WL,
Some responses to your comments (see below).
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 17:29
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fettering - Restriction
WL: It gets deeper. The actual workers engaging production are capital
during
the epoch of the bourgeoisie . . not just capital, but capital in the
hands
of . . or rather capital operating on the law system that corresponds to
individuals privately owning production.
V: First, the worker is not capital, the labour power he gives to the
capitalist in return for his wage which is, ideally the amount necessary
to preserve
the labourer's work capacity and to produce the next generation of
workers.
Adam Smith, Ure (the 19th century ideologue of industrialization) as
well as Marx all made the point that the outcome of mechanization was to
depress all the creative, intellectual (and even martial!) qualities of
the
worker. The creativity, intelligence and martial virtues are not necessary
characteristics for a machine tender and are usually regarded as spoiling
the quality of a properly docile, obedient worker. This is not fettering,
but an essential necessity for the effective operation of creative,
intelligent and very very martial capitalism.
*******
WL: I cannot justify why I wrote "workers engaging production are capital"
other than muddleness and being full of myself. Workers are not capital.
:-(
My statement is a horrible and incorrect way of approaching the identity
of
interest and unity of labor and capital as bourgeois production.
I stand corrected.
(V): Incorrect, but not so horrible.
Reread Part 6 of Capital V.1and you will find that capitalists and workers
do not distinguish between the worker's labour and his person. You must
have heard a hundred times the advice "you have to sell yourself if you want
a job." In a sense the idea that the worker sells 8, 10, 12 hours of his
whole person to his employer reflects the fact that the worker must indeed
be present on the job to give his labour power to his employer for wages.
However labour for a wage is not true exchange because the determination of
wages has no direct relation to the value produced by labour (Labour power).
Thus it is labour power and not the labourer as such that produces capital.
WL: I understand Marx critique to be of the evolution of the industrial
system as a specific organization of human labor + tools, instruments,
energy
source, organization, etc., as relations of production, as it grew out of
agrarian
relations, with concrete industrial relations emerging on the basis of
bourgeois production. Hence, the bourgeois mode of production.
(V): There were and still are remnants of previous forms of bourgeois
production, the guild system of masters, journeymen and apprentices, which
coexisted in a symbiotic relation with the developing capitalist system.
The industrial capitalist mode of production is not only urban but
mechanized and capitalised in a fashion quite unlike other forms of
bourgeois (urban) systems of production.
********************
WL: 1) It seems you are saying or imply that the concept of "bourgeois
need"
as and versus human requirements . . .
2). is inadequate in detailing how the circuit of reproduction of things,
on
the basis of bourgeois property, contains the meaning of fetter,
3). because a). this is a self contained argument without measure, using
concepts that express that that is peculiar to bourgeois production to
critique
bourgeois production and the concept arose on the basis of the bourgeois
system
it is critiquing; and
4). b). fettering has to be proven on the basis of real existing systems
of
production (modes of production) in comparison and competition.
This is my understanding of your meaning.
(V): It looks right to me.
(V: >> . . . just look at how you write on this inner logic of the
dialectics
of the development of productive process:
"The rebellion against themselves as productive forces is the inner
meaning
of the spontaneous development of production or what drives sublating one
historically evolved state of development." What reification!
The very critique of Marx against the fetishism of capitalist political
economy finds a home in his explanation of how the forces of production
force the
development of new forms of relation of production. "...the productive
forces
also rebel against themselves as productive forces at a given state of
development and as productive forces organized as capital - bourgeois
property." More
reification and a most imprecise description of the conditions in which
this
rebellion of the tools occurs "at a given state of development."
Indeed, changes in the forces of production do determine the relations of
production, but the process is a complex evolutionary one in which new
modes of
production emerge alongside dominant forms, as a product of material
conditions
produced by the latter. Some of these new modes represent more effective
systems for handling productive processes in the expanding material states
generated by the dominant system than the dominant system itself.)<<
***********
WL: I avoid the use of concepts like reification and only very recently
began
using "mediate" as a concept of complexity and interaction, precisely
because
abstractions were treated as concrete things and the abstract concept that
arose during a historically specific moment were used to describe and
define the
very thing from which it arose.
It is perhaps true that a certain reification has taken place, takes place
and continues to take place concerning Marx most famous statement on the
conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production. I
attribute
this to our past inability to make concrete the meaning of "at a certain
stage
of their development" as our moment of history, although Marx and Engels
describe their meaning in concrete terms.
Marx could not define "a certain state" forward, - in my estimate, but
only
generalized its meaning in retrospect. Is this not all of our historical
limitation? I am saying that today we can further define "a certain stage"
different
from Marx and more fully than Lenin.
