capitalism's "Social Laws of Nature"Single Issues = IdealismSingle issues, like the topic of this thread "freedom of speech", but also "freedom of religion", "freedom to work", "freedom of race", "freedom of sex" [freedom for women, gays, same-sex marriage], "freedom for the environment", "freedom for animals", "freedom to bear arms", etc. are always framed in terms of rights [human, animal, environmental, whatever] — Absolutes that have been tarnished in their relative actuality, and must be restored from socially undesirable actualities into social embodiments of unsullied Absolute purities.The Idealist political stance is always that the socially inviolable has been socially violated and must be socially restored. It is what motivates non-class conscious politics.Perhaps, "motivation" is too strong a word to describe the "politically-realistic pragmatic" emasculation of inspiring social demand for actualizing a social Absolute, which always appears a ridiculous thing to do under mercenary capitalism — so that the poor non-class conscious politician must settle for second-best motivation — "we [the non-class conscious] humbly recognize that our socially-inviolable abstract Ideal is unattainable, but we still fight to reduce the extent of social violation in its concrete social actuality".Such is the feeble political residue of a century of non-class conscious politics that arrogated to itself the claim to being class conscious. Such motiveless motivation is the very embodiment of political damage control.When the materialist Marx spoke of ideals being material, he was not being perversely enigmatic. He was not referring to such trivialities as ghosts being real products of the imagination [something most three-year olds glean without parental guidance from their picture books].Marx was precisely referring to the materiality of the most insidious form of human bondage in the annals of human society — the capitalist "social laws of nature" — the forces that manifest themselves as social illusions that control each and every one of us under capitalism. The illusions that capitalism naturally creates. The illusions that sustain capitalism as a complex adaptive self-organising system. The laws that govern our lives under capitalism. The laws that we can never repeal under capitalism. The social compatriots of the natural "laws of nature".Insight into the materiality of capitalism's "social laws of nature" ranks among the deepest social insights of Marx's new materialism — the materialist conception of history — the science of our social being, that is forever eons ahead of any contender.The material might of capitalism's "social laws of nature" is precisely the reason why a century of non-class conscious politics achieved nothing to further but everything to set back the social goals that inspired it. One cannot repeal a law of nature — social as well as natural.Anything that always defeated, continually defeats and will continue to defeat every social onslaught by the greatest and finest non-class conscious minds society has to offer is quite rightly the manifestation of a "social law of nature". What inferior name would you call it?Challenge: To the brightest and finest non-class conscious minds. Capitalism's "social laws of nature" offer a perfect target for non-class conscious attack. The claim of their existence appears so obviously false. To the non-class conscious there are only natural "laws of nature". Our absurd claim should be trivial to demolish. Please try to demolish it! [Caution: Think carefully — you're taking on Marx and his materialist conception of history.]Syncretism — Collection of Single IssuesAn arbitrary collection of Absolutes does not a single Absolute make.The idealist Hegel showed the world the only possible way an Idealist can unify a collection of Ideals. Our non-class conscious opponents are incapable of recognizing their own Idealism, and would scoff at the very thought that such practical folks as they are could ever be guilty of, and motivated by, philosophical Idealism, which they totally misconceive. Unwilling to unify their Ideals in Hegelian terms, they parade their disparate Ideals as a grab bag of a single dis-united Ideal. They are intellectually insipid syncretists.Our syncretist opponents are scientifically incapable of uniting their collection of Absolutes. So they resort to moral suasion, dramatic display and grand rhetoric — as anyone must if they are fighting for grand inalienable absolute rights that have been concretely violated.We don't fight them [even when we confront them face-to-face]. Their case is beneath contempt. We choose a worthier foe. We fight the hold that the capitalist "social laws of nature" have over them. We take on the capitalist "social laws of nature".How do you Repeal a "Social Law of Nature"?The only way to repeal a "social law of nature" is to repeal the social base that raised the laws. We repeal in one fell swoop the whole grand-united capitalist "social laws of nature" by repealing the capitalist social base of ownership and control relations of social resources, instruments and labour — by the working class wresting these from capitalist-class ownership and control [class rule] to replace capitalist-class ownership and control by socialist common ownership and democratic control of the whole society's resources, instruments and labour.Social Materialism = change the social base to change the social consequences! [Changed men are the products of a changed environment].Society's working class gets to consciously wield hitherto inaccessible social power — something that forever eludes the non-class conscious politician — it gets to repeal the capitalist "social laws of nature".All "social laws of nature" are created by us — hitherto, quite unconsciouslly. We have gained the class consciousness to know how to change ourselves. Isn't that the import of Marx's 11th thesis?[A rather fun aside… We do not know how to change the natural base of which the natural "laws of nature" are our scientifically hard-won human-crafted constructions thereof. We seem to be absolutely powerless to change those natural "laws of nature" — at least at present — to generate an entirely novel natural base with associated novel laws of nature.]Now to "Freedom of Speech"Freedoms of a class-divided exploitative society are always duplicitous. But, more importantly, the capitalist "social laws of nature" ensure that its freedoms are always insidious.Because single-issue advocates of freedoms always conceive them Idealistically, they invariably see their freedoms in a great inspiring light. They delude themselves.The following rather-tame uninspiring actuality of everyday "freedoms of speech" should be enough to disabuse anyone of the existence of any such truly-inspiring Absolute.[We entirely pass over the not-so-tame insidious aspects of capitalist "freedom of speech" perhaps for another occasion.]Freedom of Speech = freedom for unsolicited communication [call-centre harassment, junk mail, SPAM], freedom for conversational drivel and viciousness, freedom for scientific plagiarism, freedom for literary and artistic forgery, freedom for lynch-mob incendiarism, freedom for political demagoguery, freedom for religious mystification, freedom for advertising fraud, freedom for political lying, freedom for direct-action incitement, freedom for shock-jock venom, freedom for celebrity gossip, … The list of freedom-of-speech actualities extends to the crack of doom.The only way to ensure that these perversions of human decency don't emerge from the very socially-necessary conditions of our capitalist social existence is to change the conditions of our social existence —To replace capitalist conditions of class ownership and control by society's capitalist class with socialist conditions of non-class ownership and control by the whole society.
