Revolutionary analysis on automation of production

[Delenda Carthago]

I am looking for any analysis that can help on that direction. Whether the automation of production changes the paradigm of today's labour or how can it be used on a tommorow's socialist society. Either that is on the nature of production itself or on the relationship between society and the produced wealth.


I think this is the biggest issue of our times. Can anyone help?

[ckaihatsu]

We can use a simple, non-cutting-edge example to illustrate this issue -- knowledge-production.

Centuries ago there *was* no mass-production of paper and printed materials, so much of humanity's knowledge, as it was, was controlled by the religious elite, through their controlled access to libraries.

So if the production of paper and printed materials -- and now electronic media like the Internet -- *facilitates* knowledge-production and *automates* its distribution, who then should be able to control such technologies -- ?

Obviously we can fill-in-the-blank and ask the same question for *any other* technology.

[Dave B]

There is the following from Grundrisse, although you have to think about it a bit


Contradiction between the foundation of bourgeois production (value as measure) and its development. Machines etc.

And perhaps either side of;


But to the degree that large industry develops, the creation of real wealth comes to depend less on labour time and on the amount of labour employed than on the power of the agencies set in motion during labour time, whose ‘powerful effectiveness’ is itself in turn out of all proportion to the direct labour time spent on their production, but depends rather on the general state of science and on the progress of technology, or the application of this science to production.

(The development of this science, especially natural science, and all others with the latter, is itself in turn related to the development of material production.)

Agriculture, e.g., becomes merely the application of the science of material metabolism, its regulation for the greatest advantage of the entire body of society. Real wealth manifests itself, rather – and large industry reveals this – in the monstrous disproportion between the labour time applied, and its product, as well as in the qualitative imbalance between labour, reduced to a pure abstraction, and the power of the production process it superintends.

Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself. (What holds for machinery holds likewise for the combination of human activities and the development of human intercourse.) No longer does the worker insert a modified natural thing [Naturgegenstand] as middle link between the object [Objekt] and himself; rather, he inserts the process of nature, transformed into an industrial process, as a means between himself and inorganic nature, mastering it. He steps to the side of the production process instead of being its chief actor.

Blah blah

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm


And there is the more famous and popular realm of freedon quotation from Volume III


In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production.

With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity.

Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm

As before you have to think about it a bit.

You don't have to thank me as I am 'counter revlotionary menshevik'.


.

[Delenda Carthago]

Thank both of you, but I m more interested in modern analysis. Something that describes our era, not Marx's one. And I am interested in material production mainly. I ve read something in greek, I think it was from a group called something like "Team Krisis" or something, but I cant find it again.

Also, there is a great book written by a greek communist, George Rousis, called "Marx was born early" that kinda touches that subject, but unfortunatly it is not translated in english!

[ckaihatsu]

Thank both of you, but I m more interested in modern analysis. Something that describes our era, not Marx's one. And I am interested in material production mainly. I ve read something in greek, I think it was from a group called something like "Team Krisis" or something, but I cant find it again.

Also, there is a great book written by a greek communist, George Rousis, called "Marx was born early" that kinda touches that subject, but unfortunatly it is not translated in english!


You're welcome.

I was hoping to get across that much about production in society is "timeless" -- even regardless of automation -- and so you should arrive at your own conclusions if you're looking to be political. (That's what a discussion board like RevLeft is good for.)

I'll also note that politics is not necessarily history, so a purely scholastic approach may not necessarily be the best approach.


[8] communist economy diagram

http://postimage.org/image/1bvfo0ohw/

[28350]

I have only a tangential point to offer:

I've noticed many marxists point to the rising organic composition of capital as making socialism more and more achievable. First of all this represents a kind of 2nd internationalist understanding of capitalism as the chaos of the market, and 'socialism' as the obvious solution as planned social labor. There's also an element of evolutionary socialism, as opposed to communism as negation, but I don't really know if that's significant.

