On Wed, Dec 10, 2025 at 11:30 PM, Tom Walker wrote: > > It is, of course, clear that productive forces refer to several things. Do > they include science, technology and machinery? Strictly speaking they do > not. They include the use of science, the use of technology and the use of > machinery -- but not the things in themselves.
A planned economy needs to inventory the productive forces of the society. To do that, you need to count both the number of machines of each type and the number of workers with the skills to use the machines of each type. And don't make the mistake of limiting the discussion, and the salad-bar dipping into Marx for quotations, to capitalism. One mode of production gives way to another, driven by the contradiction between new productive forces and the existing relations of production. Precisely because of this contradiction, new productive forces exist but cannot be used. The prattle insisting on "the use of" is just conceptual clutter. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39680): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39680 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116724755/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