Complicated because there are no solutions to Capitalism's problems other than our own single grand united solution!This, I know, is exactly your starting point.Long and TechnicalThe sad truth is that capitalism is complicated because capitalism complicates everything.If capitalism wasn't complicated through its very own workings, we'd have deposed it long ago. We wouldn't have overwhelmingly numerous and powerful opponents who can't free themselves from the complicated delusions that control them and their thoughts.Yet, as you say, Capitalism is really very simple to explain.1. Capitalism is as simple as the capitalist class owns and controls the working class's labour, instruments and resources — 13 words that even a young teenager can understand, but probably won't believe without discussion that soon becomes complicated.2. The socialist complaint is really as simple as the capitalist class rule and rob the working class — seven words that even a young teenager can understand, but probably not believe.3. The socialist Object is our Object — not many more words, but that's just the start of a rapidly escalating discussion with a young teenager or anyone else.I believe, if we stick to the two dozen or so simple words that express our foundational ideas, we have the simple technical foundation for reducing complication.My own postsI never set out to write long "technical" posts. But it turned out that what people posted as unassailable assertions, could only be unravelled [at least by me, as I'm clarifying my own view] at length.Length should be the minimum to make the point — sometimes that turns out to be long.Technical should be as technical as the author understands the case to be — class ownership, class control, social system, capitalism, socialism aren't concepts directly derived from everyday "common experience", and so they remain remote to everyday "common sense". They are indirectly derived by analysing common experience, and that analysis is unfortunately "technical"."Uncommon sense" derived from "uncommon experience" is the very essence of science.Our non-class conscious opponents wallow in the "common sense" that directly arises from their "common experiences" — and they then defiantly oppose our hard-won "uncommon sense" with their very own common or garden variety, knowing like the tabloid press that they hold every "common sense" prejudice on their side.We, on the other hand, want deeper Class Consciousness. Unfortunately for us, that's technical. It's not tabloid press.But, I'm duly warned, and will aim for simplicity without sacrificing message.
Dear TOGW,No, I don't doubt your motives. I honour you and yours. I see them as absolutely genuine. And you also. I was merely pointing out that the very act of placing "freedom of speech" above common ownership and democratic control [which are our class interest] is creating something moral holding suasion over something practical. You would counter that "freedom of speech" is precisely something practical. That it is practical to gaining and running socialism. I agree, although there won't be social pressures to remove it under socialism.But if it's practical to gain a practical end then it is subservient to that end.If on the other hand it dominates our practical end then it is either our true practical end [which I don't believe it is] or it's a guiding principle to achieving our end — in which case it's moral.I see it as a consequence of our own class case that must use it as a weapon to expose capitalism under capitalism and which will be a natural outcome of daily life under socialism. It is perhaps one of the greatest things we have in our favour. It is a social goal, but only establishes itself as a truly socially achievable and sustainable object under socialism.As for now, we are not alone in honoring free speech. Objective science scrupulously practices free speech. What else are the pages and pages of references in Marx's Capital but free speech. It is a confirmation that our case is scientific. But it's also our recognition that each of us is but a unit of the common humanity that will achieve something beyond anything humans have achieved before. We all contribute our voice, because we are articulating our common goal — common ownership and democratic control.We socially and communally recognize that free speech is advantageous to us in exposing caputalism.But by turning "freedom of speech" into something superior to something practical. That is turning it into a guiding principle. That is what morality is. It is also what the bourgeoisie thought was guiding them in their revolutions — from England, France, [forget the Soviet Union, which consciously abused it even in the undertaking] and in the recent flight of Eastern Europe from the clutches of mother Russia. But it was always practical to free themselves from actual unfreedom of speech.Unfreedom of speech is something that occurs far more subtly over us in capitalism.Please, I'm writing these posts at speed. When I use the word "you" I mean some nebulous generic target. Actually, I do feel that most of us, you especially, are truly inspired by Voltaire's ringing defence. I think we'd be non-human not to be shaken to our core by its stirring defiance.Please, these are my thoughts inspired by yours. They may appear to make accusations. They don't. They are free thoughts within free speech inspired by free speech.Unfortunately, that's how opposing thoughts mascarade when we exercise free speech. We must all learn to accept that sometimes we need to go beyond Voltaire, even at his level bourgeois revolutionary level and recognize that even among friends discussing the common subject we love about the common goal we desire that — we also personally have to suffer the slings and arrows of free speech. With freedom comes its correlative.[And some misguided folks don't see things dialectically. But we recognize that argument by free speech may hurt both by its very freedom as well as by its content. That's why there are always ways and means to shut it down in class-dominated societies. But even we, especially we who fight for a non-class dominated society, must acknowledge that free speech also hurts our own minds and egos in order to liberate both to achieve a truly social mind and ego.]
I see our class interest as being precisely common ownership and democratic control. If ever the capitalist class forbids "freedom of speech" [to support private ownership and non-democratic control] as it did in Soviet Russia or goes even further to outlaw socialist parties, as in Bismark's Germany, "freedom of speech" will be curtailed absolutely, and that includes ours.We'd just have to accept the fact, and compromise [as we do when compelled to do so without jeopardizing the Party case in times of war] in some common sense fashion — just as Marx recommended sections of the International and social democrats to behave and not compromise the movement.So we may very well be compelled to curtail our external "freedom of speech" in the interests of our Object, but we will never yield an inch of our Object Itself.You say "No freedom of speech – no working class movement for socialism..'" True, internally for us. But not externally, It's the capitalist class that decides such external things for us, not us. We sometimes, as in times of war, have no choice but to submit in order to keep the case alive.Please, I agree with your case. It's strictly a solved-organizational issue for us, but please don't turn i"freedom of speech" into a higher absolute than our Object.Do you really suggest modifying our Object to read. "Freedom of speech to all mankind, regardless of race, sex, religion, politics, [the more deviant the speech, the more we'll support your right to it] in order to gain common ownership and democratic control…"?Do you see what I'm driving at?I'm not trying to undermine the Party's case — as you appear to think. My opposition to your case is that it stays at the admirable level of Voltaire. But that's not our position at all.You, on the other hand, have confirmed what I feared in my original post — that you were waiting to play your trump card as "a moral stand" against all non-Party players.i wholly support the Party's case on "freedom of speech". And, yes, it sometimes hurts.As for "the moral stand" — recall that I tried to make an abortive case that vestiges of our common sociability remain even under capitalism — and these are commonly called something like morality. I try to be scrupulously accountable in everything I write, partly out of common sense but also out of that remnant something we both share.
Hi Steve Colborn,I was trying to ward off an acrimonious thread like the recent one over religion — a new one which might invite the intolerant to intolerantly defend intolerance. I was wrong to do so, and apologize for so doing.Hi TheOldGreyWhistle,I fear that you want to treat or turn "freedom of speech" into a social or political Absolute. All Absolutes are made by us. The Party only acknowledges two social Absolutes — common ownership and democratic control. They are absolutes for us, because we have conviction that they embody our class interest. Contravening them is contravening our class interest. It is contravening us.Does "freedom of speech" occupy a similar status for us — or do we hold it to be subservient to our class interest, or do we dare hold it superior to our class interest?The answer to this question tells us how to view "freedom of speech" from our standpoint, whether we like it or not.I believe that "freedom of speech" is very much a consequence of society's social base. It will be a non issue for a common-ownership democratic-control social base. It must be a perpetual issue for a class-ownership and class-control social base.So what we can say from our standpoint about "freedom of speech" is far more important than merely what our left-wing opponents do [or don't do] say about it — that's their problem. We have ours.1. Capitalism has mastered — under compulsion to mask its class-division — the art of non-authoritarian suppression of "freedom of speech" without legislating against it [on the contrary, by extending its domain].2. As consequence of our Object [class interest] we differ from left-wing groups because we confer on our whole membership "freedom of speech". The Party is not conspiratorial. Ultimately it belongs to the whole working class, but first it must belong to its membership.3. As consequence of our Object [class interest] we differ from left-wing groups because we do not open our membership to non-class conscious members of the working class — to that extent we currently deny "freedom of speech" to the vast majority of the working class, because they currently don't want to become members of the Party. [Our non-class conscious political opponents — like the Labour Party, etc. — appear to be far more democratic, but their internal hierarchical control structure puts democracy safely in its place.]So "freedom of speech", like every aspect of our case, must be considered through the contrast between the social base of capitalism and the social base of socialism, and their implications.You challenge "But you begin to see it [freedom of speech] as important when it is taken away." This is both obvious, and still posed at the level of capitalism.I retort "If 'freedom of speech' is taken away, what do you propose we do about it when we haven't got it? That is the only possible question for us to answer then.
