[Marxism-Thaxis] Waistline2
CB: Modern Industrial(ization) revolutionarily combines labourers, removing them from their isolation in competition. . . . . the recent ( last thirty years) scattering of the industrial points of production of the U.S. is an anti-revolutionary process in terms of what it does to the U.S. proletariat. It _de_combines them, reisolates them , relatively to before. It is the reverse of the process that Marx describes here and elsewhere. WL: What is meant by "points of production?" Factories? ^^^^ CB: Yes, and subparts of factories. Manufacturing plants. Plants where industrial machinery are, especially. ^^^^^^ Why is this "scattering" "an anti-revolutionary process" of the general revolutionary process underway in the form and content of the on going qualitative changes talking place in the productive forces. ^^^^ CB: Because it undoes the potentially "revolutionary combination" of workers that Marx refers to in what you quote. It is a reverse of the process Marx refers to here and describes in detail in the Chapter in Vol. I of Capital on "Modern Industry." The big Rouge plant ( and Detroit as surrounds as a workers' ghetto) was an ultimate example of "revolutionary combination". The geographical spread of what used to be done in a much smaller geographical area is anti-revolutionary decombination. "The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. " ^^^^^^ CB: The invention of new use-values like CAD/CAM or containerization is not sufficient to make a revolution. To look to new technological use-values and not humans as the revolutionary gravediggers of capitalism is a form of the fetishism of commodities, as elucidated in Capital , Chapter One,"Commodities and Money." WL: Marx and Engels writes extensively about things and there impact such as the revolutionary role of the steam engine. (In Marx and Engels discussion of the impact of the steam engine, as cause and effect, they presuppose that the reader understands that people, or rather individuals that are people, invent things.) The steam engine provided a revolutionary energy source in an existing infrastructure of productive relations, that demanded changes in the infrastructure in conformity to this new energy source. ^^^^ CB: "Revolutionary" in the sense of one of the revolutions in the instruments of production that the bourgeoisie have been constantly making ever since they were bourgeoisie. Not "revolutionary" in the sense of a social revolution, because the steam engine did not result in the overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat. Changes in infrastructure are not necessarily changes in property relations. Private property was not abolised as a result of the steam engine revolution in the instruments of production. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
