Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
In a message dated 7/18/2004 3:16:15 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could only survive by constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical extension, or extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the Civil War and U.S. economy at that time. Reply My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to secede from the Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in the American Union . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but rather the period of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . or the chain of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 . . . leading to Plessy versus Ferguson. One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion of the system of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring process of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development. This limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the tools and energy source deployed by masses of slaves. Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, yourself and myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the laboring process . . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it was not a form of primitive accumulation . . . etc. Extensive and intensive development of the material power of production are not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on what basis the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what constitute a revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive expansion. A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is a different creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. The productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition this takes place incrementally. For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, etc., and the driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal intensive development of agricultural production beyond the point of human muscle effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process contains its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered - sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is tools, instruments and machine development driven by a different energy source . . . radically different from the tools, instruments and energy source underlying the form of slave labor. Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in the form of the laboring process . . . even if he remains a slave for a period of time . . . and this "period of time" is short because the form of labor corresponding to a slave mode is not compatible with mechanization of agriculture and the value system. The form of the laboring process is burst asunder. The Civil War itself is considered revolutionary because the Slave Oligarchy was overthrown and shattered as a slave oligarchy and ruling class. In this sense the abolition of slavery was a social revolution without a preceding or corresponding economic revolution. That is, the instruments of production of the agricultural South did not advance, but the North imposed a revolution in the social relations upon the South with the freeing of the slaves. Every truly great social revolution must proceed from, stand upon and develop from an economic revolution. It is not possible to truly free slaves or proletarians without replacing them with more efficient energy. At the time of Emancipation, there was no such economic revolution in the means of production connected to Southern agriculture. This truth couple with a growing domestic and international demand for cotton and tobacco condemned the freemen to a new and often more brutal form of exploitation. Without question political alliances between Northern - Wall Street Finance capital, and the conversion of the Slave Oligarchy into the landlord planter class has everything to do with the counter revolution in full swing by 1890 . . . but what is being isolated is the conditions by which the form of the laboring process is transformed. The tools or instruments of production connected to Southern agriculture changed very little between 1870 and say . . . 1940. Sharecropping and the convict-lease system became new forms of slavery for the African American and this form of labor - the laboring process itself, would undergo revolutionizing with the invention of the mechanical cotton picker and the mechanization of agriculture, the development of weed killing chemicals, tractors etc. These developments in the mean
Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
by Waistline2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could only survive by constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical extension, or extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the Civil War and U.S. economy at that time. Reply My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to secede from the Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in the American Union . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but rather the period of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . or the chain of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 . . . leading to Plessy versus Ferguson. ^^ CB: Yes, I can see use of counterrevolution in this post-Civil War context. Aptheker has the thesis that the initiation of the Civil War itself was a counterrevolution, because the election of Lincoln was essentially a revolution ( a change in the mode of production because a major form of property was negated) . Lincoln's election was a revolution, not because the he and the Republicans advocated abolition of slavery in the South, but because they were for forbidding the slave system to _extend_ in the terminology you have introduced, extensive territorial development. And since the slave form of organization could not develop intensively ( as you say below), it would die if it couldn't develop extensively, therefore Lincoln's policy would indirectly abolish slavery, was a revolution and the Southern firing on Fort Sumter was a counterrevolutionary assault. Also, the slavocracy had been the ruling class of the whole U.S. the period before the Civil War for , well all of it right back to Washington and Jefferson really. The South controlled the Presidency and the Supreme Court. The Democratic Parties were the parties of the Slavocracy. So, Lincoln's election was a rev overthrowing the slavocratic ruling class. This is Aptheker's explicit thesis, but really a lot of it is in Marx's writing on the U.S. Civil War. However, I understand your use of counterrevolution for Post-Reconstruction. The Civil War counterrevolution failed,was defeated. The Counterrevolution you discuss succeeded. ^ One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion of the system of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring process of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development. This limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the tools and energy source deployed by masses of slaves. ^ CB: Well, it is the property form - human beings owned - that limits what the masters can trust the slaves with. Marx has a specific passage on this. I'll look for it. Empirically, slaves would tear up a form of machinery quicker. Slaves are more readily Luddites. But this is generated by the property relationship between slave and master , not the form of the technology. ^^^ Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, yourself and myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the laboring process . . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it was not a form of primitive accumulation . . . etc. ^ CB: Right. Slavery in 1860 is no longer primitive accumulation. Slavery at the time of the primitive accumulation of all capitalism in the 1400 and 1500's is one of the things that Marx terms the chief momenta of the primitive accumulation. ^^ Extensive and intensive development of the material power of production are not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on what basis the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what constitute a revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive expansion. A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is a different creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. The productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition this takes place incrementally. For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, etc., and the driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal intensive development of agricultural production beyond the point of human muscle effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process contains its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered - sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is tools, instruments and machine development driven by a different energy source . . . radically different from the tools, instruments and energy source underlying the form of slave labor. Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in the form of the laboring process . . .
