[ckaihatsu]

I saw that, and like it.

But if we didn't needlessly complexify everything, this would come naturally.

And the fact that we have needlessly complexified everything... means that even normal, common sense ideas have to fight their way through a jungle of lies and "new normal" social practices that have been set up over the generations.

Well, here's the catch -- I don't actually *advocate* that approach. It's inherently problematic.

It necessarily *fuses* the economic with the political, so that you have to *like* whatever work role it is that you're doing in the rotation because your *sustenance* and livelihood comes from the same location. If you want to *enlarge* that political economy it would have to be at the *organizational* level -- since all work is automatically *internal*, as depicted -- and not at the *individual* level, as one does with cash these days. Here's from another thread:

Well, I happen to be *critical* of those, like yourself, who conceive of a 'no-materials, people-only' kind of socialism, like one big worldwide hippie commune of nothing but flowers and grass.

Stripping the revolutionary socialist political-economy of any component of *mass industrial production* means something almost akin to what the Khmer Rouge practiced, which is not to be repeated, and is a historically reality that's *detrimental* to the purpose of real socialist aims.

I think many socialists don't realize that the modern capitalist economics of currency / cash usage is *fairly sophisticated* and empowering (for those who have it), mainly because it's *flexible* and universal. We shouldn't be arguing to *retreat* into a paradigm of balkanized localist political-patronage social ties for our material needs, because such is simply too geographically limiting and isolating. Here's a portrayal of that, in graphic form:

viewtopic.php?p=14978346#p14978346

[QatzelOk]

It necessarily *fuses* the economic with the political, so that you have to *like* whatever work role it is that you're doing in the rotation because your *sustenance* and livelihood comes from the same location.

I realize that you have tried to create a visual representation of shared workloads and egalitarian job assignments. But in a much simpler society with far fewer technologies, this wouldn't be necessary. Most people would be doing the same basic things as small groups. The order of tasks would come naturally.

And if tweaking labor practices is what you're suggesting, hasn't this been done innumerable times, but always hijacked by oligarchic interests? Isn't the very complexity of production what (eventually) creates a parasitic oligarch class, and ends up creating crappy jobs for the non-connected?

If you want to *enlarge* that political economy it would have to be at the *organizational* level -- since all work is automatically *internal*, as depicted -- and not at the *individual* level, as one does with cash these days. Here's from another thread:

I would argue that the very nature of work needs to change, so that we all do more similar things and consume more similar stuff (within each society and around the world). And with far less technology. Obviously, regions are different and could provide a localized basket of goods and services to local populations based on local needs.

But the absolute and yet basic human need to live a natural animal life has to be front and center in any re-ordering of society, or we're done with living as a species on this planet. As non-animals, constantly re-organizing our cages... we will not survive. It's impossible.

[ckaihatsu]

I realize that you have tried to create a visual representation of shared workloads and egalitarian job assignments. But in a much simpler society with far fewer technologies, this wouldn't be necessary. Most people would be doing the same basic things as small groups. The order of tasks would come naturally.

And if tweaking labor practices is what you're suggesting, hasn't this been done innumerable times, but always hijacked by oligarchic interests? Isn't the very complexity of production what (eventually) creates a parasitic oligarch class, and ends up creating crappy jobs for the non-connected?

No, I think this is *pandering* (referencing 'complexity theory') since the real reason for class-divided civilization is ruling-class control of society's productivity, including who / what-interests appropriate the *surplus*. This goes back historically to irrigation of fields and the first bumper harvest of grain.

You're not specifying any social economic convention of *interchange*, or *pooling*, meaning that you're content to espouse a historically-backward *localist* conception of political economy, unfortunately.

What are you going to say to someone today who wants their coffee in the morning, since it probably has to come from super-exploited labor in Latin America, in a razor-thin-profit-margin agricultural industry -- economic imperialism. Are you going to tell them to grow their own coffee locally -- ? Really -- ? Asshole.

I would argue that the very nature of work needs to change, so that we all do more similar things and consume more similar stuff (within each society and around the world). And with far less technology. Obviously, regions are different and could provide a localized basket of goods and services to local populations based on local needs.

But the absolute and yet basic human need to live a natural animal life has to be front and center in any re-ordering of society, or we're done with living as a species on this planet. As non-animals, constantly re-organizing our cages... we will not survive. It's impossible.

Um, let's just call it a particular individually chosen 'lifestyle', among others.


‭History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Spoiler: show

[QatzelOk]

...the real reason for class-divided civilization is ruling-class control of society's productivity, including who / what-interests appropriate the *surplus*. This goes back historically to irrigation of fields and the first bumper harvest of grain.

Exactly. The first technologies created the first oligarchs. And the first social violence. And the first behaviorism (which is a form of social violence that reduces the quality of each human's existence)

You're not specifying any social economic convention of *interchange*, or *pooling*, meaning that you're content to espouse a historically-backward *localist* conception of political economy...

Not just *historically-backward localist* but.... "Tech-free." There is no half-way measures when it comes to surviving as a species on a pristine planet. You are just trying to negotiate with conventional modern thinking, that "there must be a way to make technology work." There isn't.

What are you going to say to someone today who wants their coffee in the morning, since it probably has to come from super-exploited labor in Latin America, in a razor-thin-profit-margin agricultural industry -- economic imperialism. Are you going to tell them to grow their own coffee locally -- ? Really -- ? Asshole.

