Technocracy and communism

[Dimentio]

Many marxist-leninists, socialists and anarchists views technocracy as yet another form of communism, albeit they often criticise us for being elitist. I will discuss the elitist notion in a later thread, but I would like to point out one main difference between technocracy and communism. For this thread, I will discuss of how the views of property differ between technocracy and communism.

Let us first note that communism is derived from the latin word for "common" [we could also note the Latin in the English language]. It could also be translated "togetherism", and is based on a communal ownership of property. The word "socialism" derives from the Latin word "socius" which also means "to live together" if I do'nt remember it wrong.

Both socialism and communism [all types of communism, anarchism, marxist-leninism and council communism] are based on commonly owned assets.

It is a prejudice [or a so-called "dktekno-ist interpretation"] that orthodox communism is about the common ownership of for example underpants, beds, TV;s or computer games. Thus, any difference from technocracy, which also makes a distinction between productive property and personal property, is not to be found there.

How the productive property, or the realkapital is organised is also very similar. The infrastructure and the technostructure, as well as natural resources and working power is organised within the framework of one organ with responsibility to provide the consumers with what they need. In socialism, it is the technate, in communism, it is the workers through worker councils, and in technocracy, it is the technate.

So far so simple.

Then, is technocracy a form of communism? The answer is no.

Communism has traditionally incorporated the Marxian notion "from each according to ability, to each according to need", and relies on the needs being decided by the community/communities as a whole due to the collective nature of the ownership.

In technocracy, it is the individuals themselves who decides where they want to allocate their EC [which they receives in equal share]. They efficiently "owns" a predetermined size of the productive capacity of the technate, and could allocate that capacity to where they want.

Also, communism and socialism relies on the economist notion that humans stand for all labour, and uses that anthropocentric view of production as a determining factor inte the analysis of the nature of work, where technocracy largely determines work after physics [the thermodynamic energy generation to make products].

The analytic grounds are different, and the view on the nature of decisioning over production is also different. Communism relies on a collectivist perspective, while technocracy relies on a more individualist perspective.

Of course, if we hold an unorthodox interpretation, we could indeed define technocracy as a form of communism.

[Sentinel]

I find technocracy fascinating and think a lot can be learned from it, and incorporated in a communist strategy. Or perhaps a better way to say it is, we should try to combine the both.

Why I consider technocracy can be argued to be very closely related to communism, is because it does fullfill the 'to each according to need' part quite satisfyingly with energy accounting, a supreme method for management of production and distribution compared to the price system.

When it comes to 'from each according to ability', before production is fully automated some time in the future I can't see how that wouldn't be necessary in any society striving for maximal effectiveness and equality. Which is the only kind of society that makes any sense, or that I would support.

Work which cannot be assigned machines would have to be shared.

[Dimentio]

I agree fully, but some leftists thinks that Energy Accounting is not fulfilling the "gift nature" of how they want a good economy to be.

Besides Sentinel, high time to jump the ship, it is getting more and more interesting :)

[Whitten]

I consider myself both and see the two as completly compatable. As with sentinal I see engergy accounting as a means of "To each according to his needs", nowhere did Marx say that the individual couldnt choose which goods he wanted to recieve.

And I see the Marxian view of value and labour to make sense when combined with technocracy. After all, the reason the price system starts to break down is because the necessary labour in production trends towards zero (and thus so does the value of the product in conventional terms).

[Dimentio]

I agree there to, but some of the interpreters of marxist philosophy does not do that. I may be wrong, but what we are discussing is how the main bulk of communists and technocrats interpret things.

But the foundations may be very similar indeed. I see no problems with cooperations and mergers, I might add.

[More Fire for the People]

I’ll write a more in-depth response later but I love how you brought up dktekno. :lol: But for now, I will add that communism is not technocratic in the sense that a functioning commune does not necessitate a functioning technate. For communists, the development of the mode of production is not synonymous with the development of the means of production.

[Dimentio]

dktekno, interrupt_00h and to some extent skip sievert are archetypes which explain special modes of human behavior.

So you mean that you would try to achieve communism in a stone age environment with total scarcity and that it would produce the same results in life standard as capitalism in an advanced society? Or do you care more about "togetherness" than life standard?

[Jazzratt]

Technocracy is a very interesting idea. I find myself inclined toward Whitten's Technocratic Marxism, I find the two compliment each other rather than antagonise.

