How best to manage the means of production - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#14609762
taltom wrote:Here in the States, at least for a few decades, the working class enjoyed a substantial standard of living, with TVs, cars, mortgages, clean water, and many other things that working people in other nations could only covet from afar. In effect, the working class saw itself as the owner class in miniature: they might not be able to afford a yacht, but a bass boat was a satisfactory substitute. Labor even managed to get itself onto a few governing boards.

But observe that this dynamic is not inevitable. The typical German worker, for example, enjoys a rather high standard of living, and his labor unions do not have to mount savage attacks on their employers.



It is undeniable that the standards of living enjoyed by workers in the west today is much greater than in the past. However, this increase in standards of living has a sinister cause. We live in an age where consumer goods sell for shockingly low prices, this is not due to an overflow of capitalist benevolence. The ability of the average western worker to purchase these goods, is due to the nature of their production. The majority of clothes, TVs etc. which are sold in western countries are produced by Asian workers who endure appalling conditions. The low pay and lack of protections which are received by Asian workers mean that the goods can be sold cheaply overseas. In other words, the rise in living standards of the western worker can be blamed on the exploitation of the eastern worker. If the majority of consumer goods where produced in countries with harsh labour laws, the prices of such goods would inevitably rise.
#14609766
Left Behind wrote: The low pay and lack of protections which are received by Asian workers mean that the goods can be sold cheaply overseas. In other words, the rise in living standards of the western worker can be blamed on the exploitation of the eastern worker. If the majority of consumer goods where produced in countries with harsh labour laws, the prices of such goods would inevitably rise.


This is an inevitable result of the free movement of capital, trade goods, and labor. First world workers are replaced by developing world workers. Eventually they in turn are replaced by last-world workers in Bangladesh or by robots.

Transnational capital has made great strides in the free movement of capital and trade. The last frontier is free movement of labor - we will see that bulwark fall as well. The Internationale will now be sung by capitalists to the tune of We Are The Champions.
#14609773
Left Behind wrote:The low pay and lack of protections which are received by Asian workers mean that the goods can be sold cheaply overseas. In other words, the rise in living standards of the western worker can be blamed on the exploitation of the eastern worker. If the majority of consumer goods where produced in countries with harsh labour laws, the prices of such goods would inevitably rise.
quetzalcoatl wrote:This is an inevitable result of the free movement of capital, trade goods, and labor. First world workers are replaced by developing world workers. Eventually they in turn are replaced by last-world workers in Bangladesh or by robots.

And this isn't such a bad thing ... it bootstraps under achieving societies into the modern world ... ie: Under the Marshall Plan, Japan retooled to produce for western markets, by the 1960s they were a world class nation, technologically proficient and industriously competitive. They passed the torch to S.Korea and the process repeated itself, then migrated to Indonesia and Taiwan, and from thence to China. This is not a bad thing ...

Yes, Capitalists made money, but the advantages gained by the host states is priceless and enduring. + They can take pride in their advance. They went from producing cheap crap to master craftsmanship in one generation, on their own merit, without any handouts.

Transnational capital has made great strides in the free movement of capital and trade. The last frontier is free movement of labor - we will see that bulwark fall as well. The Internationale will now be sung by capitalists to the tune of We Are The Champions.

And with any luck, this new dynamic will finally lead us off the planet ... Get orbital mfg. in place, relieve the strain on resources and relocate excess population ... Baby you ain't seen nuthin yet ...

Zam
#14609985
Harmattan wrote:Do you think that...
a) there is a massive hidden wealth you could tape in to offset the poverty increase that would result for efficiency decrease?
b) poverty is not that bad, at least better that domination by capital?


Efficiency, after you cut through the euphemisms, is simply the measure of the number of jobs you eliminate. The reductio ad absurdum of efficiency would be to reduce labor costs to zero. Although that is not quite a practical reality, it is the ultimate end to which market efficiency tends.

Efficiency, unless it can be paired with a hardwired participation of workers in the gains of productivity, does not decrease poverty.
#14610004
quetzalcoatl wrote:Efficiency, after you cut through the euphemisms, is simply the measure of the number of jobs you eliminate. The reductio ad absurdum of efficiency would be to reduce labor costs to zero. Although that is not quite a practical reality, it is the ultimate end to which market efficiency tends.