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
This seems to have devolved into a discussion between 3 people. Maybe we can drop it now. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
by Waistline2 Comment Socialism Betrayed - Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is worth owning and reading several times. On a scale of 1 - 10 . . . I would rate it 7.5. The 2.5 which prevents it from being a 10 . . . are highly theoretical and . . . has to do with the specific ideology and politics of the authors. Nevertheless, I would suggest the book to anyone seeking a general view of what happened ushering in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why do communists fight over questions of extensive versus intensive development and financial markets as regulators of production? To answer the question one has to develop an understanding of the mechanics of industrial production and the shape of reproduction as determined by different property relations. Is central planning the essence of industrial socialism and why is it necessary to speak of industrial socialism and not simply socialism? Central planning is a method of something else and not . . . the something else. If Central planning is the method of something else then we have to define the something else. First of all central planning means the allocation of resources and labor power towards economic development and expansion . . . and this exists not as an abstraction . . . but in relationship to planning on the basis of property rights. Individuals owning the power of capital or capitalism and endowed with the legal right to invest and organized the material power of production gives a specific shape to how reproduction takes place and on what basis. The basis is what is profitable to me as an individual corporate entity and this individualism becomes the driving feature of a system of reproduction. Individuals owning the power of capital as factories and having the social power - authority, to hire labor power and put it to work, or accumulate the power of money as property can reinvest this money into production and create a distinct shape of the cycles of reproduction. What is fundamental to socialism and most certainly industrial socialism is the property relations or the property rights of individuals . . . acting and behaving as individuals. Property relations does not mean workers control. Property relations or property rights refer to the rights of individual members of society in relationship to the factors of production. Property rights under Soviet industrial socialism meant that individuals did not have the legal right to convert money possession or governmental authority into individual ownership of the means of production . . . especially in the industrial infrastructure. Individual ownership of means of production imparts an individual will to reproduction that comes into conflict with other individual wills as competition over market shares. In Marx Critique of the Gotha Program he makes this fairly clear and when speaking of the transition to a communist society, states that nothing but means of consumption can pass into the hands of individuals. According to the Communists in the Soviet Union - writing during the early 1960s, what you had in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, was the development of a caricature of the bourgeoisie . . . these are their exact words . . . and not simply a petty bourgeoisie. Keeran and Kenny's insights and articulation of the extensive and intensive development of the second economy (black market) is extremely insightful and important and explains how the caricature of the bourgeoisie was able to usher in the counter revolution and abolish public property in the industrial infrastructure and change the cycle of reproduction. What is the origin of this caricature of the bourgeoisie . . . according to the Soviet communist? This caricature of the bourgeoisie is not a petty bourgeoisie as I understand the meaning of the term or small scale producer laboring in the second economy but an excretion of the state . . . while the low scale producer in the second economy is an expression of shortage and the value relationship in any industrial society. Then it is helpful that one has an understanding of the history of the system that was the dictatorship of the proletariat . . . which was never reducible to the state or the party. The system of the dictatorship of the proletariat is described in remarkable detail by Mr. J. Stalin as the series of transmission belts - organizations of people, that allows production and distribution to take place outside the bourgeois property relations and not just Soviets. This system of transmission belts required central planning as the basis of extensive industrial development. There is of course the question of the bureaucracy that needs to be unraveled and part of this is because of the impact of the ideologists. Those not familiar with the mechanics of the evolution of industrial society . . . falsely collapse the state, government and party system with the industrial bureaucracy as an incomprehensible mass.
