[was: RE: [PEN-L] "the Incredibles"]
I wrote: >>I don't know about "unbeatable." It's true that capitalism drives to
control all skill, to destroy worker-controlled skills, i.e., to deskill
labor (following Marx & Braverman). But workers develop new skills. So
the class struggle isn't totally over.<<
Ian wrote: >I never asserted that you asserted that capital is omnipotent,
although you intimate that that is a telos/dream of capital [so reified] in the
statement above.<
I didn't write about telos or dreams. I also don't use the word "capital" to
refer
to a Subject of history -- except as short-hand. I like to link every abstract
concept to a concrete example, if possible. Please don't over-interpret
what I write. It makes what I write into an ink-blot, while I try to use prose
as carefully and simply as I can to avoid such crap (along with bilious
verbiage).
I was thinking of capitalist "microfoundations." The job of a capitalist
manager
is to seek profit everywhere and in every way. This involves trying to control
the work process -- and the workers, who don't want to be controlled. This
implies the deskilling drive: since most production processes are run by
similar people with similar motives, that implies a kind of a macro-trend. But
that's only on the "demand side." The "supply side" isn't (and can't be)
totally
under the capitalists' control (as I said), though they try. Workers are
conscious
humans (so far at least) and cannot be totally controlled. That's why, in the
quotation above, I rejected the idea that "capital" was "unbeatable."
It seems to me that if we don't try to figure out the inherent tendencies of
capitalism as a socioeconomic system, it's pretty hard to fight them. Unless
we can rely on a _deus ex machina_.
Ian: > Others on the list intimate an implicit reified omnipotence on many
occasions <
I'm not responsible for them.
>even as empirical work demonstrates a telos
of omnipotence/control is not in the cards of history and deskilling is
not a general trend of capital accumulation/technological change, else why
the increasing technological-organizational complexity since, say, 1400?.<
Capitalism only dates from about 1700 or so (in England, at least). More
importantly, technical change does not simply follow the wishes of capitalism.
For a tremendously long time, it wasn't subordinate to capitalism, but it is
becoming increasingly so.
BTW, I don't know if the social system is more complex than it used to be
or not. Technology is, but there's no one-to-one mapping between society
and technology so I can't merge them in my mind (as in "technological-
organizational").
Further, capitalism has its contradictions (to use an unfashionable term).
Specifically, the profit motive sometimes encourages technologies that
undermine capitalist hegemony (e.g., the Internet, for awhile). Capitalism
often encourages war, which doesn't always serve capitalist class interests
(as when the Pentagon spawned the Internet).
>Complexification through mass stupefacation is a contradiction.<
Not being of the Frankfurt school, I reject Braverman's implication that
deskilling automatically leads to mass stupor. Rather, what happens is that
capitalists strive to conquer _worker-controlled_ skills (e.g., craft skills).
So increasingly, skills are created and transmitted through institutions such
as the public schools which have little choice but to serve capitalism. (After
all, don't we all want our children to get jobs? and who supplies the jobs?)
>Human beings *can't* control all the knowledge/artifacts they create.<
who said they could?
>The dream of total control [and what else is the image of God but a dream
of total control?] is *over*.<
Why is this "dream" more over now than in the past? It seems to me that (at
least in the US, which I know best) workers' ability to counteract the
capitalist
effort to control them is _less effective_ now than it was (say) 30 years ago.
That suggests that the capitalists are able to achieve their goal of greater
control over our lives much more now than 30 years ago.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine
