[extropy-chat] how partisanship skews perception

[Sean Diggins]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Trend Ologist

Don't forget how pernicious Communists were/are. I am
a former Marxist and now despise Communists, they are
little more than left-wing fascists.


> The most notable
> characteristic fascists is separation
> and persecution or denial of equality to a specific
> segment of the
> population based upon superficial qualities or
> belief systems. This is
> propagated by ignorance and failure to contemplate
> truth or reality. And you
> suggest this is perfectly reasonable? Am I missing
> something?
> 
> Sean
>  
---------------------------------------------------------

Naturally I comprehend your statement Trend, but that in no way excuses
Hal's statement.
And there is no denying Marx was right about one thing - there IS a ruling
class...and then there is "everyone else". Do you support such a divide?

Perhaps a quick reminder of a few basic things from Marx, as posted by to
another list I subsrcibe to, will jog your memory on other matters relating
to some of the  sensible components of "Marxism". His definitions of systems
are still useful tools. And those who still examine all political constructs
to find a way to re-work and improve old ideas try not to despise or hate.
There are utter pragmatic pernicious bastards within ALL political
constructs.....that is a by product of power and the loss of compassion it
engenders.

Sean

Extracts follow, which I hope someone on this list finds interesting:  

---------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know that the market can, or should, or would, be totally 
suppressed even in a socialist democracy. 

Alexandra, this reveals that you accept the existence of the market, a basic
tenet of liberalist thinking. "The market" is predicated on two things,
firstly
the appropriation of the means of production by those who thereby become
capitalists (ie, through processes of expropriation of lands, such as the
land clearing acts in England to establish capitalist farming, and the
industrial revolution/s that built bigger factories that therefore made
goods cheaper that therefore ruined handcraft manufacturing / independent
small producers), and secondly by a pricing system that factors in the
profit overhead and relative shortages to maintain prices (especially in
conditions of monopoly or collusion among producers). 

A socialist system solves the first through working people running their own
enterprises where everyone votes on all matters including their own equal
remuneration (with perhaps some differences according to skill). Working
examples exist in some socialist states, and in Argentina where economic
collapse in this capitalist state has seen quite a few enterprises abandoned
by their capitalist owners due to a lack of a sufficient profit stream. The
second is solved by a continuous process of decommodification, predicated on
understanding that price is a rationing mechanism essentially, along with
reflecting the costs of the commodities that make up the commodity in
question. The initial step is that through workers taking control of their
enterprises, the profit motive and its overhead are taken out of the system.
This then works itself through the economy as each element / commodity feeds
into the next process up through production levels. The second step is to
ensure that the basics of life (housing, food, clothing, transport,
education) are met, ie that there is enough production to satisfy these
equitably so that any shortages of these are eliminated. This eliminates
pricing as a supply / demand signal, the only remaining question is of the
cost of the elements / commodities that go to make up the particular basic
good. The cheapening of these basic items then works itself through the
economy, deflating the cost of other parts of the economy. The third step is
to engender automation of as much of production as possible, this being
impossible in a capitalist economy due to the unemployment this would cause
and the resulting imbalance / contradiction of falling demand for the goods
produced, but entirely possible under socialism, going hand in hand with
lowering of working hours (but not pay) throughout the economy. Sustainable
energy production and consumption of raw materials would be a priority here.
This would cheapen goods even further, and such deflation would then work
itself through the economy, cheapening other goods.

Part of this cheapening of goods would include cutting out as much as
possible of the wasteful sales / advertising effort (and its engendering of
socially useless wants) that is an essential part of capitalism, as well as
the greater efficiency involved in communal / social solutions as opposed to
production geared to individual solutions. This would then be an ongoing,
iterative process, working towards the communistic ideal of a society where
people only work because they want to in some desired field, and people
simply rock up to be allocated their essential goods.

However, there will still be markets, on the side of society, say for
ancient Grecian urns, or rare stamps (as Dick Nichols once put it). But the
main things of life will no longer be allocated by the biased and class
based allocation system of the "market" (I once wrote an essay at uni
asserting that Adam Smith's blind "hand" of God in the market wasn't so much
blind as authoritarian and directive in the Calvinist predestination sense
of the then emerging late 18th century understanding of the nature of human
society as ordered, rational, scientific and bourgeois).

I will tackle other areas you have mentioned in later posts. Suffice to say
that only after the capitalist market is mostly removed in human society can
we truly move to address the environment as part of a rationally social
solution to human problems.
 
