Scarcity

[Enragé]

I have been thinking about this lately. One of the points marx made as to why communism is possible now, and not 1000 years ago, is because there is now such an enormous amount of goods that well, there is alot more than enough for everyone (right? i should really read more theory).

Anyway, the whole environmental problem kind of fucks this up, we need to limit our production to keep the world intact, that means less shit for everyone.
So does that mean communism is impossible now from a materialist standpoint?

[Vanguard1917]

Anyway, the whole environmental problem kind of fucks this up, we need to limit our production to keep the world intact, that means less shit for everyone.
So does that mean communism is impossible now from a materialist standpoint?

Yes. If we need to 'limit our production' communism is impossible. Communism depends on (and makes possible) increases in productivity and development of the productive forces. Otherwise, to paraphrase Marx, all the old crap (of class society) is revived.

("A development of the productive forces is the absolutely necessary practical premise [of Communism], because without it want is generalized, and with want the struggle for necessities begins again, and that means that all the old crap must revive.")

[syndicat]

actually, scarcity is inevitable. scarcity means that we would like to have more things, or more benefit from social production, than we actually are able to produce. this situation is inevitable because if a group of workers spend time producing X, that time could have been spent producing Y. so you inevitably give up some things you might want in order to produce anything. this is why trade offs are always going to made.

it's also not the case that capitalism uniformly creates more benefit. in the late middle ages the average peasant worked about a 40 hour week. early capitalism lengthened the working day, so that by the early 19th century people were working far longer than their peasant ancestors had worked. not til the second half of the 20th century did the average workweek in developed capitalist countries get reduced to what it had been in the late middle ages, and then only because of a huge amount of labor struggle.

now, the reason this is relevant is because Marx's argument about class society being due to inadequate productivity rests on the question of time to learn and so on. Marx's argument isn't obviously valid.

[More Fire for the People]

It was Engels, not Marx who considered post-scarcity production a cornerstone of communism. Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago: communism is the social ownership of the means of production by freely associated laborers, not shiny new things! Communism is a society of unleashed creativity and cooperation, poetics and politics. What makes communism 'impossible' a thousand years ago is that there was no working class: only with the presence of a proletarian working class does the possibility of communism really emerge. The working class is, un-like other class, the only class who is by its nature revolutionary, internationalist, and communist.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Scarcity is artificially maintained by capitalist society. We will only be "post-scarce" when we have socialism.

[rouchambeau]

It was Engels, not Marx who considered post-scarcity production a cornerstone of communism. Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago: communism is the social ownership of the means of production by freely associated laborers, not shiny new things!
Exactly. This whole notion of productivity needing to reach some massive level is just a way for capitalism to recuperate communist ideas.


Communism is a society of unleashed creativity and cooperation, poetics and politics. What makes communism 'impossible' a thousand years ago is that there was no working class: only with the presence of a proletarian working class does the possibility of communism really emerge. The working class is, un-like other class, the only class who is by its nature revolutionary, internationalist, and communist.

I wouldn't say that communism was impossible 1000 years ago (but I guess it depends on what you mean by that word), for I would bet that there have been some communist societies. Rather, I think it is more correct to say that giving up the "peace" of the status-quo is much easier today becasue the vast majority of people cannot run from their problems as others have done in the past. People just do not have the luxury of avoiding revolution anymore.

[Vanguard1917]

Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:38 pm
Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago
You may think this but Marx certainly didn't. He heavily criticised such ahistorical thinking.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+July 04, 2007 12:49 pm--> (Vanguard1917 @ July 04, 2007 12:49 pm)
Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:38 pm
Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago
You may think this but Marx certainly didn't. He heavily criticised such ahistorical thinking. [/b]
Quote and post it.

[Vanguard1917]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+July 04, 2007 06:50 pm--> (Hopscotch Anthill @ July 04, 2007 06:50 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 12:49 pm

Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:38 pm
Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago
You may think this but Marx certainly didn't. He heavily criticised such ahistorical thinking.
Quote and post it. [/b]
What? I think that the burden of proof is on you.

I get the idea that people don't actually bother to read Marx anymore.

[Rawthentic]

Marx's argument isn't obviously valid.
Syndicat, since you've bee known to lie, can you also quote Marx and explain where he was wrong?

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+July 04, 2007 12:55 pm--> (Vanguard1917 @ July 04, 2007 12:55 pm)
Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:50 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 12:49 pm

Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:38 pm
Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago
You may think this but Marx certainly didn't. He heavily criticised such ahistorical thinking.
Quote and post it.
What? I think that the burden of proof is on you.