When I was a marcyite I really got a kick out of this:

The ruling class under capitalism has historically served as the organizer of production, but the development of the productive forces, particularly the momentous dimension of the scientific-technological revolution, makes them superfluous. Centralized, collective, socialized production, which is what we have now, makes the ruling class wholly unnecessary. The process of production is now ready made for the working class. It only needs to overcome the gap between its objective position and the consciousness which is indispensable to harmonizing collective, centralized production with collective, centralized ownership by the workers.

In a sense Marcy is right when he says the ruling class has organized production, but that is really only part of technological advance under capitalism.

The book i was going to quote from i can't find, if i find it i'll quote from it. It's called Forces of production: a social history of industrial automation by david noble

edit: the second part of the argument is that capitalist technology is not neutral essentially, it is both fettered by capital, but also commissioned by capital.

[ckaihatsu]

I've noticed many marxists point to the rising organic composition of capital as making socialism more and more achievable.


This is an important point, and whenever this topic is raised it gets me thinking about *how early* a workers' government might have been possible -- that is, with the only technology being the most modest of (farming) implements. Obviously the rise of industry developed the potential for socialism immensely by bringing workers off the disparate farm estates and into close quarters with one another -- and to control *mass* production -- but, also on a tangent, I can't help but wonder how early socialism may have been possible since rudimentary farming employs a *very* high organic composition of capital.

[Delenda Carthago]

Found something

George Caffentzis - Why machines cannot create value

http://books.google.gr/books?id=uhtYhPvU0kUC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=george+caffentzis+machines&source=bl&ots=aWO9l9jam5&sig=R1iikhuC0Qato455n5CZ9RSG2Dw&hl=el&sa=X&ei=l8NkT7CLH9CX8gP6_KCACA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=george%20caffentzis%20machines&f=false

[MarxSchmarx]

A good book on this is Jeremy Rifkin's "End of Work"; his analysis is very well done, the solution somewhat uninspiring, but still thought provoking. It is very informative in that it describes in very lurid detail just how systemic automation is.

[ArseCynic]

I am looking for any analysis that can help on that direction. Whether the automation of production changes the paradigm of today's labour or how can it be used on a tommorow's socialist society. Either that is on the nature of production itself or on the relationship between society and the produced wealth.


I think this is the biggest issue of our times. Can anyone help?

The automization/mechanization of labour is the single most important thing in all of human history and will be the one true thing that will free the world of capitalism and the rest of it's issues.

One of the biggest issues that has given "communism" alot of undeserved slack, is how it would deal with replacing the almost non-existant "monetary incentive for labour".
The obvious solution is to quickly mechanize all repetitive labour.

with our current technology, it is indeed quite possible to replace 90% of ALL labour that is not scientific research and complicated surgery, and science has never had a monetary incentive at all, so it does not require to be replaced nor can it.

money is only an incentive for repetitive, mundane labour that can be replaced with machines.

Technology has been the only true hero of the people in history. technology frees people. The true point of technology and definition of it, is to get rid of or make easy, human labour. Technologies that just make sense are inevitable in any system. the full mechanization of labour is impossible to stop and we should not, for it is the true path to freedom.

One of the biggest issues with capitalism is mechanization of labour. When a corporation mechanizes its production, two main things happen:
-people lose jobs and thus have less purchasing power.
-the corporation now starts to develop a monopoly over the means of production even more than what it had before.

we should not fear this and we should not fear technology. we must use it to free all of the people in the world.

technology will make money, corporations, governments and slavery all obsolete, infact it already has.

Capitalism is doomed, and this is one of the main reasons.

[ArseCynic]

This is why I am a Communist and not a socialist, for socialism is redundant, there is no need for it for labour will be quickly replaced. Socialism is great and all, but It will arrive at the same issues that capitalism is currently facing with the rapid mechanization.

[28350]

http://libcom.org/library/technoskeptic-antagonism

edit: awesome 666 posts

[Delenda Carthago]

The automization/mechanization of labour is the single most important thing in all of human history and will be the one true thing that will free the world of capitalism and the rest of it's issues.

One of the biggest issues that has given "communism" alot of undeserved slack, is how it would deal with replacing the almost non-existant "monetary incentive for labour".
The obvious solution is to quickly mechanize all repetitive labour.

with our current technology, it is indeed quite possible to replace 90% of ALL labour that is not scientific research and complicated surgery, and science has never had a monetary incentive at all, so it does not require to be replaced nor can it.

money is only an incentive for repetitive, mundane labour that can be replaced with machines.