Efficiency, unless it can be paired with a hardwired participation of workers in the gains of productivity, does not decrease poverty.


A perfect product, one with zero labor and capital costs and that makes its consumer perfectly satisfied forever, would bring about the immediate collapse of a capitalist society if it is produced in large quantities.

An economic system built around its own reproduction would not have this problem. All such "perfect products" should be outlawed and destroyed. Consumer unsatisfaction is a beautiful thing.
#14610058
quetzalcoatl wrote:Efficiency, after you cut through the euphemisms, is simply the measure of the number of jobs you eliminate.

Efficiency is about producing more and better with less, first of all with less labor. This is why, compared to one century ago, people work 30h a week rather than 80h and enjoy five times larger and more comfortable houses.

On the other hand unemployment nowadays is not very high and it has been far higher at some earlier points of history. Yet we are producing far more efficiently today than they were. There is no relation of the sort you think between efficiency and unemployment: data do not support this vision.

The reductio ad absurdum of efficiency would be to reduce labor costs to zero.

Indeed and what's wrong with that?

Even if it was leading to the destruction of all jobs, you very well know that wealth would have to be distributed in such a case, otherwise it would be politically unstable. Then people would enjoy goods without working and they would work for themselves.

But it will not be the destruction of all jobs: social interactions and more generally human elements are not desired to be automated. You could invent a hairdresser bot but most of people will prefer to visit real hairdressers and have real teachers for their kids. This is why you will have a lot more hairdressers than today, all working 10h a week. Great. Just like you will have many people buying man-made stuff for the very reason it is man-made. Just like a movie or a video game will sell better if there is a narrative with real humans behind it, with actresses playing the glamor act on Cannes' stairs.



What we have today is not an excess of efficiency, it is a LACK of efficiency gains: as soon as the GDP stagnates, unemployment increases. Because as soon as efficiency stagnates, then the only way to increase competitiveness it is to pressure the human labor to chase little gains. Which causes a lot of problems, not just unemployment but also despicable job conditions. What we need today are transformations so fast that employers will be more concerned about fast growth, about missing opportunities, rather than wastage trimming. When you grow fast you hire a lot, knowing that you optimize things out later.

But for that we need either technological revolutions, either drastic changes of market conditions (regulations, balances, etc) or capital destruction (inflation, real estate crumble, etc). All in all something that will destabilize society to destroy its structures and let is move forward again. To allow everyone to work together to chase ambitious goals like they did in the past rather than fight against each other for meager preys like they do today in our sclerotic economy. I do not think the answer or the problems are just about that, although it's a big chunk of it. We are also flirting with some hard limits regarding physics laws and resources consumptions, and therefore we also need political answers. And there were the Asian markets. But fighting efficiency would be a severe mistake, that I am sure of.


Note that the various communist models themselves do not prevent those sclerosis-revolution cycles. Your model of small corporations competing with each other would also be concerned with those problems. Just like it does not prevent dictators, oppression and toxic work cultures.
#14610171
Zamuel wrote: ie: Under the Marshall Plan, Japan retooled to produce for western markets, by the 1960s they were a world class nation, technologically proficient and industriously competitive. They passed the torch to S.Korea and the process repeated itself, then migrated to Indonesia and Taiwan, and from thence to China. This is not a bad thing ...


The torch passes from one country to another, I understand. However, what happens when every third world nation that can be developed has been developed, what then? The cheap consumer goods in western nations depend on one nation "holding the torch". If the process of holding the torch leads to the holder becoming a developed nation, then eventually there will be no more nations left to develop. This process may take a long time, but when it finishes it will leave behind a collection of developed nations, with developed citizens expecting cheap consumer products. Might I also note that this development, at least currently in China, is at the cost of worker welfare.
#14610184
Left Behind wrote:The torch passes from one country to another, I understand. However, what happens when every third world nation that can be developed has been developed, what then? The cheap consumer goods in western nations depend on one nation "holding the torch". If the process of holding the torch leads to the holder becoming a developed nation, then eventually there will be no more nations left to develop. This process may take a long time, but when it finishes it will leave behind a collection of developed nations, with developed citizens expecting cheap consumer products. Might I also note that this development, at least currently in China, is at the cost of worker welfare.


It is actually worse than what you are saying. The process of passing the torch is finished. The nations that are now classified as undeveloped will be reclassified as never-to-be-developed. In the first world, we already have the great disconnect; the link between rise of productivity and worker pay is permanently broken. Worker wages in the West peaked in the mid 20th century, and are headed irreversibly downward. Declining disposable income means it can no longer reliably function as a sink for exports from the developing world.

The new trade regime currently being hammered out will solidify the North/South global divide, as well as the divide between rich in poor in the West.

Electoral politics can no longer affect these trends; we are too far past that point.
#14610187
Zamuel wrote: ie: Under the Marshall Plan, Japan retooled to produce for western markets, by the 1960s they were a world class nation, technologically proficient and industriously competitive. They passed the torch to S.Korea and the process repeated itself, then migrated to Indonesia and Taiwan, and from thence to China. This is not a bad thing ...
Left Behind wrote:eventually there will be no more nations left to develop. This process may take a long time, but when it finishes it will leave behind a collection of developed nations, with developed citizens expecting cheap consumer products. Might I also note that this development, at least currently in China, is at the cost of worker welfare.

Hopefully, by the time globalization is complete, a LOT of humanity will be living in orbit, mining the moon, and making LOTs of plans to expand.

As far as china goes ... do you think those workers would rather be fertilizing rice paddies with their own shit ? My father went to china as a "hands on" technological adviser in the development of the largest coal mine in the world (1980s). He witnessed the plight of the Chinese workers first hand, every day ... saw how meagerly they were fed, and the squalid conditions they lived in. He suffered himself, even though the Chinese provided him western accommodations and an extremely enhanced diet. He was ready to come home after 6 months, but he stayed, because of the confidence and perseverance those same workers displayed every day ... they considered themselves MUCH better off than their parents. He never witnessed any coercion at all. He came home wishing his neighbors had the will and spirit he observed amongst the Chinese. He continued to get personal -Christmas Cards- from his translator, signed by many of the workers he trained and supervised for the rest of his life.

Zam
#14610262
Left Behind wrote:The torch passes from one country to another, I understand. However, what happens when every third world nation that can be developed has been developed, what then? The cheap consumer goods in western nations depend on one nation "holding the torch". If the process of holding the torch leads to the holder becoming a developed nation, then eventually there will be no more nations left to develop. This process may take a long time, but when it finishes it will leave behind a collection of developed nations, with developed citizens expecting cheap consumer products. Might I also note that this development, at least currently in China, is at the cost of worker welfare.

This common assumption that cheap consumer goods depend on a cheap outsourced workforce is wrong.


Typically outsourcing does not yield significant gains for the end consumer, usually less than 10% of the final price, sometimes as small as 1%. On the other hand this is big for the producer because its margins are usually at 10%. So even a 1% gain increases benefits by 10%. But the outsourcing boom actually coincided with a stagnation of western consumers' purchasing power, and even a decrease in some times, not a rise of purchasing power. Some of the reasons are that on one hand western factory workers suffered from this foreign competition, and on the other hand the western capital was invested in China rather than in the West. The end of this cycle are good news for everyone: Chinese workers are now richer and there will be a progressive comeback to healthier conditions for western workers (once the crisis ends).

Indeed, the actual production is just a tiny part of the industrial processes and value. For the start 50% of the price goes to the distribution networks. And the rest is spent in logistics (all sort of warehouses and transports for all intermediate and end products), conception (the employees who write the software, draw the plans, devise production processes, imagine the design), administration (the employees who organize all of those zillions of distributors, transporters, subcontractors, providers, employees, etc), marketings & sales, the raw materials, and finally your production, which comprises buildings, machines, services and finally the workforce itself.

Also even when wages are five to ten times lower, this does not mean a five to ten times cheaper production at all! For the start you are usually replacing one human and one machine by ten humans and no machine. Cheaper but not that much. Besides outsourcing also incur additional costs: more transports, more stocks, more quality defects, more failures, more risks, more executives, more lawyers, more accountants, more translators, more financial services, more insurances, more paperwork, etc. And the productivity per worked hour is lower.


In the end many companies outsource not for the workforce but rather because of the flexibility. In just a few weeks you can have a factory up and running, rather than years in the West. No need to worry about legal and democratic delays, thousands of pages of technical norms, protests, communication, etc. You just need cash and connexions. And there are no ties: having a factory close to your HQ would transform your corporate culture and if you ever need to dismantle it this would depress everyone. Many corporations prefer to see production as a detail they do not want to bother with.


quetzalcoatl wrote:It is actually worse than what you are saying. The process of passing the torch is finished. The nations that are now classified as undeveloped will be reclassified as never-to-be-developed.

Many African countries are seeing fast improvements, they have promising figures and they receive significant investments: capitalists trust in them and bet their money on them. Again facts tell a different story than your preconceptions.
#14610275
Harmattan wrote:Many African countries are seeing fast improvements, they have promising figures and they receive significant investments: capitalists trust in them and bet their money on them. Again facts tell a different story than your preconceptions.


http://www.worldeconomics.com/papers/Gl ... ef21.paper

Image

A stunning per/capita growth rate of 1.2% a year for Africa in the last decade. In terms of where they're at right now, my description of them as "never-to-be-developed" is probably too optimistic. Incidentally, per capita growth rates don't reflect the actual median standard of living. In Africa, as well as Europe and America, most of these gains are realized by a tiny minority. The reason capitalists trust Africa governments is that austerity is a way of life for Africans - there is no expectation that any of their 'investments' will be wasted on living standards.

In terms of the global economy, the plutonomy owns 45% of the planet's wealth. The plutonomy is composed of 4500 UHNW individuals (ultra high net worth).
Credit Suisse
This is more extreme a divide than has ever been recorded.

My conceptions are post, not pre.
#14610290
quetzalcoatl wrote:A stunning per/capita growth rate of 1.2% a year for Africa in the last decade.

But this aggregates very diverse situations, with many booming countries in the 5% to 10% range on one side and countries at war on the other, sometimes below a -10% recession.

Talking about Africa as a whole is as non-sensical as considering altogether the rich Western European economies and the poor Eastern Europeans who are still using scythes and horses for farming. Or aggregating USA with Latin America because they are all "American". Isn't it too hard to be ruled by drugs cartels in NY? Will you dance Samba at the Carnival this year?

In terms of the global economy, the plutonomy owns 45% of the planet's wealth. The plutonomy is composed of 4500 UHNW individuals (ultra high net worth).

And how does it relate to your claims that Africa will be forever poor?

Furthermore how do you think it is related to poverty in general? If you think poor people lack money because it is owned by those individuals, then you do not understand that their wealth is actually mostly made of mere titles of ownership over production assets, rather than luxury goods. In other words their capital is for the most part not a seizing of human labor, of actual value in the Marxist term, it is largely a mere seizing of power over production assets. Those production assets would still be needed in a communist economy and would have required the same amounts of human labor, and would have "deprived" workers in the same extent, only the property rights would disappear.
#14610478
Harmattan wrote:Furthermore how do you think it is related to poverty in general? If you think poor people lack money because it is owned by those individuals, then you do not understand that their wealth is actually mostly made of mere titles of ownership over production assets, rather than luxury goods. In other words their capital is for the most part not a seizing of human labor, of actual value in the Marxist term, it is largely a mere seizing of power over production assets.

Those "production assets" consist of two entirely different kinds of things: land (i.e., natural resources) and capital. Capitalist and socialist theory both revolve around refusal to know the difference.
Those production assets would still be needed in a communist economy and would have required the same amounts of human labor,

How much human labor was expended to create natural resources?
and would have "deprived" workers in the same extent,

You can only deprive someone of something they would otherwise have had. Therefore, ownership of capital goods does not and cannot deprive workers of anything, while ownership of land deprives them of the liberty to produce -- indeed, even to exist -- which they would otherwise have enjoyed.
only the property rights would disappear.

Both wrongful and rightful ones, so around we go again...

The socialist pretends capital is land to justify stealing capital; the capitalist pretends land is capital to justify stealing land.
#14610484
TTP: You're half-right. Right in the sense that rent is more toxic than profit. Typical capitalists at least risk money and fund economic activity. Rentiers are just pure parasites.

But you're also wrong. There's no reason why the working people shouldn't crush the capitalist leech just the same as the rentier tapeworm. Even if the leech has the decency of producing some useful anti-coagulant it's still a fucking parasite.
#14610545
Harmattan wrote:If you are talking about the terminator gene then in many cases it was not making the plant sterile. It was simply disabling the added genes in descendants, leaving farmers with the original, unmodified, natural, plant. And this was actually an excellent thing than been been regrettably and mistakingly rejected by the opinion, politicians, farmers and ecologists!

Not only it would have nullified risks related to dissemination, but it would have left farmers in a far better position than the one they now find themselves in, with Monsanto & al massively suing them because they are assumed to have violated intellectual properties laws anytime a GMO seed landed in their fields.

The terminator gene was an excellent thing and fighting it was a mistake from both the farmers, politicians and ecologists. Retrospectively I am pretty sure they all realize their mistake, aside of the hardcore obscurantists.

Corporate communication specialists should all study the case of the terminator gene to see how the world massively rejected something that was good for itself because of a bad buzz. Good innovation, bad political context, bad communication.


There are conceptually two types of GURT:[2][3]

Variety-level Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (V-GURTs): This type of GURT produces sterile seeds, so the seed from this crop could not be used as seeds, but only for sale as food or fodder.[1] This would not have an immediate impact on the large number of primarily western farmers who use hybrid seeds, as they do not produce their own planting seeds, and instead buy specialized hybrid seeds from seed production companies. However, currently around 80 percent of farmers in both Brazil and Pakistan grow crops based on saved seeds from previous harvests.[4] Consequentially, resistance to the introduction of GURT technology into developing countries is strong.[4] The technology is restricted at the plant variety level, hence the term V-GURT. Manufacturers of genetically enhanced crops would use this technology to protect their products from unauthorised use.
T-GURT: A second type of GURT modifies a crop in such a way that the genetic enhancement engineered into the crop does not function until the crop plant is treated with a chemical that is sold by the biotechnology company.[1] Farmers can save seeds for use each year. However, they do not get to use the enhanced trait in the crop unless they purchase the activator compound. The technology is restricted at the trait level, hence the term T-GURT.


Looks like you drank the kappie-koolaide.
#14610546
The best management method would be entirely based on the context of the society in general, and each industry in particular.

I'm rather fond of the idea of developing computer systems that take consumption data and constantly develop and refine predictive models for what needs to be produced in what quantities where for essentials. I think with advances in computing technology we will be able to do even with computer modeling to extend to comparative luxury items.
#14610567
Truth To Power wrote:Those "production assets" consist of two entirely different kinds of things: land (i.e., natural resources) and capital. Capitalist and socialist theory both revolve around refusal to know the difference.

I didn't mention land because this is a very complex topic, I have some doubts about, and it could only make my explanation more confusing.

So in theory land is just an intermediate financial channel: money is driven from the lower levels of the society to the higher ones but in the end it will land in productive assets after transiting through various levels of purely financial circuits (including land). As long as the final productive investments are viable and useful, this is not a problem and it does not contradict with what I wrote. It is just one part of the financial circuits used to drive capital to productive investments. It is not different in effect from loans for example.

But what happens when there is too much capital available, more than the available productive investments? Bubbles. In other words the financial circuits (including land) no longer simply drive money to productive investments, they end up acting as a deflationary pressure over the economy: less and less money is available in the economy to buy actual goods, not just financial products, and growth is offset by prices' contraction, and illusions are created, distorting the ability of economic agents to correctly estimate value. In those conditions, anything that drives money to the financial sphere ends up impoverishing workers and destabilizing the economy.

TL;DR: land is no different from other financial schemes where capital drives money to the productive investments through indirect convolutions. However as too much capital is driven to financial circuits and exceeds productive investment opportunities, then it ends up harming the economy and impoverishing workers.

Is it what we are seeing? Maybe. But maybe it is just that capital has been heading to China instead for the past decades. Or maybe it is one of the many other important factors that characterize the past decades. The real estate bubbles is certainly preoccupying but difficult to properly understand.


Saeko wrote:Looks like you drank the kappie-koolaide.

What I described matches exactly the second type of GMO you mentioned, and I alluded to the fact that there were another sort of terminator genes.

And I reassess that both cases are better than having farmers being sued over intellectual property laws because patented seeds were found in their fields, which is hold as circumstantial evidences of guilt. US farmers still have to buy new seeds every year, the difference is that now they need to do so even if they never wanted to use those seeds! In other words they're forced to buy those products. Every year.

But I admit the current situation is better for third-world countries where seed providers did not manage to get constraining laws. But for other countries it is worse.


mikema63 wrote:I'm rather fond of the idea of developing computer systems that take consumption data and constantly develop and refine predictive models for what needs to be produced in what quantities where for essentials. I think with advances in computing technology we will be able to do even with computer modeling to extend to comparative luxury items.

The problem is not algorithmic: solutions were found decades ago and they are commonly used by manufacturers and distributors to arbitrate which products to buy, how much to store and which prices to ask for.

But currently they use their individual profit as the arbitration criterium (the value the algorithms must maximize), and this one is the synthesis of arbitrations made by consumers, expressed through their spendings. Which criterium would you use in a centrally planned economy, since it looks like this is the model you defend? Who would rate each products' utility?

Also how would you treat innovations with no historic data? In capitalism consumers decide for themselves, and express their choices by spending. What would you do in a centrally planned economy?
#14610590
Harmattan wrote:Also how would you treat innovations with no historic data? In capitalism consumers decide for themselves, and express their choices by spending. What would you do in a centrally planned economy?


We'd treat innovations somewhat similarly to the way capitalism does. Under capitalism companies do consumer research and design products that consumers appear to want. Then they prototype them, make a first production run and market them. If they sell well more production runs will follow, if they don't stell it will be the first and last.

Under socialism, consumers demand the State produces the stuff they want, so the market research kinda does itself. From that data the State can infer what sorts of new products should be created and they also get a rough idea of how many people want them. The design bureaus then invent and prototype a number of designs that are then evaluated. Does it work? Is it lasting and reliable? Is it efficient to produce? Do consumers like it? The designs that more closely met the criteria are pushed into production, the prices are set in such a way that it will be affordable for the masses without losing the State money, and production runs then continue for as long as raw demand does.
#14610602
The problem is not algorithmic: solutions were found decades ago and they are commonly used by manufacturers and distributors to arbitrate which products to buy, how much to store and which prices to ask for.

But currently they use their individual profit as the arbitration criterium (the value the algorithms must maximize), and this one is the synthesis of arbitrations made by consumers, expressed through their spendings. Which criterium would you use in a centrally planned economy, since it looks like this is the model you defend? Who would rate each products' utility?

Also how would you treat innovations with no historic data? In capitalism consumers decide for themselves, and express their choices by spending. What would you do in a centrally planned economy?


I don't "defend" a centrally planned economy. The line you didn't quote was that what system you would use would depend on the context. I merely stated that I have a soft spot for using a central computing system to manage distribution, largely because I read to much sci-fi.

For basic essentials it's pretty easy to figure out how they need to be distributed, how much water a person needs to live for instance if fairly easy to work out.

My preference for most other goods is that their consumption be tracked and predict and attempt to meet the demand for it. If people are really into peas, we will endeavor to meet their demand for peas, likewise if corn is left on the shelves we will produce less corn. We don't need profit to signal demand when we can track consumption directly.
#14610620
Saeko wrote:T-GURT: A second type of GURT modifies a crop in such a way that the genetic enhancement engineered into the crop does not function until the crop plant is treated with a chemical that is sold by the biotechnology company.[1] Farmers can save seeds for use each year. However, they do not get to use the enhanced trait in the crop unless they purchase the activator compound. The technology is restricted at the trait level, hence the term T-GURT.


T-GURT seems like a good idea, as long as governments price-control* the required chemical and them chemicals are required to be environmentally safe. That'd keep GMOs from becoming invasive, allow the farmer to affordably plant GMO seed, and guarantee a predictable income to the biotech company, which is a good thing for state biotech companies to have.

*When I mean price controlled, I mean required to sell at the controlled price under penalty of voided patent.

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