[Dimentio]

The same here, but I have been debating a marxist on PM and he claims that technocracy is too controlling and builds up class relationships because it does not focus on the needs for the whole community decided b the community but rather by the individuals.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2006 05:14 pm
The same here, but I have been debating a marxist on PM and he claims that technocracy is too controlling and builds up class relationships because it does not focus on the needs for the whole community decided b the community but rather by the individuals.
PM?

[Dimentio]

Private message ^^

[Whitten]

In a technate all people recieve what they need equally, and energy accounting is a more direct and robust method foor decided what needs to be produced than a typical command economy.

[Dimentio]

Yep, agreed. But the production happens on demand, so some leftists have claimed it to be too individualist. The problem there I rather believe to be scarcity thinking than socialism. Fair so?

[wangwei]

"Both socialism and communism [all types of communism, anarchism, marxist-leninism and council communism] are based on commonly owned assets."

No. not just commonly owned assets. The producers themselves own themselves. The alienation of labor has been proscribed relative to the destruction of the division of labor necessary to capitalist production.



The infrastructure and the technostructure, as well as natural resources and working power is organised within the framework of one organ with responsibility to provide the consumers with what they need. In socialism, it is the technate, in communism, it is the workers through worker councils, and in technocracy, it is the technate.


The technate decides what is to be done? Then the techanate is a state. The "stateless organ" that the working class will organize will rise naturally from their organizations and drive to eliminate all forms of privilege and domination.

Organizing "within the frammework of an organ" alienates those who are not empowered within that organ. Hence, the elitism that you're constantly accused of is illustrated here.


In technocracy, it is the individuals themselves who decides where they want to allocate their EC [which they receives in equal share]. They efficiently "owns" a predetermined size of the productive capacity of the technate, and could allocate that capacity to where they want.

This will allow a new state to form as individuals pool their money together and band as units. Without a new egalitarian outlook, the old forms of ownership -- family, nation, etc. supplant the inertia towards communal thinking inherrent within a communist world.


Also, communism and socialism relies on the economist notion that humans stand for all labour, and uses that anthropocentric view of production as a determining factor inte the analysis of the nature of work

Human labor creates all things. The techno doodads that you would like to create will be built by humans, maintained by humans, and created in the interests of humans. The labor of humanity will create the society of the future, just as it has created the societies of the past.


So you mean that you would try to achieve communism in a stone age environment with total scarcity and that it would produce the same results in life standard as capitalism in an advanced society? Or do you care more about "togetherness" than life standard?

The reality of revolution is that it will happen after a global catostrophic war between the classess. The final battle will probably leave a whole lot of ashes. That's the reality of the capitalist system always willing to destroy the village to save it. Would a communist society in a stone age setting produce the same results as a capitalist society? Well, for one thing we'll have all the accrued knowledge of capitalism, and we'll be able to rebuild a communist world. So, on the morn' of revolution, a new world can be built with all of humanity driving to meet all of humanity's needs, so we should far exceed capitalist production with it's enforced scarcity.


builds up class relationships because it does not focus on the needs for the whole community decided b the community but rather by the individuals.

Yup. I said dat and I mean dat. <_<


Yep, agreed. But the production happens on demand, so some leftists have claimed it to be too individualist. The problem there I rather believe to be scarcity thinking than socialism. Fair so?

NO. The individualist aspect is that individualist ideology is dominant over communal thinking and mores. The individuals will get their share and try to maximize their share. A statist relation of domination will occur.

All forms of authoritarian Socialism were flawed because they didn&#39;t try to change the social mode of production, the method of domination, and they did not make the destruction of the state crucial to creating a communist society. Leninism actually maintained the state relations&#33;

[Whitten]

This will allow a new state to form as individuals pool their money together and band as units. Without a new egalitarian outlook, the old forms of ownership -- family, nation, etc. supplant the inertia towards communal thinking inherrent within a communist world.

How exactly?


The reality of revolution is that it will happen after a global catostrophic war between the classess. The final battle will probably leave a whole lot of ashes. That&#39;s the reality of the capitalist system always willing to destroy the village to save it. Would a communist society in a stone age setting produce the same results as a capitalist society? Well, for one thing we&#39;ll have all the accrued knowledge of capitalism, and we&#39;ll be able to rebuild a communist world. So, on the morn&#39; of revolution, a new world can be built with all of humanity driving to meet all of humanity&#39;s needs, so we should far exceed capitalist production with it&#39;s enforced scarcity.

You think communism can be built without a sufficiently developed means of production? What ever happened to Historical Materialism?


