I agree with Carrol in believing that a particular way of quantitatively reducing concrete labor to abstract labor is a dead-end. Even in professional sports, where the owners spend huge amounts of money in attempting to evaluate every aspect of the athlete, they do of very poor job. To think that socialist planners should be expected to develop such a scheme in the midst of a capitalist economy seems far-fetched. Marx's categories do an excellent job of showing how capitalist economies (mis)function. He did very little in attempting to quantify such matters -- with good reason.
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [email protected] michaelperelman.wordpress.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2012 11:50 AM To: 'Progressive Economics' Subject: Re: [Pen-l] On the Cambridge "capital critique" Jim Devine Ted Winslow wrote: All the "useful, concrete" labour of communism would, however, be "modes of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers". The "useful, concrete" labour of capitalism is the opposite of this. Jim: but it still would be useful, concrete labor. That was my point. ===== Cbc: Useful perhaps, but not labor. Homo S has been around for about 200+ K, but labor only goes back about 10or 12K with the beginning of agricultural. Prior to that time what we now call "labor" was indistinguishable from the other activities filling the day. This, incidentally, touches on my reasons for arguing socialist should not try to present a "scenario" or "model" or "plan" for a future socialist state. We can speak of some of its general goals as a form of the critique of capitalism, but scenario's presuppose the ability to predict human activity and response under totally different conditions and after events & struggles which are equally unpredictable. The abolition of labor as a goal makes sense precisely because it would be nothing new. Assuming (what is by no means certain) that we can overcome capitalist relations and capitalist power, our descendants will have a great horselaugh at any recipes for the future we concoct. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
