On the subject of robots doing our labor

[red team]

I think if we're ever going to reach a sustainable type of Communism that is both desirable, non-authoritarian and free from corruption then mass computerization and roboticization is our only choice for making such a society realizable.

Here are the following reasons why I think only further technology advances can provide the type of Communism that we want.

1. Distribution of resources.

If the former Soviet Union and other attempts at Socialism can give us any lessons about the weakness of currently defined Socialism, it is that class society in which some full-time professional people, what we call the middle class, will have to exist if due to material conditions the resources of society can't be automatically allocated, regulated and accounted for.

If you're going to do your full-time job in the area of direct production who's going to do the job of bookkeeping and reporting your production to the people responsible for directing resources for other public projects like hospitals, schools, roads, utilities, etc? The alternative would be to have these institutions privatized and therefore subject to self-regulation through market forces.

If you have the resources of society subjected to self-regulation through market demand by using a system of debts paid out to workers/consumers and owners/investors in productive assets this is what you have now as contemporary Capitalism. It is a self-regulating system that is not subject to direct intervention to allocate resources. Taxes are simply a diversion of value for government dictated public projects from what is produced through a feedback/response system of consumer demand for goods vs. investor demand for profits.

What's the alternative then? There's a lot of complaints about the previous attempts at Socialism being bureacratic in nature and of being anti-democractic because the workers weren't given decision making power over goods produced, but what if they were? If you were to work at any given production setting be it a factory, shop or mine what is it that you work with? Your bare hands? The inputs going into any production unit is necessarily going to come from multiple sources with complex interrelationships between those sources. Take mining for example. No modern miners now only work with pick axes. There are mining equipment like earth movers, safety equipment and transportation equipment that is needed simply for this primary industry to function effectively. Huge production centers like modern factories are even more complex and demanding of both material resources and logistics. Bureaucracy is more of a result of the lack of information technology and automation of these tasks then it is of the revolutionary ideals of Socialists.

When Marx said material conditions would need to be met before a social system is replaced, it is more than the simple-headed idea of material conditions as is popularly known to be a massive production in the quantity of goods. For one thing, given that what is produced is finite and this applies no matter how massive in quantity you've produced, what happens after you consume all those goods? The class stratification of managers, owners and producers will still remain in place and will need to remain in place for further production to take place. Given that the physical world is finite, everything would entail costs in producing including skills necessary for performing a particular job. If you've attained the necessary skills for performing a job in resource management, like being an accountant for instance, then you'll need to go get those skills through time and effort spent on schooling. The question then becomes in the time you have to spend to acquire those skills who's going to do the direct production work? We haven't even talked about the problem of the different abilities of people to master a given skill set even for work involving physical labour like being a plumber or electrician for instance. Once you've master a skill set then you can work full-time in performing the job that you're competent in then you're back to square one with a professional management class and a working class. Even then the working class as I've talked about before can be divided into many subclasses with those performing work that is more skilled occupying a more privileged position.

The only way this sort of class stratification can be removed is when technology makes it possible where the scarcity of resources for acquiring the ability to perform a necessary job becomes irrelevant because it no longer takes that much resources to perform. By resources I also include time and mental ability necessary for the acquiring of skills, not just physical resources. This means computerization and automation will play a very important part in reducing this type of resource scarcity. If you computerize and automate the job of resource allocation so it becomes a self-regulating system then you've just abolished the need for professional group of middle class managers as well as the need for profit as a regulator of production, so there also goes the need for investors.


More later...

[nickdlc]

If you're going to do your full-time job in the area of direct production who's going to do the job of bookkeeping and reporting your production to the people responsible for directing resources for other public projects like hospitals, schools, roads, utilities, etc? The alternative would be to have these institutions privatized and therefore subject to self-regulation through market forces. The workers are, thats the whole point of workers councils to co-ordinate distribution by workers themselves.


What's the alternative then? There's a lot of complaints about the previous attempts at Socialism being bureacratic in nature and of being anti-democractic because the workers weren't given decision making power over goods produced, but what if they were? Then you'd have socialism.


If you were to work at any given production setting be it a factory, shop or mine what is it that you work with? Your bare hands? The inputs going into any production unit is necessarily going to come from multiple sources with complex interrelationships between those sources. That's why you have a book keeping system that remains objective and is controlled by workers.


Bureaucracy is more of a result of the lack of information technology and automation of these tasks then it is of the revolutionary ideals of Socialists. Not to mention a party that never had socialism as it's goal in the first place.


For one thing, given that what is produced is finite and this applies no matter how massive in quantity you've produced, what happens after you consume all those goods? Then you have to find a new resource that can fulfill the same function more or less. ie. electricity instead of oil for cars.