NO. The individualist aspect is that individualist ideology is dominant over communal thinking and mores. The individuals will get their share and try to maximize their share. A statist relation of domination will occur.

How can you maximise a share of abundance? Also how can someone create a statist dominion even if they somehow managed to do so? Everyone would be equally entitled to their share of what is produced. In that way it wouldnt be much different than traditional communism, just people decide which items they want from their share.

[Dimentio]

There is a difference between energy accounting and money... which I thought I had explained.

[wangwei]

How exactly?

The state occurs whenever people depend upon something else as an intermediary for action, power concentrates within that thing and those who control it. For communism to occur, the struggle must be against the concenration of power and privelege, not an effective way to distribute what is produced.

The method of production must be free of coersion, and as part of an egalitarian drive for all to meet the needs of all.

So, to answer your question of "exactly", it will be through the organic material historical development that has always occured whenever the state has been allowed to reform itself, regardless of the aspirations of those who reconstituted it.


You think communism can be built without a sufficiently developed means of production?

Yes. and NO.

The means of production are the dispossessed proletariat and agrarian worker (peasant in some jargons). The proletariat must be developed enough to seize control of his own mind and steer his desire into making the needs of all his needs by seeing himself as an intrinsic part of the community, and the community dedicated itself to serving to meet the needs of all who give to the best of their ability.

The economics of industry and other aspects of authoritarian socialism see "development of production" as industrialization and accruement of capital. The entire wage system needs to be scrapped. The entire system of capital needs to be scrapped. The whole of society needs to be redone and remade -- that&#39;s revolution.


What ever happened to Historical Materialism?

Nothing. It&#39;s fundamental to all revolutions. I love how the FdCA makes sure to advance this as fundamental in their documents.

The answer to this paragraph


How can you maximise a share of abundance? Also how can someone create a statist dominion even if they somehow managed to do so? Everyone would be equally entitled to their share of what is produced. In that way it wouldnt be much different than traditional communism, just people decide which items they want from their share.

can be found here.


Everyone would be equally entitled to their share of what is produced.

Under communism, the individualist mentality of "my share" would be struggled against. It&#39;s not that you want your share, but that you know that you must struggle to the best of your ability to make sure that everyone gets what they need. You don&#39;t get your share, you get what you need. Freedom is the understanding of necessity and the ability to act to ensure that your needs are met.


There is a difference between energy accounting and money... which I thought I had explained.

Yes, you did explain it, and I said that in essence, they are the same thing. A medium of exchange is money. Call it what you want, wampum, credits, dollars, cents, whatever. The medium of exchange is a fetishization of power, and is therefore money. Marx does a great job of illustrating how and where money came from in Capital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/).

[Dimentio]

Energy credits are not a medium of exchange, since they are not exactly a system of wage. When they are used, they are destroyed, and the consumer input is sent to the technate which produces what the consumers want.

[Whitten]

Under communism, the individualist mentality of "my share" would be struggled against. It&#39;s not that you want your share, but that you know that you must struggle to the best of your ability to make sure that everyone gets what they need. You don&#39;t get your share, you get what you need. Freedom is the understanding of necessity and the ability to act to ensure that your needs are met.

Utopianism. People will act for their own reasons, and no matter what material conditions are met you cant force people to be altruistic in their viewpoint.

If it wasnt for people&#39;s desire for their share then we would be unlikely to even have a mnovement at all, let alone have ever produced mass uprisings in various places. The average person is motivated by their own interests and more often than not this will be personal gain.

[wangwei]

If it wasnt for people&#39;s desire for their share then we would be unlikely to even have a mnovement at all, let alone have ever produced mass uprisings in various places. The average person is motivated by their own interests and more often than not this will be personal gain.

The struggle against individualist personal gain as the sole motivating factor is the struggle for communism. You may call it utopianist, but then again, I always get surprised to hear "marxists" and "socialists" poo poohing communism with bourgeois arguments of selfishness. All of society must be predicated upon the principle "from each according to his ability and to each according to needs."


Energy credits are not a medium of exchange

1.) you use them to get things. You exchange them for a commodity of some sort or other. therefore they are a medium of exchange.


since they are not exactly a system of wage.

I never said "wage", as I said "medium of exchange". I don&#39;t understand why you insist on a fetishization of power being maintained. If you have enough for all, then produce what everyone needs, and let the credits be damned. The workers are the producers, the planners, and the distributers, and they will know what their needs are. If credits are fundamental to your system, then your system must maintain them, therefore your system needs a medium of exchange. If your system doesn&#39;t need the credits, then the point is moot.