Perhaps, "...the productive forces also rebel against themselves as
productive forces at a given state of development and as productive forces
organized as
capital - bourgeois property," is not the best way to describe the
abstraction of the process Marx calls changes in the mode of production.
The first is the injection or emergence within the process of a thing, of
a
new qualitative definition - ingredient, that begins unraveling the thing
as it
has existed. In our case the injection into or emergence within the
industrial process of a qualitatively new form of machinery - I generally
refer to as
advanced robotics, rather than auto-matic-operating machines or
automation,
that begins unraveling the industrial process as it had existed and
altering the
properties that make industrial . . . industrial, rather than manufacture.
That "certain stage" in the contradictory relationship begins with the
"quantitative alteration of the body concerned" (Engels) through the
introduction of
a qualitatively new and antagonistic quantity.
Qualitatively new productive forces inevitably call forth, and are used
by,
qualitatively new motive forces.
Manufacturing was the highest and final stage of the manual labor system.
The
last stages of manufacturing prepared the ground for mechanical labor and
made its introduction inevitable. A qualitative change in motive force was
necessary. "Not till the invention of Watt's second and so-called
double-acting
steam engine was [such] a prime mover found." In a leap, - transition
rather than
understood as a child jumping rope, manufacturing changed to industry.
The world created by manual labor was overthrown by the new world created
by
mechanical labor. The newly liberated productive forces consolidated and a
new
social order was built to accommodate them. The world of mechanical labor
+
the application of electricity is in transition and being step by step
overthrown by the world of advanced robotics, computerized production and
digitalized
processes.
(V): The problem with Marx's argument that at some point the development of
the forces of production somehow create conditions that so contradict the
extant mode of production that a revolution occurs and a new mode emerges
out of the old. Logically, dialectically this is tantamount to ditching the
dialectical argument in favour of an override that breaks the otherwise
unassailable system of relations of production (the dialectical properties
of which are self-organization and self-growth). Marx specifies how this
occurs only by example without providing a theoretical explanation how
developing forces of production overcomes the closed system of relations of
production. Engels, apparently aware of the logical-theoretical problems of
this hypothesis, twists and turns and finally mobilizes the dialectical
relation between quantity and quality to explain this jump. The problem
with the quantity to quality relation is that is impossible to determine
what 'temperature' must be reached before accumulated forces of production
overcome the relations of production.
The problem is not only a logical-theoretical one, but also a concrete
historical and practical problem.
As the historiography of the industrial revolution and of associated
changes in the relations of production accumulate we begin to appreciate the
evolutionary development of social formations and the interaction of these
with the material conditions that lead to their eventual supplanting by
other formations of social relations of production. The 'high points' of
domestic conflict turn out to be both more complex and less decisively
revolutionary than Marx and Engels regarded them (modern studies on the
French Revolution are already the classical case of this situation). Also,
we find that modes of production do not follow one another as cars on a
train, but that new forms emerge as particular sectors of productive
activity and develop and in some cases become universal modes of production
as in the case of industrial capitalism or grow and then decline and
disappear as in the aforementioned case of guild manufacturing.
Practically, we and our parents are witnesses of the adaptability of
capitalism to technological change and the changes of the relations of
production they engender. In fact, if we examine the modern evolution of
the social organization of capitalism we find that most of the successful
'revolutions' in the relations of production in modern times have preserved
the mode of capitalist production so effectively, that capitalism is now
becoming the mode of production in Asia (only S. America and Africa still
remain to become 'competitors').
Now, let's not forget that the evolution of the capitalist system begins
with the not so lowly steam engine and is currently coping quite
successfully with the computer operated automated factory and market system.
This is not to say that capitalism of the 1850's and 60's is the same as the
capitalism of the mid 20th century or of the beginning of the 21st century.
Indeed changes have occurred, and many of these changes are the socially
interpreted response to material conditions engendered by the development of
the practices of capitalism. I would argue, that some of these changes
include the emergence of new kinds of class relations that Marx was barely
aware of. One of these is the scientific establishment as a necessary
component of modern production. Another even newer development is the
emergence of a class of service workers whose main activity appears to be
the application of special knowledge to the maintenance of conditions
essential to the preservation of natural conditions and social order
essential to perpetuation of modern industrial systems of production. I'm
speaking here of environmental care-takers, social workers, teachers and so
on. On the other hand we see the decline of the industrial working class in
developed countries and the fragmentation of organized labour (in its
classical form as trade union) induced by globalisation.
The point is that the emergence of new modes of production and new class
relations will be a function of changing material conditions (read, forces
of production) only as they are assimilated into the relations of
production, and are expressed in the form of modes of production that evolve
out of the capitalist system, come to compete with it and in some cases
supplant it.
The argument that the bourgeoisie fetters production or the bourgeois mode
of
production at a certain stage becomes a fetter on the development of the
productive forces because it does is no argument. This is not my thesis.
My thesis
rivets on "bourgeois need."
The constant expansion of "the material power of the productive forces,"
which is measurable against yesterday (as history), expresses the fact and
face of
the fact of the bourgeois mode of production to revolutionize the
productive
forces.
Marx and Engels refer to the crisis of overproduction as the cardinal
signature of how the bourgeois mode of production fetters the development
of the
productive forces, even as it revolutionizes the material power of
production.
That is the contradiction immanent in the bourgeois mode of production.
I understand you comment to be that this explanation is insufficient in
explaining the fettering or "At a certain stage of their development, the
material
productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations
of
production," and your request is for a more definitive explanation of
"forces."
Earlier, I referred to the phenomena of "overcapacity" and the market
barrier
of buying and selling as the manifestation of the fettering of the
development of the production forces rather than fettering the "the
material power of
production." Part of the problem in my exposition is that I often use the
material power and productive forces exchangeable.
I understand the phenomena of "overcapacity" and overproduction to express
"bourgeois need." The bourgeoisie as a force of history inherits a complex
set
of needs shaped in the course of the struggle to overcome scarcity in
human
society. How the productive forces are deployed contains "the secret" of
fettering and the entire world of commodities produced reveals an enormous
waste of
labor, resources and energy; all of which constitutes an enormous fetter
on the
productive forces.
(V): The problem of adjusting production to need where need is the function
of the decision of the consumer is almost as difficult problem as
determining the date of the next revolution. Most effectively planned
economies are command systems in which the planners determine needs rather
than adapt production to emergent needs (often unsuccessfully, as occurred
fairly frequently in Gosplan). Even so recent developments in the
formulation of computerised systems of production management have improved
considerably the capacity of the single enterprise to adjust production to
demand.
System-wide business cycles have become far less disastrous than in the
past. Barring major financial disaster (such as an extreme rise in price of
essential commodities such as petroleum products) the severity of cycles can
be restrained by all sorts of financial mechanisms that have evolved in
response to past experience. And , I might add, in response to Marx's theory
of business cycles, which was taken quite seriously by the economists of the
20th century. Today classical cycles are regarded more as indications of
the need to consolidate gains and rethink production policy rather than
economic disaster. Take, for example the computer crises of several years
back when the PC market reached maximal absorption. It created a
mini-depression followed by reorganization of production and sales of PC's
and of all the auxiliary industries that had developed around the PC that
included cheapening labour costs, more cautious investments in innovations,
and a sales rather than production orientation in the industry. For the
capitalist whose business is effected by a mini-depression, the 'down' cycle
is regarded as a sign of need for changed policies rather than of coming
financial disaster. Of course this is no consolation for the laid-off and
fired workers, but the current state of organized labour makes this a minor
problem for industry and even for state policies of development.
So cycles can now be regarded as foundations for thoughtful development of
industry, as indicators of the need to change rather than as restraints on
production in general.
I do not take a position that the bourgeoisie as a force of history
reaches a
point where it can no longer develop - revolutionize, the material power
of
the productive forces, and runs into a barrier and then social revolution
breaks out. Social revolution breaks out as the result of the spontaneous
development of the means of production that begins changing the existing
technological
regime and relations of production and finally requires revolution in the
political regime or what is basically referred to as the superstructure.
(V): "...the SPONTANEOUS [my emphasis] development of the means of
production that begins changing the existing technological regime and
relations of production and finally requires revolution in the political
regime or what is basically referred to as the superstructure. It is exactly
to the idea that development is spontaneous that runs counter to the
Marxist-Leninist aim of rationally explaining change and development of
human practices. If we must use the term,' spontaneous', then we tacitly
admit that we do not understand what is going on.
The material properties of a given mode of production, that are the
relations
of production defining how society is organized to produce - say on the
basis
of manual labor, (with the property relations within) becomes a fetter on
the
forward development of the material power of the productive forces, under
the
impact of say the steam engine. Fettering expresses the complex that is
production and property.
******************
WL: Pardon, the fettering of the productive forces I refer to is their
quality as capital and bourgeois property or bourgeois need.
V: That's fair enough.
**********************
WL: And there is of course the spontaneous development of the
technological
regime underlying the system of production and the need to change the old
relations that are at one time a process of manual labor or manual labor +
mechanical means and at another time industrial process - electricity.
At any rate, I shall not speak of the productive forces being in rebellion
against themselves as a given state of development of the means.
(I am slowly exhaling . . .:-)
Waistline
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