The class stratification of managers, owners and producers will still remain in place and will need to remain in place for further production to take place. Given that the physical world is finite, everything would entail costs in producing including skills necessary for performing a particular job. So now we come to your conception of how a "socialist" economy would be run. This cannot be socialism because workers have no say in how production is run and so no matter what the constitution says workers are divorced from the means of production. You envision state capitalism.


The only way this sort of class stratification can be removed is when technology makes it possible where the scarcity of resources for acquiring the ability to perform a necessary job becomes irrelevant because it no longer takes that much resources to perform. I bet thats what the intelligensia said in russia also.

[red team]

2. Human psychological need for debt repayment.

The present economy is labour based and people cannot agree to work for any long term period without losing enthusiasm for work if not rewarded for their work in the form of debt repayment. To say that any one particular person will simply do work for work sake is ignoring the reality of the psychology of the majority of people. Furthermore, the enthusiasm of workers would further diminish if a comparison could be made between those who work and those who enjoy the benefits of socially produced wealth without a corresponding labour contribution themselves. Most people simply do not operate on the basis of continuous and limitless charity to those who could also be contributing, but choose not to. This is particularly true if the work involved is unpleasant compared to other alternatives of spending your time. This is reality so let's not kid ourselves.

Presented with this problem, there is only a few solutions that could be implemented to attempt to solve it.

a) Government mandate to work.

There are a few problems with this approach, one of which would be it's dictatorial nature. Given that the government is also made up of people how would you be able judge fairly that the given job appointment was fair? Bribery and corruption of government officials could not be ruled out. Any given arbitrary order could be subjectively given to the point in which fairness and justice of the order depends on the personal character, ethics and interests of the officials involved. Again, I'm not stating that some officials don't have the best interest of the working people in mind, but is this true with every official in every geographic location and in every governing department and sub-department? For the ambitious, apolitical, careerist, spewing rhetoric about yourself as being a fervent revolutionary and joining the government would be your best career choice for wealth and power.

b) Moneyless economy with bonus for labour, but majority of work automated.

This is the best solution and the only one that proves to be viable in the long term. Money being a type of debt is only as valuable as the negotiated trading value for a scarce commodity. Air cannot be used for trading because it's universally abundant. It doesn't make sense to place a debt for the use of something that is universally abundant. Since labour is scarce as well as the will to work for most people then it only make sense to automate as much work as possible with the remainder of necessary work being charged as the amount that could have been consumed if the given worker was out consuming instead of working in the time period necessary to accomplish the task to specification. The psychological need for debt repayment in the form of money transactions becomes irrelevant and meaningless with machines doing the work. Machines do not value debts.

Excessive consumption can be rationed by calculating the difference in costs for others in securing alternatives to the original resource which could have been put to use, but is instead hoarded. This cost can then be passed on to the excessive consumer making it a disincentive for hoarding resources that could be shared for maximum consumer usability instead. The aim here is to maximize consumer use of a product instead of some subjective value measurement as when business maximizes profitability today. Computer smart card technology ensures that corruption can be reduced to a minimum and precise calculation in consumer costs can be arrived at.

[red team]

The workers are, thats the whole point of workers councils to co-ordinate distribution by workers themselves.

What's to prevent the workers council from being a privileged group like union leaders now are? Union leaders now have lives far removed from those experienced by the direct production workers they claim to represent.

Further what's to prevent the concentration of wealth in resource rich geographical locations? If the workers council were to be located in areas that are more resource wealthy than other areas, who's to say they won't look after their own interests?

Some sort of network-wide, but decentralized resource distribution must be set up that discourages petty localization of wealth, but distributes resources to where it is most needed. Who's going to do this in a neutral way and without local work group bias? You would want the best for your own work group if you're in a worker's council wouldn't you?



What's the alternative then? There's a lot of complaints about the previous attempts at Socialism being bureacratic in nature and of being anti-democractic because the workers weren't given decision making power over goods produced, but what if they were? Then you'd have socialism.

The only way this sort of class stratification can be removed is when technology makes it possible where the scarcity of resources for acquiring the ability to perform a necessary job becomes irrelevant because it no longer takes that much resources to perform. I bet thats what the intelligensia said in russia also.

Everybody knows from birth how to be a bookkeeper, manager, technician, engineer...

No, they don't.

Years ago people needed to do everything manually. How long did people needed to go to school to master the skills needed for being a professional back then?

Technology gives you the option of having a lot more people be able to take over the work of professionals without spending resources to have an elite class of professionals in the first place.

Anybody that's reasonably computer literate now can be a bookkeeper simply by buying or simply downloading an accounting computer program from the internet. How does this help us in having workers manage their own production? It helped enormously as it diminished the power of the previously privileged professional class that was needed to fill that job and fetch a high price before agreeing to do it.