The most important thing that a communist revolution must do is eliminate the wage system and all mediums of exchange as part of the assault on the social relationship of capital.

[Dimentio]

They are destroyed when they are used. Nobody gets them. They are only used so that the technate could track demand and adapt the production after the wishes of the population. It is a lot better and more efficient than planning production centrally, using markets, or vote for what should be produced.

[MrDoom]

Well, "destroyed" is a bit of a misnomer, since it&#39;s a direct representation of energy.

Energy-credits are a medium of production, rather than of exchange, as it directly represents energy and is subject to its properties (ie, cannot be created or destroyed from investment, etc.).

[Dimentio]

Yes, you are right, but exactly these energy credits cannot be used anymore.

[wangwei]

Energy-credits are a medium of production, rather than of exchange,

I again refer you to Marx&#39;s discussion of capital, money, and mediums of exchange. I&#39;m trying not to oversimplify this but, money formed as method of determining exchange and producion value, and was the medium of exchange to differentiate and qualify the exchange. The equation Marx used to illustrate the early exchange was M - C - M, refering to manufactured object to valorize capital and create enough production capital to create another Manufactured object.

Energy credits are a medium of exchange, and even though they are deleted after use, their existence still constitute a fetization of power and implies an external apparatus of control, which is a state.

A Communist society will determine what is the best way to distribute goods for that society. We can&#39;t know for sure what that best method will be as we are living under a different historical period than Communism will be.

[Dimentio]

Which is one of the reasons why all attempts to establish socialism and eventually communism have been more or less failed. Because you do not theorise or design alternatives.

[wangwei]

Which is one of the reasons why all attempts to establish socialism and eventually communism have been more or less failed. Because you do not theorise or design alternatives.

Uhm, no. The reasons why socialism failed has everything to do with the fact that the old socialist movement made the economic sphere primary over the social sphere, in other words, they fought to maintain the state as "an instrument of class oppression". The state must be negated by the working class seizing their own initiative to meet their needs by creating an egalitarian society. The old communist movement did not fight directly for an egalitarian society. Whereas, the old anarchist movement was outgunned on several fronts, their own inconsistency, absolute repression, the ascendancy of syncdicalism over anarchism, lack of organization, and the revolutionary centre of the worldwide revolutoinary movement being grounded in Moscow and Beijing, as opposed to having the international scope necessary for the communist revolution to occur. These are just a few reasons, based on historical materialism, for why socialism failed and communism was never achived.

The assertion that we don&#39;t theorize or design alternatives is ludicrous. Alternatives to what? Capitalism? Whatever alternatives that are designed must be to smash the relationship of the state and the ascendacy of power over humanity. Whatever society arises after the revolution will have to be based on a fundamentally different social relationship than today, and due to the fact that we are still stuck in Plato&#39;s cave staring at shadows on the walls and dreaming of being in the sunlight, we can&#39;t know what&#39;s outside the cave, only that we know that an outside must exist.

Using a clear cut and dry absolute blueprint for the organic process of revolution is absurd. So, let me put it this way, it&#39;s the technocracy that is the absolute mechanical statist method that wants to control, whereas anarchy is the organic process of revolution necessary for the working class to attain their needs and aspirations for a sensous attachment necessary for negating the alienation of labor from the material world. Anarchy is the method and communism is the goal.

[Dimentio]

Please, if we want an advanced society which could provide the people with an abundance, we would need technical branches and information systems in order to see how we could utilise resources most efficiently. What you are talking about sounds more like a religion than an ideology.

[wangwei]

we would need technical branches and information systems in order to see how we could utilise resources most efficiently. What you are talking about sounds more like a religion than an ideology.

Communism will have ALL of the cumulative sum total of the scientific advance of human history at its disposal. To even think for one moment that I&#39;m advocating getting rid of technology is just absurd. Again, I&#39;m not parlaying in absolutes. I don&#39;t know how the working class will utilize technology to benefit all of society, but they will, and that&#39;s what communism is.

There will be information technology designed to meet needs and facilitate more technological growth. Communism will be the beginning of history where the full breadth of science can be unfettered from the reigns of superstition and class society.

Now, what you&#39;re talking about with this technocratic state sounds very ideological and a religion rooted in machines and technology that saturated the human conscience around the turn of the century. This fetization of technology as the great hope misses the point that humans are the means of production. We must learn to produce our needs for ourselves.