I get the idea that people don't actually bother to read Marx anymore. [/b]
Preface to the Ethical Foundations of Marxism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kamenka/1962/ethical-foundations/preface.htm)

[syndicat]

me: "Marx's argument isn't obviously valid."



Syndicat, since you've bee known to lie, can you also quote Marx and explain where he was wrong?

when you say "lie" what you mean is that i say things you don't like. personal insults of this sort are sectarian. i won't respond to this sort of crap.

the issue can be and should be discussed on its merits, without getting bogged down in interpretation of Holy Writ.

[Vanguard1917]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+July 04, 2007 06:59 pm--> (Hopscotch Anthill @ July 04, 2007 06:59 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 12:55 pm

Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:50 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 12:49 pm

Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 06:38 pm
Communism was materially possible a thousand years ago
You may think this but Marx certainly didn't. He heavily criticised such ahistorical thinking.
Quote and post it.
What? I think that the burden of proof is on you.

I get the idea that people don't actually bother to read Marx anymore.
Preface to the Ethical Foundations of Marxism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kamenka/1962/ethical-foundations/preface.htm) [/b]
What is this supposed to prove?

[Rawthentic]

when you say "lie" what you mean is that i say things you don't like. personal insults of this sort are sectarian. i won't respond to this sort of crap.

the issue can be and should be discussed on its merits, without getting bogged down in interpretation of Holy Writ.
It's not sectarian, many other posters here know this. Now, if you are going to make assertions, make you sure you back them up with quotes. That's what I asked for.

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 01:11 pm
What is this supposed to prove?
It's my 'burden of proof'.

[syndicat]

Now, if you are going to make assertions, make you sure you back them up with quotes. That's what I asked for.

You seem to think that the only way to settle some question is by reference to Marxist Holy Writ. That is a religious attitude towards politics.

Assertions need to be backed up by arguments, and that is what i did. I gave an argument as to why scarcity is inevitable.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah, and you said that Marx's argument was wrong. You said it, I didn't so its on you to prove that and back it up.

[syndicat]

i did. i gave an argument. if you think the argument isn't cogent, you can try to answer it.

[Rawthentic]

Shut up, you said that Marx was wrong and you never backed it up, so admit you were lying again or try to prove Marx wrong, relevantly.

[co-op]

If we move to a situation where workers have acted and abolished capitalism then it is imperative that we move to eliminate scarcity or we will be wide open to the return of class, accumulation and eploitation.


Assertions need to be backed up by arguments, and that is what i did. I gave an argument as to why scarcity is inevitable.


Are you saying scarcity is something that will always exist in society?
Humans can only consume so much and we get more productive all the time as technology gets better and better. When robot technology can be properly exploited in the production process we will in a position to be ultra-productive and ensure needs and desires are met for everyone. If scarcity is forever then that would mean class is forever as some will have and some will have not, but I do believe humans will eliminate scarcity one day, absolutely.

[Vanguard1917]

Originally posted by co-[email protected] 05, 2007 05:44 pm
Are you saying scarcity is something that will always exist in society?
Humans can only consume so much and we get more productive all the time as technology gets better and better. When robot technology can be properly exploited in the production process we will in a position to be ultra-productive and ensure needs and desires are met for everyone. If scarcity is forever then that would mean class is forever as some will have and some will have not, but I do believe humans will eliminate scarcity one day, absolutely.
Nicely put. Of course, in order to abolish material scarcity, the capitalist mode of production will have to be abolished and replaced with something better. That is, a mode of production that is subject to the conscious planning of the producers - i.e. the working class. Capitalism restrains humanity's productive potential.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 06:30 pm
actually, scarcity is inevitable. scarcity means that we would like to have more things, or more benefit from social production, than we actually are able to produce. this situation is inevitable because if a group of workers spend time producing X, that time could have been spent producing Y. so you inevitably give up some things you might want in order to produce anything. this is why trade offs are always going to made.

it's also not the case that capitalism uniformly creates more benefit. in the late middle ages the average peasant worked about a 40 hour week. early capitalism lengthened the working day, so that by the early 19th century people were working far longer than their peasant ancestors had worked. not til the second half of the 20th century did the average workweek in developed capitalist countries get reduced to what it had been in the late middle ages, and then only because of a huge amount of labor struggle.

now, the reason this is relevant is because Marx's argument about class society being due to inadequate productivity rests on the question of time to learn and so on. Marx's argument isn't obviously valid.
Uhm, that assume that everything is made by man-hours. In fact, we are today producing more than 200 years ago, but with fewer labor hours. Due to the progress of technology I might add.