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
In a message dated 7/18/2004 10:41:09 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Yep, I feel you. However, unfortunately, I am skeptical about industrial society and its bureaucracy going away, going "post". I think one could argue that it is going "super" rather than going "post". The breaking up of the factory concentration based on the revolutions in communication and transportation, and cyberizing machines makes the world's technological regime approach one big industrial factory, which seems more superindustrial than postindustrial to me. Comment "Post industrial" is defined on the basis of that which distinguishes manufacture from industrial. No one defines the industrial system as the manufacturing system or the industrial bureaucracy as the bureaucracy of the manufacturing process because of the specific combination of human labor + resources + energy grid as a process. The world technological regime that is evolving in no way resembles one big industrial machine . . . or an extensively developed industrial machine embracing the world as a system of electro- mechanical process. The period of history of extensive development of increasingly large industrial factories, as the basis of increased production as the primarily signature of industrial society - electromechanical process,is over. This does not mean there will be no more industrial machines on earth. The word "post" in post industrial society means that the extensive and intense development of the productive forces as driven by the electro mechanical process is halted and a different process of radical intensive development and expansion of the material power of production is under way. Manufacture is the predominance of man over machine and strictly speaking means "hand" . . . human and animal power as energy grid. Manufacture refers to a period of history before the emergence and domination of machino-facture and steam power. Industrial production proper is an electromechanical process that supersede or sublates machino-facture and steam power. The post industrial society in front of us is not a further extensive development of the electro- mechanical process but the evolution of the electro-computerized era. It is this electro-computerized process that makes a revolutionary intensive development and expansion of the material power of productive forces possible. The industrial bureaucracy does not simply go away but is sublated and reconfigured on the basis of the revolution in the technological regime that eliminates layer after layer of organization based on the electromechanical process. Factory concentration and productivity today is based on the intensive development of the material power of production which renders "industrial giant enterprises" or "big" obsolete. A different form of intensive development will drive extensive expansion of production. Actually "big" is sublated or redefined in the same way that industrial relations redefined machino-facture and systems driven by steam power. Development from manufacture to machine production was not only a change of productive forces, but a qualitative development and spreading of new productive relations - with the property relations within. The unions of labor force of the workers and the means of production is simultaneously a connection of productive forces and a connection of people in the process of production which together makes up relations. The division of labor in manufacture is a relation in production and also emerges as a productive force. This applies to industrial society and the post industrial society evolving in front of us. We do not even have a name for this new evolving society . . . yet. Marx dubbed the industrial system the capitalist mode of production and up until the emergence of Soviet industrial socialism the industrial system was called the capitalist mode of production. In the 1930s and 1940s one spoke of socialist industrialization . . . but everyone understood we were dealing with the industrial system as a specific unity of human labor + machines + energy source - with the property relations within. Qualitative changes in the material power of production changes the form of how labor is aggregated and put to work and reconfigure the basis classes in a social system. Industrial machinery as the electromechanical process creates and necessitates industrial machinists . . . as opposed to soft ware programmers. "Post" means the form of the labor process as the industrial process is undergoing change. In the context of Soviet socialism if is my belief and understanding that one of the objective process they faced was the limit to the extensive development of industry as electro- mechanical process. This limit to extensive development based on electro-mechanical process is only resolvable on the basis of a revolution in production . . . a
Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
by Waistline2 Comment Post industrial is defined on the basis of that which distinguishes manufacture from industrial. ^ CB: Looking at the elements that distinguish manufacture from industrial, I wouldn't call it post because it makes it seem that he elements that distinguish industry from manufacture have abated or something. Rather the elements that distinguished industry from manufaucture have been augmented by the revolutions in communication, transportation and cyberization. Also, post-industrial has specific baggage from its use in bourgeois literature. ^^^ No one defines the industrial system as the manufacturing system or the industrial bureaucracy as the bureaucracy of the manufacturing process because of the specific combination of human labor + resources + energy grid as a process. The world technological regime that is evolving in no way resembles one big industrial machine . . . ^ CB: One big industrial factory, not machine. Sure, the division of labor , the socialization of production continues to increase. This is a process Marx and Engels noted