Science and Technology

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Posted: 08 Oct 2004 11:23 pm Post subject:

The abolition of human labor will lead to the abolitions of class divisions, the wages system, the state, money, private property, politics and lots of other things we love to hate. Or, won't it? -KE 10/8

mikelepore

Posted: 11 Oct 2004 07:59 am Post subject:

October 2004 --- This conversation is continued from the "Socialism: General Discussion" topic

kenellis wrote:

I already gave you my humble opinion several times:

(1) that future technology is unlikely to diminish the need to work for a living, because technology will be used instead to transform the billionaires into trillionaires, while keeping the workweek lengthy.

(2) that even if workers did somehow withdraw from capitalist servitude, that would still leave an owning class in a policy-making position (polluting the air, launching weapons of war, etc.)

Magoo

Posted: 13 Oct 2004 02:25 am Post subject:

Right Im back. So we are to contine the topic? If we are, then Ken can you please please please not refer to me as a misguided revolutiony, Im not angry but its not really valid and calling me that doesnt serve any useful purpose.
So Ken, in a nutshell, could you explain your perceptions of the socialist movement today, the science of Marxs views on political economy(in regards to what you were saying), and also how you think a rapid increase in productivity, so rapid that it removes even more labour from the productive process, could lead to the sudden collapse of capitalism and the rise of....of what?

mikelepore

Posted: 16 Oct 2004 04:09 pm Post subject:

Ken feels that new technology will make it possible for people to live without selling themselves on the labor market. But who is supposed to manufacture those devices, or would they be self-replicating? He's right to perceive that technology is somewhat exponential, but how can we know how soon that curve will bend sharply upward? I just don't see home automation being much of a priority in current society. We're just at the point having an expensive programmable lawnmower and an expensive programmable vacuum cleaner. To look forward to a the home device that provides everything a person could want -- what century are we talking about? Capitalism is massacring people now. We have to change society now.

kenellis

Posted: 16 Oct 2004 04:46 pm Post subject:

Sorry to be so far behind, but this goes back to Magoo's earlier response:

Socialism today is irrelevant to current events, because obsolete programs like 'revolution' and 'abolition of private property' often appear on front burners, which offend ordinary people who regard anti-property programs as anti-labor. Everyone knows that labor creates property, a fact recognized even by Marx (me3.279): "Private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labour, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself."

Later on, in Marx's works, alienated labor becomes very closely associated with surplus labor and surplus value. If property is in the process of constant creation, then property is not so easily abolished, as shown by:

me4.278 "Private property is nothing but objectified labour. If it is desired to strike a mortal blow at private property, one must attack it not only as a material state of affairs, but also as activity, as labour."

While most socialists identify Marxist economics with Marxist politics, the 2 should be segregated. Marxist economics is perfectly valid, but Marxist revolution was not valid for all time. It was valid only for Marx's era, when overthrowing a mass of absolute monarchies in Europe, and establishing a universal republic, seemed quite feasible. However, M+E were mostly alone with their revolutionary sentiments, at least in Europe. Their revolutionary base was strongest in Russia, where the revolution appeared imminent for many decades running. Failure of the 1917 revolution to sweep Europe doomed Marx's revolution to obsolescence. The events of 1989 et seq were the nails in its coffin.

Technology has been improving at a double exponential rate, which should be regarded as nothing less than totally awesome. The first 20 years of the 21st century are expected to yield MORE tech progress than the whole 20th century, just the way the 20th yielded more progress than the previous 5 centuries. Acceleration of progress is becoming more and more apparent, and even Marx noticed it, though he failed to quantify it as exponential. Human labor is being replaced with machines at an accelerating pace. Rice transplanting in Japan is increasingly robotized, citrus picking in Florida is increasingly robotized, and fast food chains are experimenting with automated burger flippers. Soon there will be no low-skill work for people to fall back on, no pig sties to muck out, etc. Opportunities to work at low skill jobs are rapidly diminishing. Socialists hardly regard this development as liberatory, and most often ignore it. Its trivialization is not deserved. -KE

mikelepore

Posted: 20 Oct 2004 09:59 am Post subject:

While I'm thinking of it, I'll say something about use of the word "exponential."

It's precise meaning is a variable whose rate of increase is proportional to its current value: dy/dt = Cy . That's why the graph bends upward: the greater it is at t=t1, the faster it is increasing at t=t1.

Lewis Henry Morgan wrote in Ancient Society: "Human progress, from first to last, has been in a ratio not rigorously but essentially geometrical.... and it could not, theoretically, have occurred in any other way. Every item of absolute knowledge gained became a factor in further acquisitions...."

The statement that technology is (approximately) exponential has been quantified empirically in a few cases. The most famous example is Gordon Moore's early prediction that computer chip density would double every 1.5 years, which has been found to be true ever since he proposed it. However, in numerous sectors, such as batteries and motors, although improvements occur (a discontinuous monotonically-increasing function), exponentiation itself has not been detected. I assume that "technology" in a general sense is roughly exponential, because (though I hate using double-negatives) it is "not unrealistic."

More later ....