- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Do you live in a recently industrialized nation?

Posted by: Stoller on January 11, 19100 at 10:32:57:

In Reply to: 'We' are not choosing it then posted by Gee on January 10, 19100 at 13:28:07:


: In the same way that the inventor of the wheel has made possible its value (not the muscular efforts of poeple centuries later repeating the formula of actions necessary to make a wheel) so the conceptual process of robot designers and product designers will be the labor behind this imagined future production - with robots doing the muscular motions previously given to people as instruction.

Yes, yes, the robot does some work. But it is HUMAN LABOR-POWER that made the robot (raw materials, energy source for production process, etc., etc). We shall NEVER have a 'post'-industrial age (unless we move back).

: I am sure many people would be involved in production in such a futuristic scenario, but far less as a proportion.

OK then. More skilled workers will be thrown onto a workforce that demands less and less skills... Remember those 'top-growth occupations' cited by the New York Times...

: As you would have read my response you will understand that the work is not parasitical in the sense of being unnecessary but more 'symbiotic' in being an essential part of the package that is 'buying a video' or whatever product. There is scope for expansion in the above scenario.

Well, I don't agree.

I believe that only the production process creates use-values; therefore, the circulation process can only add to capital investment (reducing profit). You, on the other hand, believe in the STV---so anything goes (for you)... But let's not rehash it all again...

Stoller:
The more labor in the production sphere is squeezed by rising circulation costs, the more the revolutionary potential of workers in countries that are predominatly characterized by production will INCREASE.

: And which nations will be left in such conditions? Those not prepared for socialism, those where to work is to work predominantly at production such as the current 3rd world. revolutionary potential caught in a catch 22? Nations 'ready for it' are not so pressured due to manufacturing tech whilst those without the tech are not 'ready for it' but feel the pressure. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the popularity of marxism in the 3rd world relative the 'the west'.

The 3rd World is being rapidly industrialized. Plants moving overseas and all that, right? Therefore the peasantry of the 3rd World is rapidly becoming proletarianized---which means revolutionary potential. Add to that the imperialist (labor aristocracy) implications of my production sphere / circulation sphere paradigm and you will see how the industrial development of the 3rd World will take a DIFFERENT course than ours did (having less affluence to bribe the workers). And then there's Russia, which is materially and politically READY for socialism...

Can't escape it, Gee---it's the internal developmental logic of capital itself...




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