Technology has been the only true hero of the people in history. technology frees people. The true point of technology and definition of it, is to get rid of or make easy, human labour. Technologies that just make sense are inevitable in any system. the full mechanization of labour is impossible to stop and we should not, for it is the true path to freedom.

One of the biggest issues with capitalism is mechanization of labour. When a corporation mechanizes its production, two main things happen:
-people lose jobs and thus have less purchasing power.
-the corporation now starts to develop a monopoly over the means of production even more than what it had before.

we should not fear this and we should not fear technology. we must use it to free all of the people in the world.

technology will make money, corporations, governments and slavery all obsolete, infact it already has.

Capitalism is doomed, and this is one of the main reasons.

Excactly, and if you accept dialectical materialism, you can understand the importance of it. I think that that vision is what communism has to bring for human kind in the 21st century.

PS. I am not saying that our solution is to automate the means of production. Our solution is to socialise them. The solution on automation will come after.

[Ravachol]

Excactly, and if you accept dialectical materialism, you can understand the importance of it. I think that that vision is what communism has to bring for human kind in the 21st century.

PS. I am not saying that our solution is to automate the means of production. Our solution is to socialise them. The solution on automation will come after.

The technological components of the means of production are often designed according to Capitalist logic and directly appropriating them is not communist, it's reproducing Capitalism. Take for instance most fordist factories, they are designed around the paradigm of the conveyor belt, with human workers standing at crucial points repeating the same menial task all day that's usually still too tricky to leave to machines. Directly appropriating such a factory and continuing to operate it would mean what? That under communism we still have to stand next to the conveyor belt and twist the same few nuts and bolts all day long?

Part of the communist process will consist of doing away with a large deal of the 'means of production' which simply don't suit the communist mode of production given that their technical composition reflects their capitalist nature in such a fashion that continuing to operate them would be continuing to reproduce a process involving Capitalist mechanics. This is as important a realisation as the fact that automation (and informatisation) has changed the structure of production and society. Pure 'techno-progressivism' is an idealist trap.

Marx' 'Fragment on Machines' (thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf) from the Grundrisse delves deeper into the question of automation.

[PhantomRei]

"Pure 'techno-progressivism' is an idealist trap."

What do you think of Dale Carrico's "Tecchnoprogressivism Beyond Technophobia and Technophilia"?

[Rafiq]

The Automation of production is nothing new, it's just dead labor. Once things are produced with the price lower than the actual labor value, profits go down and things rot to shit. That's why there isn't a mass scale automation of production today. You know, the bourgeoisie could probably do it, have machines produce everything while hiring only a few workers to manage them. Trouble is, is that they don't make a profit from this.

[ckaihatsu]

Perhaps a post-capitalist society would find a way to "systematize" *all* of industrial production to where there were just a few (or a few hundred) 'universal' parts that would be interchangeable in virtually *every* industrial process.

A society-wide standardization of productive processes would then pave the way for the *mechanization* (automation) of those (sub-)processes so that no one would *have* to work on an assembly line ever again.

(In terms of generic productive efficiency, though, it's difficult to beat the assembly-line *method* -- it's just that it's inhumane to have *people* working on it.)

[ArseCynic]

The term for a society that is almost completely automized is a "Technocracy", but this is often confused with meritocracy and the definition put in place by idiots on wikipedia. so I simply call it "scientific-anarcho-marxism/communism"

There aren't alot of movements that are pushing for this directly. there are a few socialist-technocratic movements out there but they do not really push for total mechanization and technocracy. Right now the only movements I can think of that push for a true technocracy are the venus project(who use the term "Resource-based economy" instead) and star trek(post-TOS and not including abram's bs).

While movements such as the venus project often diss communism and disasociate themselves wth marxism, they really are marxists in the fundamental sense. You should really research the venus project and other technocratic movements like it.