Technocracy (http://en.technocracynet.eu)

[syndicat]

Are you saying scarcity is something that will always exist in society?
Humans can only consume so much and we get more productive all the time as technology gets better and better. When robot technology can be properly exploited in the production process we will in a position to be ultra-productive and ensure needs and desires are met for everyone. If scarcity is forever then that would mean class is forever as some will have and some will have not, but I do believe humans will eliminate scarcity one day, absolutely.

Yes, scarcity will always exist. Any time that we spend making anything is time not spent making something else someone would benefit from or desire.

The idea that scarcity generates the class system is the very Marxist assumption that I challenged. You can assert this relationship, but assertions prove nothing. I could assert that Aliens will descend from the sky tomorrow and provide us with whatever we want, but that's no reason to believe it.

The problems in society are not technological in nature but social. Anyone can make up some science fiction scenario about how technology will save us. But what this fails to consider is that the technology that is developed depends on who controls the society, and thus the allocation of resources, including to technical development.

The world currently has the ability to feed all humans so there is no technological reason for hunger but hunger exists. There is also no technological reason for unemployment. These are just a few of the problems of society.

Scarcity is not the same thing as people going hungry, or being homeless, or other forms of deprivation. Scarcity exists because our human labor time, and the planet's finite resources, could be used for any number of different purposes or human benefits.

[Dimentio]

Exactly. That is why we need a new civilisation which could utilise the abundance.

[Not entirely illiterate]

While I can say that I would thoroughly support the technocratic idea of a high-energy society based on abundance, I also advocate the slow elimination of need. Since our physical state is imperfect in itself and can only be improved by self-annihilation (not to death, but to a state of ethereal deathlessness, the pre-human perfection), I believe that most needs of the human body are artificial and can be eliminated.

So, we don't really need a technocracy bringing us everything we need, because we don't really need it. However, very few people are ready to make the transgression towards non-physicality yet (I, for one, being one of them), and such a society would prove perfect breeding ground for it. Liberating man from endless factory hours will give her instead the time to cultivate her psyche.

Buddhists of the Pure Land school venerate Buddha Amitabha for his promise that all with true devotion shall be reborn into his paradise, where unfruitful rebirth is nigh and the path towards Nirvana is much easier than it ever was from the human world. Ascending into this paradise is a goal for them, although it isn't the true goal, which of course is Nirvana, like any other Buddhist. I can relate this thought to my personal feelings towards Technocracy.

[Lurch]

What a marvellous discussion: so much potential. A small and necessarily under-developed contribution from the point of view of the kind of Marxism I defend.

Marx saw the potential for a society based on abundance rather than the relative scarcity that humankind had hitherto laboured within and under in the very development of capitalism, to be precise, in the crises of capitalism.

“In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity – the epidemic of over-production... ” (Communist Manifesto)

Capital had developed the means of production to produce plenty, but it’s own ‘laws’ meant it could not realise this potential: on the contrary, it was more and more led to destroy the very productive forces it had called into being. This was expressed in the ‘cyclical’ crises of the 19th century and, in a more profound way, signalling the end of capital’s ‘progressive’ role for humanity, in the devastating wars and depressions of the 20th (and now 21st) century. (See the discussion on Decadence in this ‘Learning’ section).

It’s now up to the greatest productive force created by capital – the world working class, the producer class – to take society onto a completely new level, out of the pre-history of humanity governed by scarcity and ‘blind laws’ marked by the exploitation of man by man to a communist society, a society of associated producers consciously producing not commodities for exchange, or for a market, but directly for its own needs, needs which would indeed change as this society developed.

Capital has made this possible. Its decay has also made it necessary.

Now it’s true, IMO, that for the majority of its existence, for hundreds of thousands of years, humanity has known a form of communism, so-called ‘primitive communism’ in which there was no private property, no individual ownership of the means of production, in which the tribal assembly made collective decisions.

If this indisputable fact disproves the bourgeois notion that ‘communism is against human nature, could never work’, we shouldn’t idealise these communities: they were obliged to adopt a ‘communist’ structure simply in order to survive, and were largely at the mercy of ‘external’ forces, of nature, over which they had no control. The individual was totally subordinated to the needs of the collective, not at harmony with it. It was a communism of scarcity.

