Thanks for these posts, Julio. Excellent stuff. On 2012-04-08, at 9:24 AM, Julio Huato wrote:
> Well, I have been referring to the allocation of labor. The whole > point of my "critique" of the "capital critique" is that the capital > critics don't note that the alleged inconsistency in quantifying > "capital" (i.e. a composite of means of production in physical units) > is inherent to the allocation of labor in general. It is not a > neoclassical or a Marxian flaw[*], but a fact of life. It is not a > value thing (or a marginal return thing), but its material content. > > [*] See > http://203.200.22.249:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1375/1/An_essay_on_Marxian_Economics.pdf > >> For example, a sport like basketball can be played as a pickup game in >> which people figure out what each person's role will be or there can >> be a coach -- as in professional games. Presumably something more >> systematic than a pick up game and less hierarchical than a coached >> game. > > No matter what illustration we may propose, we'll be liable to the > charge (cf. Ted's post) that things under communism will be different, > because so many things will be oh so different. Apparently, people > won't need shoes, or shoes will not be made by a group of workers, or > perhaps no so-called "manual" labor will be required, etc. > > I get it that the vertical or hierarchical division of labor on which > class divisions are erected would have to be dismantled and > re-dismantled under communism. But other labor divisions are not > going away. Occupational, industrial, and functional divisions will > be re-structured and then re-re-structured, but they won't disappear. > Needs, consumptive and productive, are diverse and will become > increasingly more so. And yes, subsisting horizontal labor divisions > will provide bases for all sorts of social hierarchies to reemerge, > and people will have to be vigilant to prevent them from getting > entrenched. Individuals will be diverse. Historical time, geography, > and circumstance will provide for heterogeneity, that will have to be > managed, with management solutions that will have to be improvised and > improved on. Because all people will have to do is do things a bit > better than the conditions they inherit. > > Under any arrangement, social labor exists necessarily as divided > labor. Spatially and temporally. Social labor is (and will ever be) > performed by individual laborers, so social labor exists (and will > always exist) as an aggregate of individual labors. Yet social > reproduction requires that labor gets integrated, unified, or > reconciled along each and all of its dimensions. Marx was right that > such re-integration of divided labor can be done by default, relying > on seemingly "automatic" mechanisms markets, alienated political > systems, etc., or deliberately, democratically, and based on the best > that science can provide. The idea that, if this is to be done at all > consciously, it must be perfect or not be done at all is preposterous. > > Communist social life cannot start from the assumption that labor is > already socially validated, that individual labor needs not social > reconciliation. The challenge of reproducing social life at each > point in time will exist then as it does now. If anybody's communism > entails the a priori disappearance of all these labor divisions, then > that communism is impossible. > >> I hope that socialism would not attempt to replicate corporations. > > That will be the point of departure, of course. Unless we believe > that working people will just pop out fully developed as a scientific > self-managed productive force off the head of Jupiter, capitalism will > be the training ground. All historical attempts to build socialism > show that a first step is to try and keep the damn economy together as > new management takes over and begins to tweak things, given how hard > the old management resists the eviction. > > As Michael Lebowitz argues in his book on socialism, even capitalism > starts by appropriating as is the productive force that pre-exist it. > Although, instead of "the point of departure" I should say "one point > of departure," since there will be many other experiences by then that > will be more immediately relevant. I was once asked by a colleague to > comment on a course on finance for non-profit organizations and review > a few textbooks on the subject, and it became obvious to me the many > ways in which workers would benefit from such training. > > More on how training may help, regardless of the intentions of those > who provide the training: > > http://tech.nycga.net/2012/03/25/reportback-the-99spring-training-for-trainers-and-the-plot-to-coopt-occupy/ > _______________________________________________ > 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