[Dimentio]

No, we must learn to despise work for the need of survival, I rather think. In the future, we should only do things because we love them, while we more and more should work to outphase human labor and replace it with machine labor.

[wangwei]

No, we must learn to despise work for the need of survival, I rather think.

Again, this is absurd. It was labour that created our humanity. The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm) by Engels clearly illustrates this axiom. Learning to despise work means creating dependence upon something else to take care of your needs. This is such a bourgeois idealist philosophy that it&#39;s not even funny. Sorry man, emancipation of the toiler will come through the toil of the toilers, not by some super dooper computer.

So, I&#39;ll leave your with Kropotkin&#39;s tenet on struggle. "Therein lies all the difference. There are struggles and conflicts which are destructive. And there are others which drive humanity forwards. " Kropotkin The State: It&#39;s Historic Role (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/state/state_toc.html)

The end of toil is not the goal, far from it. The goal is the end of alienation from toil, from work, from life itself and the freedom to meet our own needs by our own intiative.

[Dimentio]

As a communist, you ought to think that the decrease in labor time in most developed nations is a sign of progress? Then why not decrease it from 8 hours to 6, then from 6 to 4.

And yes, technology is about creating what you call "dependencies" on machines, on electricity, flowing water and comfortability in taking care of the needs. Either that or agricultural work from dawn to dusk. It is not bourgeoisie idealist, but rather a materialist statement.

You need energy in order to do stuff. Whatever you need to do, you need energy to do that. In pre-modern societies, the chief energy generator is the human body itself, and 90% of the poulation is peasants, 9% is workers [blacksmiths, cheesers, glass-blowers, and so on], while 1% is a small elite which does not work.

The final goal of technocracy is a world where humanity is an aristocracy which does not need to toil and labor. Resentment for toiling is a natural human notion, the will to overcome that through machines is natural, and your ideology is fundamentalist crap, or rather "reactionary working class romanticism". It is you who are the idealist here I think, since what is striking with idealism is the belief that by changing the behavior of people, you will change society.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2006 06:39 pm
Yep, agreed. But the production happens on demand, so some leftists have claimed it to be too individualist. The problem there I rather believe to be scarcity thinking than socialism. Fair so?
Yes, some socialists/communists shy away from individual sovereignty because they see it as a product or bedfellow of capitalism.

[Dimentio]

Capitalism is the least of individual sovereignity. I mean, it&#39;s foundation is "division of labor", and when you have that, you are dependent on everyone else, and your influence does not in first hand depend on yourself, but on your pocket.

[wangwei]

As a communist, you ought to think that the decrease in labor time in most developed nations is a sign of progress? Then why not decrease it from 8 hours to 6, then from 6 to 4.

This is a pretty interesting and idealist statement. First off, the actual labor time in the United States has increased for the majority of workers above 8 hours, and in the undeveloped world is phenomonally higher than even that mark. This labor time is markedly increased for the female gender as they are also domestic workers that have to usually put in an extra 8 hours raising the family and "keeping the home."

Now, under communism, the goal is not the emancipation of hummanity from work and the creation of an "aristocracy" of hummanity, as that&#39;s pure bougeois drivel. "Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct porcess of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of the production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations." (Capital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm) pg. 493 Karl Marx)

I am not against the absolute unfettered use of technology by society, as is implied, but I understand that technology is an effect of the actual social relations of society. This fundamental understanding of the method and means of production seems to be missing in technocracy, as technocracy seems to be founded upon the overly reductionist ideal of "supply" and "demand" --"Producer" and "Consumer" particular to vulgar bourgeois economic systems.


And yes, technology is about creating what you call "dependencies" on machines, on electricity, flowing water and comfortability in taking care of the needs

No, technology is not about making the working class dependent upon machines, but on making machines dependent upon meeting the needs of the working class. Instead of subjecting the working class to the machines, thereby generating dependency and creating a new state, the working class should conform the use of machines to their own needs and produce what they need for their own needs.


Either that or agricultural work from dawn to dusk

A bit mechanical and reductionist in your logic eh? :huh: I love these either or postulates created here. Seriously, mechanical sollogism aside, it&#39;s not either we have huge computers running all of society with robots slaves tilling the fields for the fat hedonistic humans living like Grecian aristocrats and suffering from ennui as robot gladiators tear each other to bits as golden automatons slowly lower grapes into the obese human&#39;s gaping maws or we&#39;re a bunch of peasants in loin cloths with sticks and scythes cutting down wild grasses hoping the anarcho-primitives don&#39;t chuck spears at us.