This fictional modern consumer that has you poking my collar and raising your eyebrows... simply doesn't exist. We all get used to whatever tech level we share. Including no tech.

Stop trying to make *the end of technology* sound so dramatic.

[ckaihatsu]

Exactly. The first technologies created the first oligarchs. And the first social violence. And the first behaviorism (which is a form of social violence that reduces the quality of each human's existence)


Not just *historically-backward localist* but.... "Tech-free." There is no half-way measures when it comes to surviving as a species on a pristine planet. You are just trying to negotiate with conventional modern thinking, that "there must be a way to make technology work." There isn't.


This fictional modern consumer that has you poking my collar and raising your eyebrows... simply doesn't exist. We all get used to whatever tech level we share. Including no tech.

Stop trying to make *the end of technology* sound so dramatic.

What the hell is with your 'counter-fetish' against technology -- ?

Shit, I'm not saying that we need to annihilate the Global South so that suburban white kids can casually jet into outer space, but there's gotta be *something* that's workable so that people aren't *coerced* into giving up their innocuous creature-comforts -- what's more-to-the-point is how to stop the *exploitation* and *oppression* that accompanies such productivity under capitalist class relations. You don't fucking give up chocolate (or whatever) for that, because the problem isn't with the *consumption*, it's with the *production*.

[QatzelOk]

What the hell is with your 'counter-fetish' against technology -- ?

It's not a fetish, and it didn't come naturally.

I gave up tech after tech, and my life improved. The tech that I am unable to give up... is all because of work - pecuniary peasantry forces me to use toxic tech.

Shit, I'm not saying that we need to annihilate the Global South so that suburban white kids can casually jet into outer space...

You're not *saying* this, but this is exactly what is happening. The tech fetish of rich people is stripping the global south dry with resource theft and colonial atrocities. Richard Branson even organized an *attack Venezuela* concert, as if to underscore his parasitism.

[ckaihatsu]

It's not a fetish, and it didn't come naturally.

I gave up tech after tech, and my life improved. The tech that I am unable to give up... is all because of work - pecuniary peasantry forces me to use toxic tech.

Jesus, then open a storefront and lay out rubber mats on the floor and run with your cult, but *fuck*, why do you *politicize* this shit -- ? It gets *irritating* after awhile, f.y.i. -- !

You're not *saying* this, but this is exactly what is happening. The tech fetish of rich people is stripping the global south dry with resource theft and colonial atrocities. Richard Branson even organized an *attack Venezuela* concert, as if to underscore his parasitism.

Okay, but this isn't *my shit*. I have *nothing* to do with that, and my politics are about stopping such elitist *excesses*, not *compensating* for such elitist practices by denying coffee to everyone.

[QatzelOk]

Jesus, then open a storefront and lay out rubber mats on the floor and run with your cult, but *fuck*, why do you *politicize* this shit -- ? It gets *irritating* after awhile, f.y.i. -- !

I politicize it because *we are all* forced to use toxic tech for pecuniary reasons. It is political, and not just autobiographical.

Okay, but this isn't *my shit*. I have *nothing* to do with that, and my politics are about stopping such elitist *excesses*, not *compensating* for such elitist practices by denying coffee to everyone.

You tried to throw cold water on my tirade by saying "I'm not saying that we need to annihilate the Global South so that suburban white kids can casually jet into outer space...." and yet, this is exactly what rich people are doing.

So my tirade has heated up again, and y'er all utta water.

**takes sip of whiskey out of dirty glass**

[ckaihatsu]

I politicize it because *we are all* forced to use toxic tech for pecuniary reasons. It is political, and not just autobiographical.

Yes, 'toxic tech' -- to use your phrase -- is *political*, but it's not a *lifestyle* issue.

Tech, whether delightful or imprisoning, is *incidental* to the (class) power relation itself. Please stop conflating everyday glowing screens with *surplus labor value expropriation* and *presidential-led fascist-mob coup attempts*. Thank you.

You tried to throw cold water on my tirade by saying "I'm not saying that we need to annihilate the Global South so that suburban white kids can casually jet into outer space...." and yet, this is exactly what rich people are doing.

So my tirade has heated up again, and y'er all utta water.

**takes sip of whiskey out of dirty glass**

Cute. Hey, resume the tirade, but my point stands that your blanket anti-tech approach would be *class-collaborative* because fucking *the use of fire* would be verboten, across-the-board, according to you.

[QatzelOk]

Tech, whether delightful or imprisoning, is *incidental* to the (class) power relation itself.

Wait.

How can a technology that imprisons (like mass media, or religion) be simply *incidental* to the power relationship?

This makes no sense. Imprisonning technology (like forced public philosophy) are one of the most important tools of oligarchy. By ignoring this, and considering all technology neutral.... one is shooting oneself in the foot (with a gun, or bow and arrow, or nuclear warhead).

[late]

Wait.

How can a technology that imprisons (like mass media, or religion) be simply *incidental* to the power relationship?

This makes no sense. Imprisonning technology (like forced public philosophy) are one of the most important tools of oligarchy. By ignoring this, and considering all technology neutral.... one is shooting oneself in the foot (with a gun, or bow and arrow, or nuclear warhead).

You can use a hammer to build a house, or tear it down.

Some countries have governments that serve their people, and they often use tech to do that...

[QatzelOk]

You can use a hammer to build a house, or tear it down.

Some countries have governments that serve their people, and they often use tech to do that...

You can use a nail-gun to build a nuclear power plant.

The noise will reduce everyone in the vicinity's quality of life during construction, and after its completed, the "facility" can contaminate the lives of everyone in invisible ways.

But let's call this violence againt nature "neutral" so we can play the game of technology *for kicks.*

[ckaihatsu]

Wait.

How can a technology that imprisons (like mass media, or religion) be simply *incidental* to the power relationship?

This makes no sense. Imprisonning technology (like forced public philosophy) are one of the most important tools of oligarchy. By ignoring this, and considering all technology neutral.... one is shooting oneself in the foot (with a gun, or bow and arrow, or nuclear warhead).

Bickering.

Sure, all the examples you chose are at *one end* of the 'tech' spectrum -- from beneficial to harmful. But even here, with weaponry, shouldn't the USSR, for example, have its own *missiles*, if the U.S. does -- ? You can't *fault* the former USSR for getting into the nuclear arms race with the U.S., but doing so ultimately *bankrupted* them. Yet they didn't ever *use* nuclear weapons, though the U.S. did, twice.

So, yes, basically *all* tech, like fire, *is* socially neutral. That's why -- by extension -- the 'gun control debate' is a perennial *non*-issue. If you want to 'fight guns' you'll wind up with the same bunches of hair pulled-out as if you went off to 'fight tech'. You're welcome.

[late]

You can use a nail-gun to build a nuclear power plant.

The noise will reduce everyone in the vicinity's quality of life during construction, and after its completed, the "facility" can contaminate the lives of everyone in invisible ways.

But let's call this violence againt nature "neutral" so we can play the game of technology *for kicks.*

I lived within a few miles of a nuke reactor for much of my life. We never had a bit of problem with that. Lots of problems from Midwest coal burning plants dumping toxic pollution on us.

It's quite unlikely we can make the transition to a carbon free economy without building some nuke plants.

I'm guessing it's warmer where you are, than where I am...now add 20 degrees.

[QatzelOk]

...You can't *fault* the former USSR for getting into the nuclear arms race with the U.S., but doing so ultimately *bankrupted* them....

I would never *fault* the former USSR for this.

They had simply bought into your liesTM about technology being a neutral component in human power relationships.

I lived within a few miles of a nuke reactor for much of my life. We never had a bit of problem with that.

Then let's build nuclear power plants everywhere and drive electric spaceships to far-off ice cream places in other galaxies. Your example proves that this is a logical pursuit, right? You're "fine" so we're all fine?

Thank you, Mr. late, for deconstructing the fatal over-simplicification of Modernist thinking.

[late]

Then let's build nuclear power plants everywhere and drive electric spaceships to far-off ice cream places in other galaxies. Your example proves that this is a logical pursuit, right? You're "fine" so we're all fine?

We can make nuke plants as safe as you want. Remember coal fired electrical generation had a steady body count..

It's also doubtful we can build a carbon free economy, in any reasonable time scale, without a few nuclear power plants...

[ckaihatsu]

I would never *fault* the former USSR for this.

They had simply bought into your liesTM about technology being a neutral component in human power relationships.

Well, which is the dependent variable, and which is the independent variable -- ?

Technology *is* a neutral component, because what *matters* is the 'human power relationships', to phrase it one way -- we could also call it 'the class divide', if you like.

Then let's build nuclear power plants everywhere and drive electric spaceships to far-off ice cream places in other galaxies. Your example proves that this is a logical pursuit, right? You're "fine" so we're all fine?

Thank you, Mr. late, for deconstructing the fatal over-simplicification of Modernist thinking.

Anti-tech, anti-nuclear-power, to a fault.

[QatzelOk]

Well, which is the dependent variable, and which is the independent variable -- ?

Technology *is* a neutral component, because what *matters* is the 'human power relationships', to phrase it one way -- we could also call it 'the class divide', if you like.

If technology drives the re-setting of power relationships, then it's NOT an independent variable. It is a causal variable. I am arguing that this causal variable is THE PRIMARY ONE in driving increasingly unnatural lifestyle options for increasingly caged human animals.

Anti-tech, anti-nuclear-power, to a fault.

That otherwise logical people can write *anti-nuclear power* as an accusation, is one more example of how *the real world* is rarely allowed to penetrate into our Western discussions of politics.

Hello? The Pacific Ocean is being slowly poisoned by nuclear power as we write *our trite, little odes to techno neutrality.* Poisoning oceans will dramatically change human power relationships, as would any other resource crash event.

[ckaihatsu]

If technology drives the re-setting of power relationships, then it's NOT an independent variable. It is a causal variable. I am arguing that this causal variable is THE PRIMARY ONE in driving increasingly unnatural lifestyle options for increasingly caged human animals.

WTF is 'the re-setting of power relationships' -- ?

Do workers control their workplaces, or *don't* they -- ? Are workers exploited and oppressed, or not -- ? What does *any* tech have to do with *any* of this?

That otherwise logical people can write *anti-nuclear power* as an accusation, is one more example of how *the real world* is rarely allowed to penetrate into our Western discussions of politics.

Hello? The Pacific Ocean is being slowly poisoned by nuclear power as we write *our trite, little odes to techno neutrality.* Poisoning oceans will dramatically change human power relationships, as would any other resource crash event.

Late's correct on this one -- it's *worth* it. I'm just gonna hand it off to him, here....

[Noumenon]

Heh! Funny. Yeah, it's a different beast, isn't it -- ?

No, a labor credit would give you the ability to *bestow* (or 'pay-it-forward') it to the next, 'incoming' liberated-laborer, for whatever work role they want to do, that you want to fund with that labor credit, for a certain rate of labor credits per hour, for that work role, thanks to your funding efforts, in part. So it's strictly a laborer-to-laborer thing, underscoring a common 'work' culture, and any landscape of arbitrarily-economically-networked people through this material-economic practice. Obviously it would be more than just economics with this kind of premise, since all involved ('stakeholders', though I'm not crazy about the term) would inherently share similar geography, work-interests, culture, craft, profession, project trends, etc.

Interesting. So its a way that laborers could "command" more labor in order to multiply the capability of their liberated labor?

So then there would be no "demand" in this economy, it would be entirely "supply" based. We could imagine a number of different piles of accumulated "stuff" represented the product of people's voluntary labor, and the purpose of the labor credits would be to ensure that certain necessary piles remain high enough, while increasing the potential height of piles for those who contribute to the necessary piles and receive labor credits with which to command more labor.

And so on the consumption side, people would just take whatever they want from the nearest pile at any time? "First come first serve"? And also "take whatever you can get" - because there's no way on the consumption side to influence what kinds of things are produced and how much? It's just whatever people feel like producing, plus whatever is incentivized to be produced by labor credits.

Wouldn't we end up with a very large number of (for example) musical instruments, paintings, and handcarved figurines - along with clean toilets and emptied trashcans - and not enough of things that could improve people's lives but which are not strictly necessary or particularly exciting to make? Like say, comfortable chairs, extra soft toilet paper, mattresses with different degrees of firmness? I'm thinking that all things deemed "necessities" will be made to the bare minimum standard in order to receive the labor credits. So among other things, we'll have very raw buttocks.

There could also be more serious shortages, like say very particularized medical instruments that could be overlooked because of all the generalized ones that need to be incentivized with labor credits first.

Also, more generally, I'm concerned that production in this system will be very anarchic. It replaces the anarchy of individual demand based capitalist production with anarchy of free individual supply based production, and doesn't do enough to negotiate/balance between what people want to consume and what they want to produce. I think there is a tradeoff between those two things - you can't have total freedom on either side of the equation, without sacrificing freedom on the other side. I believe there is an optimal point between them. As a consumer, your demand that something is produced should not be an argument in itself that it should be. As a producer, your desire to produce something isn't an argument in itself that it should be produced either. What seems to be missing here is the holistic unity between supply and demand in a large generalized sense. A recognition that every producer is at the same time a consumer. In short, I don't think your system is communist enough (or maybe at all!).

Marxism has a well-known producerist / workerist bias. Additionally, I think that 19th century romanticism is deeply baked into it. The idea that we could "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and debate philosophy in the evening" - as nice as that sounds - brings to mind a kind of aristocratic luxury with little concern for what needs to be done in a more utilitarian sense to keep the world running. I think also that a post-anthropocentric view makes this ideal seem a little ridiculous. What does all that matter if we're going to be boiling inside our atmosphere? We should all be directing our mass of labor towards solving the most essential global problems. Fuck what you want to do.

Sure, I think you're correct on an *interpersonal* basis, as with those around you, family, friends, whatever. The point here isn't about personal *socializing*, though -- it's about a material social approach to working, producing, and consuming, without markets or private property.

Would most people maybe do part of a day per month on cleaning toilets and picking up garbage -- ? Could they do that without requiring exchange-value compensation, but with unconditional free-access to a 'buffet' for everything that everyone produces -- ? Maybe that would actually be *sufficient*, proportionately, regarding society's total needs for labor, and soon robots will take over those tasks, too, so don't-sweat-it.

(Incidentally I don't usually post this following diagram, but it's worthwhile here, though I don't *advocate* this model politically.)


Rotation system of work roles

I think that if you make picking up garbage a kind of "throwaway" task or afterthought, you're going to end up with a lot of it piling up everywhere. There is a whole sophisticated system to deal with waste, I know someone who is in that industry.

Clean working, living, and public spaces is essential to maintaining their integrity. Let that go to shit and everything will go to shit. Because once it reaches a critical mass then it affects people's psychology. A certain amount of filth becomes normalized, and then more, and before you know it we're all living in it and accepting it as normal. And we'll be physically as well as mentally sick, and the quality of our collective decision making process suffers.

The necessary should be prioritized first in an economy, and if anything the unessential should be the afterthought, not the essential. Capitalism gets that backwards. And I think we should be wary of replacing absolutist consumerist whimsy with absolute producerist whimsy.

It wouldn't be like a stock-ticker thing, with formal, calculated, 'official' values for this-or-that -- the multipliers would be from averaging workers' exit surveys, for any given work role, to serve as a basic 'index' -- like a Blue Book for cars -- but any given pre-planned projects on paper, from small to large, could come-to-terms on the whole among those involved or aspiring to be involved, so all of the variables, as in real life now, are subject to fluctuation. (Consider the sewer-cleaning-person work role thing, again.)

Kelley which makes the blue book for cars is a private corporation. Wikipedia is run by a non-profit organization. I'm just not seeing how the initial valuation occurs and who is getting together to decide on this valuation. Even the most decentralized process still requires some kind of framework or something to be set up, and some organization to maintain that framework and establish standards (such as writing, sending out, and compiling the surveys). And then if that valuation is only a recommendation, and the actual valuation is decided by the participants in the work project, how do they determine it?

Let's say workers in one locale decide that cleaning a toilet is worth 100 labor credits. The recommended value by whatever blue book organization was 80 labor credits. So then they do it and all must recognize that this was worth 100 labor credits? Who is giving the labor credits to them or adding them to the ledger? And how is the incentivization process supposed to work on a societal level if every local group of workers can alter the valuation at will?

Well, this practice that you're describing would effectively *commodify* the labor credits into exchange value, which *wouldn't* be communism, then. Here's from previously:

"Instead of markets at *any* level, a *post-capitalist* 'gift' economy would have a general 'commons' that everyone could contribute-to, and take-from. No exchanges. No commodification. No prices. No private, non-personal *accumulations*."

And I would contend that privileging the determination of those piles by people-as-workers over people-as-consumers is not communism. Because people's needs should be just as determinant over what is produced as people's desire of what to produce. We need not have commodification for there to be some formal system whereby people's needs as consumers can be communicated to producers. Otherwise you're all "from each according to his ability" and instead of "to each according to his need" it's more like "to each whatever is left over after we all exercise our abilities chaotically."

In your example both town A and town B would have a direct material interest in getting good X produced as expediently as possible, by town C. (Presumably the machinery / industry, and natural resources are there, all collectivized and 'owned' by no one.) I think their best option would be to send *their own people over* to town C to be a part of the actual production of good x. If enough of it is made in total, by any and all efforts, for any given pool of pre-allocated labor credits, or none, then everyone in towns A, B, C, and conceivably *beyond* would be able to partake from the results. If *not enough* is produced, and there's some outstanding organic-demand, then maybe *others* want to step into those work roles, for a second 'batch' of production. Maybe they could find it elsewhere, at neighboring towns, etc. Maybe they could build that 'town C' kind of infrastructure in their *own* towns, to make future production of good x easier.

That's a lot of "maybes." I think that you're relying too much on spontaneous emergent order. While I don't doubt that there would be some such thing - and it is present in capitalism too, as Hayek pointed out - without centralized organization there's going to be some very massive gaps and deficiencies in this order, just like with capitalism. The order which emerges is most likely to serve that only of the local participants, at best. Any externalized costs such as to the environment or to the larger social body as a whole, are unlikely to be accounted for.

What if there is a town D which is down the river from C, and after A,B, and C all work out the production of x for themselves, they receive the runoff from the pollutants involved in producing x? What about the fish in the river, do they get an input in how much x is produced also?

Regarding 'bidding wars', the only variable / dynamic that would be subject to bidding would be a specific liberated laborer's hourly rate of labor credits for a particular work role -- according to professional reputation, undoubtedly.

Since the work done would conventionally be physically oriented to a particular location, it's the residents / denizens of that area who would stand to benefit the most from whatever work is done there. Perhaps, as a group, they have a certain group-culture that favors certain *liberated laborers* for their locality's proposal, who happen to live in town C. Those of this proposal's locality -- perhaps town B -- would gladly dig deeper to pool *more* labor credits, if they then had a better chance of attracting key talent, the 'star' liberated laborer, with their higher rates of labor credits per hour, for that key work role, for their proposal and/or project. No central authority needed, or wanted.

Here are all of the fields for the database itself:

Wouldn't towns A and B then competitively bid to attract the star liberated laborers from town C to the projects benefiting their locality?

Yeah, sorry to hear about all that -- we've been discussing it over on another thread, and it's downright *unsettling* at the lengths that these fucks go to to intimidate women, legally. What would they be capable of doing *illegally* -- ? We now know that they'd rather cancel the democratic results of a national election.

Yeah I can only imagine it must feel like a witch hunt for women trying to get an abortion in this state now. We can only hope this continues hurting Republicans in the general election. The only reason they were trying to cancel the results is because it is getting close enough that Texas might actually turn blue. Overall, I think that everything about Trumpian right-wing populism right now are the actions of a cornered animal that knows there is no way out from demographic change.

Your politics has 'civil society' and 'authority' as a worldview, but conventional bourgeois 'governance' isn't what's really at stake -- it's the entire *political economy*, meaning how socially-necessary things get done, by who, and for whom.

Abortion should be *health care* for women, with the woman's health care choices being between her and her doctor.

With no Stalinist central authority whatsoever there wouldn't be any administrative / governing *elite* with its own social base of 'governing' while also *not-producing* goods or services for society's needs and consumption, while workers *do* have to produce goods and services for society's needs and consumption.

I do think that the critical aspects of political economy should be determined by those who do the work, not those who live off of it. But I think it is a complex dialectical relationship between processes determined by central authority and external decentralized processes. Attempting to dominate the latter by means of the former is Stalinism, while suppressing the need for the former by privileging the latter is anarchism. I am advocating something in between, a flow from centralization to decentralization balanced by an opposite flow from decentralization to centralization.

I believe that this is the only valid process for determining what gets done and by whom in a way that is at the same time liberating and tied down to what is socially necessary. In your circular system, blood flows from your heart to all the parts of your body, and then it comes back to be pumped out again. A flow that only occurs in one direction results in a very dead human. Likewise, a society which only flows from centralization to decentralization or the opposite would be inoperable. The flows happen whether you like it or not - even in the midst of Stalinist oppression. But the question is, can they both be harnessed for the social good. That would be the communist solution in my view.

Sure, but I still think that your sense of monolithic-governance is somewhat *misplaced* for this particular context -- people, now, and post-capitalism, don't *need* monolithic governance as much as they need to be able to produce *for themselves*, collectively, on what the world has developed for productivity -- it shouldn't be in the hands of *capitalists*, because then it's all used for the sake of private *profit-making* and private accumulation -- *that* doesn't benefit people in general, according to their own individual personal needs and wants.

Hegemony and oppression can only happen in political economies that entrench some kind of a class elite, a ruling class that controls the vast bulk of what society is capable of producing. In the U.S. that's the 2-party system of Democrats and Republicans -- public funds go to bail out the already-rich, as I'm sure you're well-aware of, even though a few tens of billions of dollars would eradicate poverty and provide humane living for all.

I think that to some extent, people are already producing for themselves under capitalism. People-as-consumers issue demands in the form of money which people-as-workers are commanded to supply. The capitalists, in a way, insert themselves in the middle in order to form a conduit of this self-oppression, by linking consumer demand with supply of labor through the nexis of profit.

In my view, it is not so much the monocled top hat capitalist laughing his way to the bank as he exploits us all for his own gain. Although it is that somewhat. Rather it is a nexus that becomes cancerous or diseased by serving itself moreso than the social body. Like plaque build up in the arterial system.

Even if you scrape off this unnecessary crap, you have to deeply consider how the flows of the social body are set up. Because there is no guarantee it will be spontaneously cohesive. In fact I'm pretty sure it won't be. There are simply too many people with too many demands of what goods they need and want to produce to leave the organization of it all to chance.

Well, you're obviously still thinking of historical Stalinism, particularly in the global capitalist 'Great Power' kind of geopolitics, as happened in the early 20th century -- those international bourgeois geopolitical tensions are *still unresolved*, by the way, which is why there was Euromaidan in 2014, for example, or the 2021 coup here in the U.S.

I don't think that fascism is purely caused by bourgeois geopolitics. Hatred, violence and oppression have deep roots in human history. In fact somewhat of the bourgeois liberal order helps mitigate against that. Which is why the Jan 6 insurrection was a bad thing and the bourgeois liberal order is preferable to a fascist takeover.

No, the idea is that the multipliers would be determined by the balance of material-labor-*supply* and popular-localist-*demand*, post-capitalism. Easier socially-necessary tasks like 'picking berries', as someone suggested once, would probably find more 'takers', and those who want that kind of labor done wouldn't have to pile up that many labor credits for the required liberated labor for it. In a less-formal instance of such a 'gift economy' political economy maybe labor credits wouldn't be used *at all*, or not very much, and people would typically pick blueberries sufficiently for the local organic-demand.

So it seems like demand influences production in this system in a very organic, localized, unplanned way.

I think we have to think of demand signals and supply signals as part of one giant social organism, like one big tree for example. Or actually lets say there are two big trees, one representing organic supply and one organic demand. They may branch off in a bunch of different ways but are nonetheless organized as a coherent whole. The problem of political economy is to plant them in such a way that they can grow harmoniously, maybe they even wrap around each other like some of those intertwined trees you see.

I think that Marxism is from the perspective of the supply tree only. It takes what is "socially necessary" as a given, like holding the demand tree fixed, and then trying to maximize the freedom for growth of the supply tree. It doesn't allow very much agency for social necessity and organic demand - it can only respond and react to what organic supply does. You might say that organic supply represents the masculine principle of action and exertion and organic demand, the feminine Other to Marxism, which gratefully accepts and accommodates the masculine principle.

My first attempt at feminist analysis haha.

Oh -- the 'butterfly effect'. No, I don't think that the world works that way -- even imperialist U.S. *presidents* have found it difficult at times to implement the policy directions that they wanted to, because of the larger-picture around them.

Of course. Not even the most connected and powerful node in a network determines its overall shape. But nonetheless, the network is composed of nodes. And all together, they influence its shape. There is a powerful potentiality in the movement of nodes, if you can move them all a bit in the same direction. I think that is the potentiality represented by fascism on the one side, or communism on the other. The error of communism under the influence of Marxism, is to assume that the network is historically determined to take shape in its favor. It is insufficiently dialectical in molding its ideology to suit the present state of the network in order to activate it in an optimal way. Whereas fascism, with no concern for truth or coherence but only reaction, instantly takes whatever shape is optimal for activating as many of the nodes as possible in a reactionary direction.

To put it bluntly, fascism is going to win unless communism gets with the times and loses its puritan attitude towards capital and markets. It is relegating itself to a bespoke, highly customized ideology for university educated middle class white people. Because it refuses to adapt to and mold itself modern liberal sensibilities - its entire potential power base - it leaves liberals theoretically and practically defenseless against an increasingly radicalized right. It is too proud and pure to debase itself with "bourgeois" attitudes - not seeing how these have already been integrated and become part of us - and sets itself apart from history, in irrelevance.

I think that if Marx were alive today, not only would he have completely rewritten Capital but he would have some extremely harsh criticisms of Marxists who hew too closely to the original teachings.

Sorry, I'm going to pass for now -- I don't do cultural critiques because they're something of a distraction, politics-wise. I'd also like to keep all discussion out here on the boards, and not in private messages.

Ok. Well here is a link to the paper if anyone reading is interested.

Flisfeder - "Postmodern Marxism Today: Jameson, Žižek, and the Demise of Symbolic Efficiency"
http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/ ... /view/1105

I think we would be so much better off if Marxists could even follow a fraction of the intellectual developments charted by these thinkers.

Ehhhhh, this is too 'retro' -- small businesses can't hope to compete with corporate-financed mass industrial production. Who are you going to buy a smartphone from, for example? A blacksmith down the street or Foxconn -- ?

Also I have a soft spot for the Internet / Information Revolution, but now that's been corporatized, anyway, so the *economics* hasn't really changed at all, despite the technological paradigm-shift.

There's not going to be equal opportunity across the whole spectrum of production for an alternative, worker-centric economy. But that doesn't mean there is no opportunity at all. And getting together with other workers to do actual real things in the really-existing economy is certainly better than sitting on the sidelines waiting for the revolution. That would be the true "retro" in my opinion.

The fact that the internet has completely fossilized into a corporate form of Facebook, Twitter, etc, means that there is opportunity for living, breathing creativity. Nothing is ever absolute, there are always interesting things happening even if in the cracks and corners. For example, I just heard of this thing called "Self hosting" where people are setting up their own servers in order to create an alternative internet.

For socialism to be feasible and realistic it actually *can't* retain any remnants of the former class-rule bourgeois society because then that cultural elitism mitigates the emergent *proletarian* power -- which needs to be *independent* from impositions from capital.

Maybe the dictatorship of the proleteriat is only ever an orienting principle, a vision which coheres together progressive working class forces. Not something that will ever actually happen. What if the actual evolution of political economy is the successive overthrow and replacement of one form of class rule for another? In the process, some problems are solved, new ones are created, history continues.

But if we stick to a purist politics of complete worker rule or nothing, what if this is a form of infantile left communism which Lenin criticized as historically irrelevant?

It will never not be the case that the current state of the system can be traced to previous states. Anything else is magical thinking, that we can create something brand new with no historical precedent.

What are you suggesting then? 'Rights' was a *bourgeois* invention / convention, in opposition to *monarchical* / aristocratic rule. We've lived in *industrial* society for 200+ years now, which is of far more social importance and relevance than past post-monarchical political concerns.

I would hope that the right to not be raped or tortured would persist regardless of which society you're in. But other "rights" may be more relative or contextual, like the right to health care or to choose abortion.


My only point is that both the universal and particular should be considered and neither one assumed a priori.

The issue though is where *racism* and sexism come from -- would you say that they're symptomatic of *class* society, or would they continue to exist somehow *past* the class division, because of the 'human condition' itself, somehow -- ?

I wouldn't say we are doomed to deal with racism and sexism forever. But yes, I do think they have roots in a number of sources, besides just the class division. Psychological preference for the familiar, and pleasure in organizing an in-group contrasted with an out-group, combined with race and sex being the easiest/most convenient markers of division.

Yes, that's class conflict -- there's been a significant development lately:


Nationwide Nabisco strike intensifies

https://nwlaborpress.org/2021/09/nation ... tensifies/

Good. I think that since class conflict never ends, we should do whatever we can to win concessions in the here and now from the elite class. Ideally, the more experienced the working class gets at this, the better it will get. We've been torn apart by anti-union propaganda and rapidly shifting economic terrain, but its good to hear we're getting somewhat of a footing.

I don't think that's apt, though -- really it's about controlling the entire *ocean*, to expand on your metaphor. Why should 'shark tradition' be allowed to carry-forward, into the future -- ?

It's not about "should." Its about the reality of what exists. From the perspective of a fish, there are sharks, there always have been, and there always will be. If it is not sharks it will be something else (currently, humans being the greatest threat to fish and shark populations). They fulfill an evolutionary niche.

Given this fact, fish either adapt or die. I'm saying that the working class should take the same attitude. Recognize and understand our class position completely, realize its internal power. But don't pine away for a fantasy of complete eternal victory.

I think that if you talk to minorities, for example African americans, many of them have long since adopted this attitude. Oppression has hardened them, and in many ways made them stronger and able to fight back. I think that utopian theorizing now more than ever is the privilege of white people with too much time on their hands. Like us, debating this. (Making the wild guess that you are also white lol, like me. Correct me if I'm wrong).

As long as the world's workers can agree on *empirical* goals, such as controlling workplaces, then I'll leave *cultural* concerns to yourself, if you like.

I agree with empirical goals of increased worker power and control. I also think we should have empirical goals of cultural victory, such as LGBTQ rights and diminished racism. There is no reason why these goals should be mutually exclusive.

Okay -- from a *political* standpoint this kind of thing is relatively non-serious and trivial -- sure, people should *personally* do what they like with their stuff on any 'interpersonal' basis.

What matters more, *societally*, is how that stuff, like robots, is produced in the first place, who produces it, and who gets to receive and use such labor-saving robots, either in the factory or in the household.

