Young Master Smeet
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I reckon it is the class in itself, rather than for itself. The oppositional tone (against Austerity) and calls for vague "Alternative" and investment suggest it is more about adopting a negotiating strategy, and putting down a marker to show that the bosses can't impose whatever settlement they want. The lack, though, of any specific demand, or overall narrative suggests there is no advance in the situation of being a class for itself consciously taking control of society. As such it is part of the necessary political theatre of existing society.I've finally managed to source E.P. Thompson's distinction between plebeian and proletarian politics*:
E.P. Thompson wrote:A plebs is not, perhaps, a working class. The plebs lack a constancy of self-definition, in consciousness; clarity of objectives; the structuring of class organisation. But the political presence of the plebs, or "mob", or "crowd" is manifest…Even when the beast seemed to be sleeping, the tetchy sensibilities of a libertarian crowd defined, in the largest sense, the limits of what was politically possible[…] It bred riots, but not rebellions: direct actions, but not democratic organizations.Taken at this level, the ETUC should be seen in contrast to Occupy, in terms of its deliberateness and organisation. The fact that it has commanded a demonstration across many countries, and drawn in countless thousands participants more than Occupy managed.If it lacks socialist consciousness as such, it at least has those working class values that may build for a halfway decent defence of our interests within capitalism. The question is how we address ourselves to it. *Patrician Society, Plebeian CultureE. P. ThompsonJournal of Social History , Vol. 7, No. 4 (Summer, 1974), pp. 382-405Published by: Oxford University PressArticle Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3786463
I covered this in a Standard Article (and talk) some years ago. One possibility is that price and value totally separate, and computer generated prices, from robot markets, come to predominate (the mechanism would be absolute rent, charged on intangible fixed assets), that and taxation may well slow down the collapsing rate of profit. The other, scarier prospect, is that capitalist growth grinds to a halt, and decadance ensues, with huge megaslums of surplus population growing even in the advanced countries. With no economic muscle, the working class would be prey to strong centralised states, administering state capitalism, as the last capitalists fight between themselves for the diminishing profits. I'm afraid robots can't replace class struggle politics.
Just been reading up a bit more about the Gale-Shapley algorithm, and thinking a little about whether it would be useful to socialism.Now, their stable-matching algorithm is used in an example of pairing off men and women, so that in the end, even if people don't get their first preference, no better preference is available. That is, they are two-way allocations in which both parties have to agree, based on a expressed ordinal preference of the available options. So, it wouldn't be any good for, say, choosing tellies over oranges. It thus isn't much cop for consumer products. Yes, it would be very good for, say, housing (indeed, our speakers can now answer: "How will you handle housing in socialism with the confident answer "With the Gale Shapley Stable Matching Algorithm" – exciting).But, as the Miseans say, the problem for socialism isn't the consumer goods, but putting the means at the service of the ends, deferred consumption through intermediate inputs. I think this algorithm could help at that stae. Robin has often mentioned that we might have to, say, prioritise hospitals over hotels. So, the bed linen warehouse could well have a model of, say, proximity and priority (a hospital on the otherside of the planet would get a lower score than one next door, say). So, the hospital (or hotel) would "shop around, giving out a list of where it wants to get linen from, and then the information clearing houses could run the algorithm, and see which warehouse could provide them, and come up with the best match.Consumer "Co-ops" (for want of a better term) could bid on packages, so not just choosing between warehouses, but also packets of goods, say 10 tellies from warehouse A versus 4 tellies from Warehouse B (warehouse A could also offer a 2 telly package). The warehouse could rate its "customers" (How often, proximity, priority, etc.) and so both sides could negotiate to try and meet their obligations under a fairly general worldwide agreed plan.This could also, even, answer the infamous Platinum bicycle question. The platinum mines could well have their own allocation rankings, that would simply preclude any frivolous use of a rare resource (although such rankings could be open to renegotiation, outside the algorithmic calculation).The shorter version, though, is that those powerful minds currently beign turned toward calculating the latest odds for William Hill would be turned to working out the best way to organise production. What we have are glimerings of what could become possible.
Stuart, late of this parish, as found a good article:http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/10/a-nobel-for-planning.htmlSome of the articles linked to are very detailed, so not for the layman, but overall, the post makes the same point we do. We need to find some way to publicise this stuff more…
Let's not forget, one of the reasons for crisp packets is the common law of duty of care and vicarious liability: they provide a high standard of hygene and food protection (so greens who complain about food packaging have to answer how we can get round such measures).Admittedly, Alan's roadside vendor sounds more like what I was talking about, people would make and give out crisps (and otehr food), but, perhaps not on a street corner all day. It sounds like an obscure subject, but within such microscopic events lie macroscopic questions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem
Quote:The Gale-Shapley algorithm involves a number of "rounds" (or "iterations"). In the first round, first a) each unengaged man proposes to the woman he prefers most, and then b) each woman replies "maybe" to her suitor she most prefers and "no" to all other suitors. She is then provisionally "engaged" to the suitor she most prefers so far, and that suitor is likewise provisionally engaged to her. In each subsequent round, first a) each unengaged man proposes to the most-preferred woman to whom he has not yet proposed (regardless of whether the woman is already engaged), and then b) each woman replies "maybe" to her suitor she most prefers (whether her existing provisional partner or someone else) and rejects the rest (again, perhaps including her current provisional partner). The provisional nature of engagements preserves the right of an already-engaged woman to "trade up" (and, in the process, to "jilt" her until-then partner).However, I fear our own Assistant Secretary has refuted this:http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_GirlfriendAlso of interest is linnear programming:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming
ALB wrote:How would calculating the labour output of human labour power be any less easy than calculating the "erg output of human labour [power]"? "Labour output" cannot simply be counted by time. To calculate it you'd have to reduce all the different types of skilled labour to amounts of simple labour. I'd prefer to have a go at calculating erg output !Well, each worker would put out different quantities of ergs (we could, perhaps, do rough approximations). Complex skills can be, systemwise, reduced to simple labour, since we'd count the training and labour power being put into training as well, which implicitly adds to the overall system cost. We wouldn't need to count the output of labour power, just its raw usae. It would be imprecise, but useful. I suppose an averaged out erg per human could do the same job, I'd have no problem with that.
ALB wrote:You seem to be assuming that all inputs might be in short supply but surely the basis of the socialist case for non-monetary calculation is that they won't be. Some might. Then the engineers calculating the "optimal" way to produce something would have to take this into account. I can't see that this would involve a "massive computational difficulty". I thought that this is what Robin Cox's "law of the minimum" was all about.The law of the minimum could help, but the difficulty is looking three or four products down the production process, unless the engineers explore every product back to the beginning of its supply chain, they might commit themselves to stressing a scarce resource indirectly.
ALB wrote:Incidentally, have the two people who have just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics anything to contribute here? I read that one of them has devised a scheme for matching those who need a kidney with those prepared to offer one. I assume money isn't involved but you can't be sure because this is an American scheme. But if it's not, maybe they deserve the prize for solving the question of Who Will Live on Richmond Hill in Socialism. Those who want to and need most to, rather than those who want to and can pay the most.Stephanie Flanders (who she?–Ed.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19954671
Quote:You don't need a Hale-Shipley algorithm to help you allocate different kinds of television sets to different households. Soviet planners had a crack at it, but we know that price signals in the market do it much better. We buy the television that best fits our needs, subject to our ability to pay.But doctors will be thinking about a lot of different factors in choosing a hospital – and vice versa. Money is only one consideration. And, though you can debate whether people should be able to buy or sell their kidneys, in most health systems around the world, the authorities will want the scarce number of kidneys to be allocated on medical grounds, not financial ones. That is where matching theory comes in: it can help fill the gap, and create a kind of market, where you might have thought none could exist.Mr Roth helped New York City redesign its system for allocating children to public school places. Using his algorithm led to a 90% fall in the number of students who ended up in schools that they had not even included among their five listed preferences. Now cities all over the US use some form of Mr Roth's algorithm for allocating students to schools.Does the forum software allow threads to be closed? This could be another alternative to banning, closing a thread that is getting fractious is quite common elseplace…
ALB wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable measure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another.No doubt, but why single out labour-power as the special case? It's only one of many inputs and in principle no difference to the other inputs (materials, energy). I'm not suggesting this but I believe the Technocrats in the 1930s suggested that accounting be done in "energy units". What I'm suggesting is that calculation in kind doesn't require any general unit, not labour-time nor energy units. We calculate in amounts of all the different elements involved in production, just as now under capitalism, only in socialism it won't be duplicated by a calculation in money and won't need to be by any other general unit ("universal equivalent").
Well, I'd suggest two good reasons.1) Only Labour occurs in every product (yes, all products contain energy, but calculating erg output of human labour would be quite a feat).2) Because what this is about isn't a general unit of equivilence, but a human centred approach to the social organisation of production, starting with the people around to do the work.
ALB wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.
As per the standard ECA, though, such calculations would involve massive computational difficulty (as well as following the suppy chain of thousands of inputs for the simplest product. Whilst the engineers might have the time to do that, a signal between products can save that considerable effort.