that has not abated. ^^ or an extensively developed industrial machine embracing the world as a system of electro- mechanical process. The period of history of extensive development of increasingly large industrial factories, as the basis of increased production as the primarily signature of industrial society - electromechanical process, is over. CB: Right, the individual factories are not getting larger. The points of production are more geographically scattered, however they are more integrated with each other, such that their combination becomes like a big factory spread over a giant geographical area. Cyberization-worldwideweb communication and advanced transportation make this possible. This isn't a return to manufacture. Rather the machine aspect of industry is so augmented that the bringing workers together physically close in a factory like old Ford Rouge is not necessary. ^ This does not mean there will be no more industrial machines on earth. The word post in post industrial society means that the extensive and intense development of the productive forces as driven by the electro mechanical process is halted and a different process of radical intensive development and expansion of the material power of production is under way. ^^ CB: Disagree. Cyberization is a continuation and qualitative leap in exactly the electro mechanical process. The productive forces are still driven by the new developments in the electro mechanical processs. CAD-CAM, just in time delivery, containerization, more and more trucks, jets, international cyberspace, steel mini-mills are all new aspects of the electro mechanical process,not at all an indication of that process's end. ^ Manufacture is the predominance of man over machine and strictly speaking means hand . . . human and animal power as energy grid. Manufacture refers to a period of history before the emergence and domination of machino-facture and steam power. ^ CB: Agree. Machino-facture and steam power, and as we discussed a number of times, Co-operation as termed by Marx. Co-operation and Machinery are the two main elements that Marx notes as constituting Modern Industry: Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 13: Co-operation Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry Co-operation is being negated. Machinery , especially electro (post steam energy grid) mechanical processes are being augmented, not negated. ^^6 Industrial production proper is an electromechanical process that supersede or sublates machino-facture and steam power. CB: I'd use Industrial production proper as equivalent to how Marx defines it the above sections of Capital I. as Modern Industry. The shift to electricity and oil from steam does not touch the essence of _industry_, which is co-operation + machines, whether the machines are steam or oil and electricity powered. ^^^ The post industrial society in front of us is not a further extensive development of the electro- mechanical process but the evolution of the electro-computerized era. It is this electro-computerized process that makes a revolutionary intensive development and expansion of the material power of productive forces possible. CB: I'd call it superindustrial, because the machines are augmented by the computers, and the machines are the absolute in industry and the cooperation is the relative term. The scattering of the co-operation is better termed more industrial rather than post industrial. Industry also refers to the large number of products produced, mass production. This also continues. Post-industrial sounds like there is no longer massproduction. There is more mass production than ever. ^^ The industrial bureaucracy does not simply go away but is sublated and
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
In a message dated 7/18/2004 3:16:15 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: I'd call it superindustrial, because the machines are augmented by the computers, and the machines are the "absolute" in industry and thecooperation is the "relative" term. The scattering of the co-operation isbetter termed more industrial rather than post industrial. "Industry" alsorefers to the large number of products produced, mass production. This also continues. "Post-industrial" sounds like there is no longer massproduction. There is more mass production than ever. Reply What can I say. If post industrial sounds like there is no longer mass production after I have explained the meaning of intensive development as increasing the productivity of labor . . . and making mass "super mass" in relationship to the deployment of labor . . . I do not know what to say. The Coogi sweaters are the product of a radically new technology that has the ability to mass produce a billion different color pattern and configuration as a process. This is a different technology than the mass production as cookie cutter patterns. The latter is industrial electromechanical and the former is electro-computerized and infinitely more productive. If super . . . as in superman . . . means the qualitative change in the technological regime that distinguishes it from electromechanical process as the direction of the future - the next one hundred years or the period of time that is the equivalent of from 1865 - 1980, we should not quibble over words. The scattering of production misses the point of intensive development and its trajectory for the next one hundred years. We are not talking about the extensive development of the industrial system for the next one hundred years in my opinion . . . although time will tell. Bottom line . . . we are undergoing a revolution in the mode of production not unlike the revolution from manufacture to industry in its implications for society as a whole. Revolution in the mode of production as opposed to "super" the quantitative expansion of the same thing in gigantic propositions. And . . . yes this is different and a different proposition . . . that I believe will be confirmed for everyone on earth by the year 2030. Melvin P. Peace Melvin P.