The refusal to be dependent upon technology does not negate the use of technology to meet the needs of the working class.


You need energy in order to do stuff. Whatever you need to do, you need energy to do that.

Yeah, no kidding. Under communism, the goal will to be harness all of the infinite potential for energy to be used to meet all of the needs of humanity -- with the understanding that harmony with nature is a fundamental human need. The struggle to harness nature&#39;s infinite energy while not subjugating and destroying nature, but actually harmonizing our existence with nature will be a fundamental dialectic to communist society.


The final goal of technocracy is a world where humanity is an aristocracy which does not need to toil and labor.

I would like you to please explain to me how this is not a bourgeois ideal. I can tell that you did not read Engel&#39;s discussion on how it was the role of labor that actually created the humanity that we have today. Work is struggle, and "without struggle there is no progress" Frederick Douglass.


Resentment for toiling is a natural human notion,

Resentment for toiling for something that you can take no part in is the natural human notion. Humans love to have hobbies and labor in their own interest -- gardening, sports, hiking, building of all sorts, etc. are human expressions of labor. Labor is as intrinsically human as breathing and waking. Labor that is robbed by others alienates the individual from his process by turning him into a subject to the objective needs of his owner -- capitalist, aristocrat, state, or master.


It is you who are the idealist here I think, since what is striking with idealism is the belief that by changing the behavior of people, you will change society.

It will take a lot more than just changing behavior&#33; That&#39;s a bit Skinnerish if I do say so myself. The shift in behavior will have to be an affect of the working class desiring to meet their own needs predicated upon the intrinsic desire to self-preservation. The working class needs to see that their individual survival depends upon recognizing themselves as part of a whole, as opposed to being alienated and subjugated by today&#39;s society.

A long revolution will have to take place as the fundamental social relationship of domination is negated, and replaced with a social relationship based on egalitarianism. This social revolution is much more complicated than the overly reductionist notion of "behavior change." Behavior change is part of it, but it is a much more complicated process than just behavior change.


Yes, some socialists/communists shy away from individual sovereignty because they see it as a product or bedfellow of capitalism.

The deification of the indvidual in opposition to other individuals is the fundamental ideology of capitalism. The soveriegnity of the individual to act in his own conscious desire is the goal of anarchy, and only by the individuals acting of their own volition to meet their own needs, can a communist society happen. There is a fundamental contradiction in the term "soveriegn individual".

Malatesta illustrates the fundamental difference between the communist soverign individual and the capitalist sovereign individual here (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/malatesta/note.html): "If anarchy means non-government, non-domination, non-oppression by man over man, how can one call himself anarchist without lying to himself and the others, when he frankly claims that he would oppress the others for the satisfaction of his Ego, without any scruple or limit, other than that drawn by his own strength? He can be a rebel, because he is being oppressed and he fights to become an oppressor, as other nobler rebels fight to destroy any kind of oppression; but he sure cannot be anarchist. He is a would-be bourgeois, a would-be tyrant, who is unable to accomplish his dreams of dominion and wealth by his own strength and by legal means, and therefore he approaches anarchists to exploit their moral and material solidarity."


Capitalism is the least of individual sovereignity. I mean, it&#39;s foundation is "division of labor", and when you have that, you are dependent on everyone else, and your influence does not in first hand depend on yourself, but on your pocket.

Capitalism is predicated upon individual sovereigninty and the subjugation of all the rest of society to the needs of the soverign capitalist in the interests of maintaining the need for capital to reproduce itself through surplus labor. The working class is "not" dependent upon everyone else" within the division of labor, but is in fact primarily dependent upon the wages of the capitalist, the job of the capitalist, the needs of the capitalist, and is kept in a low state of development educated particular to the level that the capitalist needs to function the machinery of production -- industrial or computerized.

As the working class is continually disposessed of their power by the capitalist class, please explain how the "division of labor" creates solidarity, affinity, and collective action to meet the needs of all of hummanity?

[Dimentio]

Yes, the labor time have increased during the last 20 years, but that is not an effect of technology but of the continued existence of the price system.

The machines could not be dependent on people, the tools could not be dependent on people, and the infrastructure could not be dependent of people. Even if they fall a part, they will not suffer. The machines could be used to enhance human prosperity, but in the same process, we create human dependency. The key is to design the system so that we get a maximum amount of security against sudden break-downs.

Technocracy is not for the division of labor, but against international trade just for the sake of international trade. A technate is an autarchic unit.