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The man's got a point, Darryl. I mean David W.'s got THE point. The assault on the working class was not initiated by a cataclysmic change in the technique of production, but by a response to declining profitability. And that's the basic issue. I might even say that's the entire issue in its most compressed form. There is no "leap" in technology that is responsible for the history of the class struggle since 1974. The application of digital technology to production is not quite the application of digital electronic technology you might think it is. First, unlike the application of steam to production which, as Marx points out, became technically incompatible, but not socially incompatible, with the organization of manufacture, digital technology has no such technical incompatibility with industrial production. Actually, if we were measuring these things, I'd say the transition from steam generated power to application of electric generation of power for production was more laced with problems of technical incompatibility than the application of digital technology to industrial production. And much more "revolutionary" in its impact. But who's got time to measure? Anyway, most of the greatest impacts of digital technology have been in research, design, engineering, logistics, accounting, inventory control, replacement ordering, tracking, communication and transportation, all that stuff we call logistics-- a lot of back office and front office applications, with enormous impacts on production to be sure but on the cheapening of the units constant capital and/or at the same time an opposite social impact as the mass of constant capital expands. What element of robotics as applied to automobile production is technically incompatible with the industrial production of automobiles, as opposed to driving to the extreme the social incompatibility of technological advance and profit accumulation; as opposed to making manifest the limitations to capitalist production being capital itself; as opposed to say the utilization of technology not to produce wealth per se, but to transfer wealth from the poorer to the richer, as with finance capital? In answer to Greg's question-- the issue is not if digital technology made the assault on the working class easier; if it made the movement of capital across boundaries quicker, more efficient, and/or more damaging to any or all parties; the issue is if digital technology represents a revolution in the forces of production, a technological leap above the level of industrial production? So let's look at real history-- something David W. did to bring us all back to the material world. Employment on US railroads peaked at 2,076,000 in 1920, declining steadily to around 1 million before WW2 when it grew by 40% to 1.4 million in 1945. By 1970, employment was down to 500,000. What was the driver of this transformation? The shift from steam locomotive power to diesel-electric motive power. In 1920, there were 69,000 locomotives to haul freight about 414 billion revenue ton-miles. In 1970, 26, 600 locomotives hauled freight 771 billion ton-miles. Average tractive effort per locomotive almost doubled. But the kicker was the fact that diesel-electric locomotives could be connected electrically [called "MU" for multiple unit] and any number of locomotives could be controlled from a single locomotive by a.....single engineer. Latest figures for Class 1 railroads show a decline in employment to less than 150,000-- now to be sure, there's a lot of book juggling in those numbers as railroads have spun off more short lines [Class 2 railroads], separated passenger and commuter service, but no matter how you juggle the books, employment is less than half what it was in 1970, 2007 figure for total employment is about 234, 000 OK, so where's the bigger technological leap? Now the downsizing in railroad employment after 1970 was not produced, precipitated, nor driven by any technological transformation. It was driven by bankruptcy, not in the face of a new technological means for hauling coal or grain or automobiles or chemicals, but by "legacy assets"-- the legacy of overproduction. The bourgeoisie "resolved" this problem through devaluation, or as we call it in the vernacular, bankruptcy. Once upon a time, 7 class 1 railroads carried traffic between Omaha, Nebraska and Chicago, Il. And today? Well there's the BNSF, and the UP and there's the.... nobody. Milwaukee Road? Gone. Rock Island? Gone. Illinois Central? Spun off its Iowa branch. BN merged with ATSF, soon to be the Buffet Burlington Northern Santa Fe. CNW? taken over by the UP etc etc. etc. None of this was driven by any new technologies. And the actual application of new technologies? Digital technology has certainly been applied-- to signal systems for centralized control; to digital radios for data communication; to track laying machines for proper alinement, curvature, grade-- the things we call track geometry. To locomotives-- but if we look at locomotives we see the shift has not been as radical as the "leap" from steam to diesel-electric. The number of locomotives in operation [class 1 rrs 2006] app. 24,000 hauling 1663 billion ton-miles. What has the digital revolution accomplished in locomotives? Most important thing: better control of adhesion between the wheel tread and the rail head, allowing greater horsepower to be effectively translated into greater tractive effort. If adhesion is not managed, if an optimum level of "creep" is not maintained [creep is defined as the difference between the velocity of the driving wheels and the actual velocity of the locomotive as it accelerates or decelerates] then the locomotive wheels "spin" or "slip" and effective braking or accelerating is compromised, producing damage to wheels and rails, increased and unnecessary fuel consumption, increased in-train forces [called "buffer" and "draft" forces] that can cause the steel coupling mechanisms between cars to break... etc. etc. Digital technology