I CB: The new _quality_ in the productive forces is their greater and greater socialization of the laborers. Notice Marx refers to The shifts from steam to oil as a main fuel, or the shift to electricity, or the shift to computers and new forms of communication and transportation all allow greater numbers of workers working in cooperation, over larger areas. Reply WL: The new quality in means of production are exclusively their technological component. This new quality in turn is expressed as the growth of the division of labor in society, which in turn reorders the social organization of labor. The new quality in means of production manifesting the industrial revolution begins with the steam engine and passes to the electro-mechanical process, as this process negates manufacture. That is the new quality. Computers and advanced robotics are not quantitative develops of the steam engine or the internal combustion engine. Computers and advanced robotics evolve as the negation of industrial implements, which had previously negated the manufacturing process. This negation does not take place all at one time, but at a much rapid rate than the previous qualitative change in the means of production, ie, the industrial revolution. ********** II. CB: It is the _centralization_ or monopoly ownership of means of production and the increasing socialization of the organization of labor that is the key antagonism. The question might be asked how more specifically is centralized ownership in antagonism with socialized labor. Part is the answer is :come to Detroit and see (smile) ^^^^^ Reply WL: "Centralization or monopoly ownership of means of production" combines two separate movements to = "socialization of the organization of labor." Monopoly ownership of means of production is the same old bourgeois property relations. Monopoly capitalism is not qualitatively different from non-monopoly capitalism from the standpoint of the property relations. The difference is on the quantitative side of the quantity/quality scale. Antagonism arises EXCLUSVIELY from private property, not means of production or their socialization. What arises from means of production or their socialization is contradiction. Centralized ownership IS NOT in antagonism with socialized labor. Centralized ownership under the bourgeois mode of production means further concentration of capital as a social power. Bourgeois private property contains the germ of antagonism because it is private property, not because of a monopoly stage. Bourgeois private property is birthed in antagonism with feudal property. Bourgeois private property evolves in contradiction with the socializations of labor, as this socialization express the further development of the means of production. At a certain stage in the development of the material power of productive forces, the bourgeois private property relations enter into antagonism with the new productive forces. With the post industrial revolution well underway the qualitatively new productive forces evolve in antagonism with bourgeois private property. III. Negation as a model describing process development is not the same as antagonism. Yet, a movement of antagonism presupposes that "something" has been or is being negated. I understand Marx historical tendency of capitalist accumulation to be a model of negation and the negation of the negation. The germ of antagonism is present due to private property, rather than the evolution of centralization of production. That is centralization of productive forces expresses the ever developing division of labor in society, which during the epoch of the bourgeoisie takes place on the basis of bourgeois private property. Development - change, is driven by contradiction internal to that which is the focus of investigation. In this example centralization of production, called centralization of ownership is the object of investigation. Monopoly ownership does not exist in antagonism with socialized labor. In fact we communist demand monopoly ownership of means of production by the working class.
IV. CB: How about it is the antagonism between the increasingly privatized (to the point of monopoly) mode of _appropriation_ , that is form of ownership or property, and the socialized mode of production ( the organization of production , not new technologies or machines) that generates the change to socialism from capitalism ? ( See penultimate chapter of _Capital_ you quoted earlier). Here is part of it: Reply WL. I subscribe to a different point of view. Bourgeois private property, as a historically evolved social relations of production, enters into antagonism with qualitatively new means of production, rather than technology. WL. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