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
I'd be interested in further comments on Keeran and Kenny's "Socialism Betrayed." I'm not sure what to think. They put a lot of emphasis on the destructive role of the black market, but it's not clear what they propose should have been done about it. (They do more or less make the claim that Andropov was on the right path, but that everything was later taken too far by Gorbachev's "reforms" and the pace of the changes outstripped themselves, etc.) Should the black market have simply been repressed? But how do you actually do that? Part of their explanation is also that the consumer propaganda from the West created consumer needs that had to be met by the black market -- and they seem to imply that tighter controls over media and publishing should have been kept and strengthened. Comment "Socialism Betrayed - Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is worth owning and reading several times. On a scale of 1 - 10 . . . I would rate it 7.5. The 2.5 which prevents it from being a "10" . . . are highly theoretical and . . . has to do with the specific ideology and politics of the authors. Nevertheless, I would suggest the book to anyone seeking a general view "of what happened" ushering in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why do communists fight over questions of extensive versus intensive development and financial markets as regulators of production? To answer the question one has to develop an understanding of the mechanics of industrial production and the shape of reproduction as determined by different property relations. Is central planning the essence of industrial socialism and why is it necessary to speak of industrial socialism and not simply socialism? Central planning is a method of "something else" and not . . . "the something else." If Central planning is the method of something else then we have to define the "something else." First of all central planning means the allocation of resources and labor power towards economic development and expansion . . . and this exists not as an abstraction . . . but in relationship to planning on the basis of property rights. Individuals owning the power of capital or capitalism and endowed with the legal right to invest and organized the material power of production gives a specific shape to how reproduction takes place and on what basis. The "basis" is "what is profitable to me as an individual corporate entity" and this individualism becomes the driving feature of a system of reproduction. Individuals owning the power of capital as factories and having the social power - authority, to hire labor power and put it to work, or accumulate the power of money as property can reinvest this money into production and create a distinct shape of the cycles of reproduction. What is fundamental to socialism and most certainly industrial socialism is the property relations or the property rights of individuals . . . acting and behaving as individuals. Property relations does not mean "workers control." Property relations or property rights refer to the rights of individual members of society in relationship to the factors of production. Property rights under Soviet industrial socialism meant that individuals did not have the legal right to convert money possession or governmental authority into individual ownership of the means of production . . . especially in the industrial infrastructure. Individual ownership of means of production imparts an individual will to reproduction that comes into conflict with other individual wills as competition over market shares. In Marx "Critique of the Gotha Program" he makes this fairly clear and when speaking of the transition to a communist society, states that nothing but means of consumption can pass into the hands of individuals. According to the Communists in the Soviet Union - writing during the early 1960s, what you had in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, was the development of a caricature of the bourgeoisie . . . these are their exact words . . . and not simply a "petty bourgeoisie." Keeran and Kenny's insights and articulation of the extensive and intensive development of the second economy (black market) is extremely insightful and important and explains how "the caricature of the bourgeoisie" was able to usher in the counter revolution and abolish public property in the industrial infrastructure and change the cycle of reproduction. What is the origin of this "caricature of the bourgeoisie" . . . according to the Soviet communist? This "caricature of the bourgeoisie" is not a petty bourgeoisie as I understand the meaning of the term or "small scale producer" laboring in the second economy but an excretion of the state . . . while the low scale producer in the second economy is an _expression_ of shortage and the value relationship in any industrial society. Then it is helpful that one has an