ALB wrote:The problem with labour-time accounting is that it is not possible to measure the intensity of work (labour) nor to calculate in advance what labour is "social necessary" (nor, I would add, to work out how much more "simple" labour skilled labour is "worth"). Marx pointed this out in his criticism of various schemes for "labour-money" that were put forward in his day. Unfortunately, he didn't apply this to the "labour-time voucher" scheme he gave a sort of blessing to in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. The only way something like this would work is, as you suggest, if you measure "labour" by time spent at work. In other words, actual labour or, actually, hours put in at work. I'm not sure that this would be a useful measure of much.It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable meaure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another. As with Robinson Crusoe, we know the numbers of humans available, and how much time they have to work, the intensity of that work is, at a certain point, irrelevent (that is a question for wage allocation, not productive co-ordination). As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.I agree that recording concrete labour types could be useful as well (but would require more effort, and relies on fixing some fairly blurry lines between types of labour).
So, would some sort of labour-time accounting be viable?Firstly, we'd need to be clear that we wouldn't be trying to use the "true value" of products, that only emerges from commoddities in exchange. We'd be measuring the concrete labour employed (so, that would mean, for one thing, we'd be measuring real labour actually used, rather than averagely necessary time — so far as we could accurately record that). Actually market prices work much better than any labour value scheme could (Kautsky's rather neat refutation).Once simple refutation of trying to use true value is Joan Robinson's in her essay on Marx, where she shows that because of relative rent, you can't use labour time as an exchange value (basically, one field might take ten hours to produce a tonne of wheat, whereas another would take twenty, the wheat would then sell at the value of the least productive field that can be brought into operation, under market conditions: subjective/marginal theories of value are similar to this, as they treat all goods, effectively, as a m,onopoly of themselves).If, however, we simply record the total time to collect the aggregate social stock of wheat, then this objection no longer matters. Wheat took a sum of the social effort (which can be expressed in person hours or as a percentage). We would simply record how much time was spent at each prodfuction unit (not the time per unit of oiutput). We needed be hyper accurate about that: if a unit is slated to have 100 hours worked, it doesn't signify much if one person takes an afternoon off, since rough inaccuracies of that sort would balance out.This is not a call for labour voucher exchange, although knowing what the per capita share of the output would be would help socialist citizens to "budget" their consumption. Vouchers are unnecessary, since if there is a roughly agreed working week, then most people will have the same number of vouchers anyway, it becomes an unnecessary burden to distribute them. Whereas the labour burden of time accounting would be relatively light, and could assist in the statistical clearing houses.If we find, in the early days of socialism, an incentive to work is needed, then a simple "I turned up to work this week" voucher system could be used (just as, in revolutionary Spain, for example, a union card was used for bus transport).With aggregate concrete labour time, we could plan at a world and scoiety level, and predict any changes required by any large scale infrastructural project, while regulated stock control would be the experience day to day.
Partly, I was trying to also look at the individual experience, as I don't think it would be a case of just taking what you want off the shelves (and many objectors certainly would stop listening if we say that), so having a money-behavioural replacement.While the law of the minimum does seem to offer some sensible measure, Cox seems to skate round the need to make production decisions. So, we can talk about inventories, and responding to changes, but when it comes to big projects and budgeting for them, it becomes a touch trickier.To take his example of X, and it's two inputs A & B, we can further assume that they have two inputs each C,D & E,F. Further, lets say they have two inputs each G-N. (That is A=C+D+G+H+I+J & B=E+F+K+L+M+N). Say we opt for the production method that spares A, as that is scarcer than B. But on examination of the supply chain, it turns out that N is much scarcer than J. If we want to be even more complex, we can ask what happens (as is not entirely unreasonable) if, say, J and H are the same thing (assuming C=G+H and D=I=J), thus choosing to spare B would mean we'd be committing ourselves to a big hit on H/J.The law of the minimum would indeed mean that at each stage we used the most available resource at each stage. We could apply the logic of flocking birds (each agent only responds to its neighbour, thus producing an overall efficient effect). Our argument then would be not the most efficient use of reousrces, but that at least there would be a workable.If, though, there were some way of communicating cumulative impact, then the problem would be resolved. It would look like oprice, excepting that no exchange of commodity or negotiation would be invovled.
Ozymandias wrote:…was later allowed to chair an impossibly obtuse and highly intellectualised evening talk about Shakespeare which would have sent your average worker in the street fleeing in utter boredom…. that Shakespeare dreck….I believe you mean "abstruse".Summer school, to my mind, is about more detailed and difficult talks than a run of the mill public meeting. A great many workers are interested in Shakespeare and history, and the actual subject of the meeting, ideology and its workings, is sufficently difficult that an approach through something as tangible as a scene in a film is a useful way of introducing it.
well, six and a half thousand out of all the Unison members in Higher Education (some 50,000), so pathetically low turnout and then a wafer thin majority.This demonstrates, incidentally, the power of one of the Tory anti-union laws. They have a rule against 'Unjustifiable discipline' which specifically precludes expelling union members who don't strike (even when a legitimate ballot has been held). So, I could get expelled from the union for striking unofficially, but the minority of rejectionists have just exercised a veto.I'm actually pretty upset about this, we've just voted to have our own throats cut. Management must be laughing.
