But the Skidelsky's, like JS Mill before them, seem surprised that the most effective means devised for reducing work time become, inexplicably, the most unfailing means for extending and intensifying the work day. But Marx already answered this paradox raised by JS Mill. By means of the introduction of new machinery an industrial capitalist can reduce unit costs and get a leg up on his competitors. But at the same time the machinery may suffer moral depreciation before it is amortized. Hence the machine which allows for the same level of production to be attained with less overall (indirect and direct) labor time actually demands its non-stop utilization and thus becomes the most unfailing means for extending and intensifying the working day. But here the explanation for the social failure to translate machine production into reduced worker hours overall is rooted in the social relations of capitalist production, not the insatiability of the consumer. Only the enforced stupidity of bourgeois ideology explains why the Skidelsky's would not even entertain Marx's answer to JS Mill. Moreover, as the social relations of production require that industrialists reduce unit costs, but this requires increasing the scale of production. Which in turn requires the psycho-technics of advertising to dispose of the increasing accumulation of commodities. Limiting advertising works at the level of symptom, not in terms of underlying cause. But again humanist neo-classical ideology based on the putative sovereignty of the consumer explains why the Skidelsky's would account for the increasing accumulation of commodities in terms of consumer wants which are in fact shaped by the social relations of production. One cannot begin the explanation with the human psychology of the consumer; it begins with the social relations of production. Sociology has primacy over psychology. Even Karl Popper accepted this aspect of the Marxist research program. How many steps back will the Skidelskys take us? LR
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