I agree - the automation revolution will be pretty useless to any except the rich if they own all the robots. But I'm not dismissing the idea that markets will be part of this somehow. Perhaps there would exist a multiplicity of worker owned firms which utilize robot labor and sell the resulting product in markets.

Okay, sure, as I've been noting it's *not* the mechanism (of markets) itself so much as it's about the *class rule* of the bourgeoisie, worldwide, in *all* countries. The material-economic mechanism used to be *slavery*, or serfdom, and now it's been about *wage slavery*.

Yes - and I contend there will always be some form of class rule and economic servitude. Any freedom the working classes get has to be won by fighting for it. They can never rest. Even if they become strong enough to overthrow the government and implement a new system, a new class rule will emerge just like it did in 20th century communism. I think we will get better results if we anticipate the formation of this new class rule and do everything possible to minimize its threat. Announcing the rule of the proletariat prematurely (and it will always be prematurely), while de facto you have class rule, gets you Stalinism.

Because it's obviously *failed* at providing for everyone's basic human needs. Capitalist markets / the market-mechanism is good within social conditions of *scarcity*, but it quickly *overcomes* those initial scarce conditions, through its inevitable *overproduction*, compared to economic demand, but without necessarily providing to all for their *human* material needs, like for food and housing, etc.

Look at the *housing market*, for example these days -- it's an enormous financial bubble that's functionally a *disservice* to people who need to rent housing for themselves, because rent prices become *inflated* due to the financial-vehicle, *speculative* aspect of real estate values.

I think that if you were able to implement a universal basic income plus universal healthcare, that would go a very long way towards providing for people's basic needs in capitalism. The much larger problem for capitalism like you mentioned is overproduction and overconsumption, producing chaotically for profit. Which means that it creates external costs to the environment that we all have to suffer.

Add a land value tax and rent control to the UBI and UH, and that covers most of the bases of individual human need. But we need to think bigger in terms of what do we need collectively as a species to survive. That is what capitalism is not solving in my view.

Well, a society's material-productive 'base' is its *mode of production*, basically, so if everything is merely *agricultural* then *that's* the base, and a 'kingdom' kind of politics is organizationally sufficient to *administer* over all farmland, etc., but with the side effect of the *abuse* of the people by such elitist rule.

Since the development of *industry*, though, society has stepped-up to the use of *fuels*, to power *machinery*, so that's what's at-stake materially, for whatever society says is important to produce, like lumber for housing, or microchips for all consumer goods, etc. The politics *has* been bourgeois-state, but it *could* be worker-collectivist instead, with the same industrial-production base.

We are now in a post-industrial economy with the majority of economic activity occurring in professional management type jobs, in the upper tier of labor, and service industry jobs, on the lower tier.

We're going to have to think way beyond producing the same stuff in a different class arrangement. We need to consciously produce a totally different array of stuff which is environmentally sustainable and healthy for the collective human organism as well. That implies a different class production arrangement as well, but that need not be centered as the crux of the whole problem.

No, sorry, but this is a contradiction in terms -- 'liberated' means that there's no administrative 'state' elite who only 'administrate' while not-producing goods and services for everyone in society.

There *can't* be any kind of standing 'state' administration, ultimately, because then it's class society all over again. We can certainly do better than Stalinism.

Yes, we can have a dialectical economy, in which social needs are expressed both through a central organizing body and in a decentralized fashion through people's individual choices (including the freedom to exit a certain economic arrangement into another one).

There is no such thing as pure liberation. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity" - Hegel. I would add to that that our yearning for freedom is itself part of necessity. But that doesn't guarantee that it will ever be satisfied completely. In fact it is the existence of obstacles to our freedom, and the potential for overcoming them, which makes us alive.

I hear ya about the power vacuum dynamic -- historically there's usually been a transitional 'dual power' moment, as with Allende, before history went to one side or the other in terms of power and control.

Which is why you don't want to stake everything on taking the reigns of central power. I would say we should have dual power in the sense of building worker organization outside the state while at the same time trying to take control of it. They aren't mutually exclusive - the former provides the power base for the latter, and victories achieved in state legislation can create more favorable conditions for building external power.

So are you a Marxist-Leninist then -- ?

I might be, in a sense. Or maybe I am just a Leninist without the Marxist part lol. anarco-Leninist?

Refresh my memory -- what's your overall approach, again -- ?

I believe we should aim for a dialectical political-economy which exhibits the optimal balance of centralization versus decentralization. The exact details of that are difficult to prescribe universally. But there would be certain things recognized and protected as universal, such as basic human rights, and certain problems which we agree to confront globally, like climate change and pollution. Other things would be recognized as the domain of the local and decentralized. Many forms of liberated labor could flourish on a local level with a spontaneously emerging order. Different forms of local government would be experimented with with different microspheres. But all of this would occur under the aegis of a central authority, the state, which provides a global skeletal framework for the organic flesh of localized political economy to attach to, and which charts out the optimal flows which should occur, governing from the top down when necessary. The central authority would be indirectly and representatively democratic and worker controlled. But there would be no illusion of a classless society, since every society with a central authority by definition must involve class rule of some kind. And every society must have a central authority. So then the only question is the exact shape it takes. Conditions will never be perfect for the working class so it will always have to push back and fight against the central authority. But this is all part of the dialectic, and it can never be any other way.