[Delenda Carthago]

The term for a society that is almost completely automized is a "Technocracy", but this is often confused with meritocracy and the definition put in place by idiots on wikipedia. so I simply call it "scientific-anarcho-marxism/communism"

There aren't alot of movements that are pushing for this directly. there are a few socialist-technocratic movements out there but they do not really push for total mechanization and technocracy. Right now the only movements I can think of that push for a true technocracy are the venus project(who use the term "Resource-based economy" instead) and star trek(post-TOS and not including abram's bs).

While movements such as the venus project often diss communism and disasociate themselves wth marxism, they really are marxists in the fundamental sense. You should really research the venus project and other technocratic movements like it.

A. Does Venus Project even exsist? I never heard anything about them since Zeitgeist.
B. What is "Star Trek"?

In general I dont trust these post modern "movements".

[Book O'Dead]

I am looking for any analysis that can help on that direction. Whether the automation of production changes the paradigm of today's labour or how can it be used on a tommorow's socialist society. Either that is on the nature of production itself or on the relationship between society and the produced wealth.


I think this is the biggest issue of our times. Can anyone help?

Check out www.slp.org (http://www.slp.org)

They have some good articles and essays regarding automation dating as far back as the 1950's when automation had just begun to become an issue in the U.S.

[Delenda Carthago]

Check out www.slp.org (http://www.slp.org)

They have some good articles and essays regarding automation dating as far back as the 1950's when automation had just begun to become an issue in the U.S.

I found this one http://www.slp.org/res_state_htm/tech_jobloss.html, which is great to print it and share it to the streets and all, send it through email to everyone you know and stuff, because it explains the subject very simplistic(and I say that as a good thing!), so that everyone can understand it, but I m looking for more in depth look into the subject. Thanks anyway.

[ArseCynic]

A. Does Venus Project even exsist? I never heard anything about them since Zeitgeist.
B. What is "Star Trek"?

In general I dont trust these post modern "movements".

A, yes, but they've dissasociated themselves from the zeitgeist movement. right now they have been working on collecting funds for a full-length motion picture and are about to release their own movie which is made to replace the third zeitgeist movie as an introduction to the venus project.

B, a sci-fi drama show that has been the first and only show that has ever even touched on the systems of what a technocracy is. in the show the federation is a socialist-technocracy which is currently trying to reform it's corrupt and out of date, remaining democrati systems.

the whole show is filled to the rim with pure humanism. It is often credited with being the humanist bible.

don't watch TOS though, it kindof sucks... (the version with captain kirk and spock)

[Delenda Carthago]

A, yes, but they've dissasociated themselves from the zeitgeist movement. right now they have been working on collecting funds for a full-length motion picture and are about to release their own movie which is made to replace the third zeitgeist movie as an introduction to the venus project.

B, a sci-fi drama show that has been the first and only show that has ever even touched on the systems of what a technocracy is. in the show the federation is a socialist-technocracy which is currently trying to reform it's corrupt and out of date, remaining democrati systems.

the whole show is filled to the rim with pure humanism. It is often credited with being the humanist bible.

don't watch TOS though, it kindof sucks... (the version with captain kirk and spock)
Haha, yes I know Star Trek! I thought it was like a "movement" or smth inspired by that that did some work.

[Delenda Carthago]

A litle something by unkle Karl himself.

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article288

[Delenda Carthago]

Lynn Marcus: Automation - The new industrial revolution (1954)

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol15/no02/marcus.html

Harold Robins: Automation – Menace or Promise? The Unions Face a Crucial Problem

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol16/no02/robins.html

[Ned Kelly]

Lynn Marcus is la rouche

[Delenda Carthago]

Lynn Marcus is la rouche
I dont know him and I dont know what "la rouche" means.

[blake 3:17]

Lyndon LaRouche is a psychopathic cult leader whose views shift between Left and Right withing seconds.

The best book, from a Marxist perspective, is Harry Bravermans, Labor and Monopoly Capital. It is a great book, describing quantitative and qualitative changes in the American working class in particular. The basic tension in his work is between admiring technological innovation as a time-resource saver, and the damage it does to people. Not easy to reconcile.

[Delenda Carthago]

Check this out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn