Charles writes: >> CB: I don't know that we would be spending a lot of time trying to >> define and decide who were winners and losers. The goal ultimately >> would be "to each according to need", although technically this would >> be after the state had whithered away, and so it wouldn't be a >> "democracy". At the stage of democracy, we would be trying to meet >> everybody's basic physiological needs and their "higher" needs. We >> would fail to the extent that we didn't meet somebody's needs.
..... >> CB: I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out how to meet >> every last person's basic needs given the material abundance possible >> with modern technology, although there are looming problems with the >> fossil fuel base of our current technological regime. >> >> The reason an individual voter in a socialist democratic decision >> making process would be better equipped and motivated to "measure the >> true costs and benefits" , etc. is that they would be secure in the >> meeting of their basic needs, food, shelter, clothing, education, >> health care, free of the threat of war, and unalienated from the >> "system". >> As I understand it, the end game of socialism is "human emancipation," which is a movement from the realm of "necessity" to "freedom." I interpret that to mean that in a socialist state, people do what they want to do instead of what they have to do. In order for people to do what they want to do instead of what they have to do, the basic essentials of life must be existent for all individuals, because if such essentials are not existent, that would mean individuals would be required to perform work to obtain the essentials, which means indiividuals would be doing what they have to do instead of what they want to do. This notion of freedom as oppositional to necessity is consistent with what Plato and Aristotle believed, except that they thought such freedom would only be available for the few (supported by a slave society), while Marx believed that such freedom would be available for all. Marx differed from the ancients in that he put his marbles in technological progress (as evidenced by what occurs in capitalist industrial society) to provide a material cornucopia. Now, I am trying to imagine this material cornucopia and how it would work. The key element is the absence of scarcity, since any existence of scarcity would require "have to" work to solve the scarcity problem. By speaking of scarcity, we run into an immediate problem, because scarcity is somewhat relative and subjective, but let's leave that problem aside. There are two conceptual ways to think of a society without scarcity. One ways is the world of Star Trek, where technological progress reaches the point where there is the cost free ability to manipulate matter. Or a world where self-replicating robots do all of the work. In such a society, economics as "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses" would have no relevance or meaning. There are no conceivable winners or losers, because choices have no real consequences. If we reject such a world as fantasy, and assume a world where the 2nd law of thermodynamics still applies, then we must conceptualize a world where humans must "work" to produce the material corncucopia, but somehow the labor "necessary" to produce and maintain the corncupia is performed consistent with "freedom." This is the situation I am trying to better understand. I remember a debate in my college days between a socialist sociology professor and a conservative economics professor, which had a very entertaining discussion concerning who would perform janitorial services in a socialist university. To the great amusement of the economics professor, the socialist professor advocated the professors and students taking turns. While somewhat trivial, the anecdote highlights the more serious issue that unless we reach the Star Trek fantasy, any society, including a socialist society, is faced with issues of scarcity that must be addressed, and that leads to a discussion of institutions and decision-making, and I don't think it is legitimate for socialists to define the problem away or reject any discussion as premature. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