Paul Oboohov
A lowly denizen of the State
---------------------------------------------
<then another person adds>:

Alexandra,
Your analysis of capital is one-sided. Essentially the logic of 
capital is not to get people to consume but rather to valorise, to 
reproduce its own dynamic and transcend all barriers.
Capital produces surplus value from workers but the surplus value is 
locked into the commodities - thus as you point out a barrier to 
capital reproducing and expanding is a lack of consumption 
therefore, they must encourage people to consume more.
But things are not so straight foward. Capital needs to exploit 
workers but needs to stimulate new needs in consumers so that the 
surplus labour taken from workers can be unlocked from the 
commodities produced and capital can valorise. The problem is that 
workers are consumers. Thus, capital in general is constantly 
stimulating new needs in the working class but is at the same time 
doing everything it can to maximise the exploitation of the working 
class. And this contradiction can't be overcome easily because the 
form that capital takes is in individual capitals, thus, individual 
capitals sells to the working class as a whole while exploiting its 
own particular workers. Thus, every capitalist wishes to see their 
own workers exploited as much as possible but to see workers uin 
general being able to consume as much as possible. This 
contradiction between developing new needs within the working class 
while suprressing it is the seed for class struggle for when the 
working class needs attempts to fulfil its own needs - it needs to 
do so against the will of the capital its tied to, in short it must 
struggle against capital.
Thus, the working class under capitalism has developed the need for 
education, excellent health care, access to culture as well as 
access to consumer goods. Thats because workers are humans and the 
logic of humans is develop themselves through thier society 
Alexandra argues that we should only focus on what are our needs and 
eliminate our 'wants' - or at least restrict them. 
But what are 'needs' and 'wants'? Unless you believe in living a 
completely primative lifestyle that only reproduces your daily 
physical life (enough nutrients to survive, a form of shelter and 
the appropriate clothing), than everything above that would be a want
(not just consumer goods but any form of cultural development at 
all). But i don't think there are many human beings in the world 
that want to live in that kind of poverty - espeically when they 
have lived in a society thatg has moved beyond it.
However, nothing could be further from Marx and Marxism than the 
belief in a fixed set of necessaries. From his earliest days, Marx 
rejected a concept of 'Abstract Man' and stressed the emergence of 
new human needs with the development of society.
In the Grundrisse, he noted needs develop "only with the forces of 
production" and in the course of economic development "the producers 
change, too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, 
develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new 
powers and ideas, new modes of intercourse, new needs and new 
language'. Nor, did Marx think this was a bad thing. He asked: "what 
is wealth other than the universality of individual needs, 
capacities, pleasures, productive forces, etc, created through 
universal exchange" and was very critical of other bourgeois 
political economists who viewed workers as naturally determined and 
unchanging.
However Marx did differentiate between different degrees of need:
1) Physiological needs - the use-values needed to reproduce the 
worker as a natural subject, the bare minimum for physical survival.
2) Necessary Needs - this is the level of needs rendered necessary 
by habit and custom
3) Social needs - this is the needs of the worker as a socally 
developed human being at a given point: it constitutes the upper 
limit in needs for use-values in a commodity form.
 
Thus, i think while Alexandra is confused about needs and wants what 
she is probably referring to this the inherent drive of capital to 
fetishise consumption through the constant raising of social needs. 
However, if these needs are socially developed in humans, then they 
cannot be on a large scale taken away through the spreading of 
individual consciousness. It will have to be through the self-
transformation of the working class through class struggle and in 
the creation of a society that develops different types of social 
needs in the human being from 'retail therapy'.
 
<and, finally, Jonathon finishes>:
 
There's a mistake we could make with regard to
Alexandra's latest posting (see below) - politically,
to take it too seriously.
She calls on us to consider whether or not people who
Vote conservative should "be absolved of
responsibility for new wars". She says: "I agree with
those who say no and who believe it is wrong and 
counter productive to absolve individuals of personal
responsibility. We must tell the truth about their
corruption, our corruption."
Individual responsibility exists. We choose to respond
to oppression other than by terrorism. But terrorism
is one absolutely inevitable response to the social
oppression - that is, it is a social, a mass,
phenomenon, existing independently of the
responsibility and action of any one individual. This
is the basis for our argument that oppression is the
cause of terrorism.
As hopeful activists, our task is to explain and
join with other people in resolving the social causes
of environmental destruction, exploitation and
oppression. To turn the issue to one of individual
responsibility is to turn our attention away from how
to solve these problems.
The task of individual absolution lies with other
institutions. Some of these have whole hierarchies,
equipped with robes and/or rituals, expert in the
task. If that's what anyone wants, they are easy
enough to find. Just not around here.
Jonathan Strauss