provides a more precise method of improving and controlling the already existing production elements. What else has it produced for locomotive usage? Better self-diagnostics to avoid enroute failures and unscheduled maintenance for repairs-- that all important down-time, the enemy of circulating all massive fixed asset investments. What else? Communication. Information. Heads up real time display of the physical characteristics of the railroad ahead, a "preview" allowing the engineer to take pre-emptive action in controlling the speed, adding power, reducing in-train forces etc. Direct, immediate, non-voice dependent transmission of temporary changes to speed restrictions, track availability, cars to picked up or set out enroute. You know what else the "communications revolution" has made possible? The engineer can take his cellphone and text message right past two signals and head on into another train at 47 miles per hour, but we can address that with other technology. [For those so inclined, the Union Pacific equips its locomotives with digital cameras so in case of a collision, or an accident at a grade crossing with an automobile, a video record of the incident is available. A video record exists of the collision in Chatsworth, Ca. where the engineer on a passenger was texting violated a stop signal, running head on into a UP freight train, killing 24? people.] Do I think we are standing on the precipice or in the jaws of a "technological revolution" in production qua production? Absolutely. Not. Absolutely not. The technology that is deployed commercially that alters the relations between living and accumulated labor is only introduced after the social conditions of a pre-emptive counterrevolution, or near counterrevolution, have been established, and only for the same reason every other application of science is introduced-- to reduce costs, accelerate production, increase the aggrandizement of surplus-value. You want a new technology? Get rid of the old ruling class the "old-fashioned" way-- class struggle. Application of steam power did not destroy feudalism; feudalism had been effectively defeated [in Britian] one hundred years prior to the application of steam power. Marx makes it quite clear that manufacture gives way to industrial production not on the basis of social revolution. If your intention is to state that the material potential of production is so great today that 1) the old forms of industrial struggle are not adequate to making that potential, "advertising" that possibility, to all those who can and should be involved in a class-conscious struggle against capitalism-- I absolutely agree or 2) organization of such a class conscious struggle will necessarily and immediately be more "social"-- perhaps concerned with something equivalent to the struggles of the residents of El Alto against the privatization of water supplies in Bolivia-- again I am in agreement. You got your 48 months. Just checked my chin-- no bruises, no marks. Not whopper-jawed. Yet. ----- Original Message ----- From: "nada" <dwalters...@gmail.com> To: "David Schanoes" <sartes...@earthlink.net> Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 8:46 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] FROP again > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > Waistline, I don't think you really prove the 'mechanics to electronics' > theory. I mean you state it, but nothing is offered as proof (which of > course doesn't make it wrong at all, it does make it unconvincing, > however). > > I think it's also sort of more of a haiku than serious Marxism. For > instance, 1974. An interesting date. It's when in 21st floor of the U.S. > Steel building the first of a really bad set of takeway contracts was > being experimented with by the board of directors of U.S. Steel and > their consultants. In fact the agreement, which spawned one of the > largest rank and file movements in the US was even called that: the > "Experimental Negotiating Agreement". It helped provide further surplus > value to effectively be used in the almost total delocalization of the > US steel industry to Japan, Korea and Tawain. The "permanent > unemployed", I would argue, had little if anything to do with > "electronics" but rather had everything to do with the shift toward > total control of the economy by finance capital. We perhaps don't > disagree where except for over the means it used. > > This should come as no surprise (although it did to everyone back then) > since it was not the 'captains of industry' as Waistline points out but > finance capital that was calling the shots. Useless manufacturing in the > US nation-state, "useless" from finance capital's point of view, had to > be delocalized, reorganized and deunionized. It was basically. This > delocalization was fertilized with the Breton-Woods new monetary world > order established a few years earlier and culminated in the this latest > orgy of speculative financial depression. But it was not the kinds of > productive forces, technologically speaking, that had much to do with > this, at least in my opinion. This massive world wide shift of capital > investment caused far more unemployed than any school of technology. > > Waistline posted, several times I think, the massive decades long set of > numbers showing the down ward drop of employment in Auto. Ever look at > the steel industry? At least the UAW continued to exist. The USW became > a shell of itself after *most* of basic steel was gutted. It's not > Detroit, alone, even metaphorically speaking that we are talking it > about. No, not at all. It's Youngstown, Lackawanna, Loraine, South side > of Chicago, Duquene, Pittsburgh, Braddock and too many other steel towns > that were made 'redundant' that auto is only now approaching, IMO. It is > the future because it's whats been done as finance capital continues > it's decline. > > DW > > > > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/sartesian%40earthlink.net ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