Primitive communism wasn’t static: it evolved through various stages. In the end, their structures became a barrier to growing humanity’s need to expand production, they fell victim to their own internal and irresolvable contradictions. They dissolved and gave rise to the first class societies.

Mankind has never lost the dream of a unified, harmonious society: it was expressed time and again, in more or less mystified forms, through myths, religion even, in the revolts of the oppressed throughout the ages.

But does that mean communism – a communism based not on the shared misery of an under-productive societies and a tiny social surplus but on the ability to satisfy all human needs – was possible at any time during the past 1000 years? Not IMO. Without material abundance, as Marx puts it in the German Ideology: “want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business [ie of class society and exploitation] would necessarily be reproduced.”

It’s impossible to imagine – because it was not possible in reality – a society in which one part of the globe was in a stage of barbarism, another in slavery, and yet another produced with modern machines giving rise to communism, a society based on abundance. It took the arrival and spread of universal capitalism – and in particular, of a world-wide class with absolutely no stake in preserving its position as an exploited class, the modern proletariat - to make a new, higher stage of communism possible. Marx didn’t champion the victory of capitalism over feudalism, over absolutism, out of any love for the bourgeois mode of production but because it was, for the first time, laying the basis, the potential, for the first truly ‘free’ human community.

As for the very real ‘ecological question’ with which this thread began: does that mean that tomorrow’s communism is no longer possible? One thing is certain: we can’t leave the future of humanity in the bourgeoisie’s hands. On many levels, their dynamic today is towards the destruction of the very bases on which any society of tomorrow could develop. It’s abundantly clear that even the very limited development belatedly taking place today in, for example, China, constitutes a veritable disaster both for the vast majority of the population, and for the environment, despite the development of technology which could vastly reduce the impact of production.

No: it’s a social question. A question of who controls production, what is the aim of that production and how are necessities and abundance to be made? Tomorrow’s society won’t produce and reproduce in the same old way: it will consciously recognise and overcome not just the alienation of man from man, but man from nature of which, in truth, he is neither subject to nor master over but an intrinsic and living part of: a conscious part at that.

Finally, what sort of needs will be produced by a communist society? Communism, as Marx repeatedly says, is not some utopian ideal to be achieved but the real movement which abolishes the current state of things. It’s not the restriction of individual and collective consumption but ‘sensuous consumption’ in which the potential of the species can begin to be realised. It’s not the negation of human needs but their fulfilment, the flowering of creativity, not the dull, repetitive monotony and alienation of present society. If certain Buddhist thought has the merit of reflecting a profoundly dialectical approach, it’s nonetheless the product of a privileged elite, of a circular, unchanging vision of the universe bound up with and a product of humanity which, collectively, has yet to become conscious of itself as an active factor in the evolution of its own species.

Hope these necessarily crude thoughts stimulate further discussion: I’m away from computers for a week but look forward to seeing if and how things develop.

[Not entirely illiterate]

It’s not the negation of human needs but their fulfilment, the flowering of creativity, not the dull, repetitive monotony and alienation of present society.

While I can agree that the alienation of today is certainly something worth getting rid, but regarding human need... I'd say, the negation of human need IS indeed its fulfilment, or as close as one could come to it while being a physical human. This is perhaps the only thing I disagree with Marxism about; its profound basis on materialism.


If certain Buddhist thought has the merit of reflecting a profoundly dialectical approach, it’s nonetheless the product of a privileged elite, of a circular, unchanging vision of the universe bound up with and a product of humanity which, collectively, has yet to become conscious of itself as an active factor in the evolution of its own species.

I'm sorry, I am not quite certain I follow there. What about this given thought makes it the product of a privileged elite? The only thing I can see in Buddhism which could be interpreted as elitism is the notion within certain schools that one can only achieve enlightenment through spending this lifetime as a monk (Theravada Buddhism, as opposed by Mahayana Buddhism which states that a monastic lifestyle isn't necessary). In a Buddhist community, through a material perspective, monks would indeed be social parasites, and I assume this is what you consider it to be elitist, or am I taking liberties then?

[Vanguard1917]

Good post, Lurch. I agree with much of what you say, though i'm a bit confused with what you say here:


Tomorrow’s society won’t produce and reproduce in the same old way: it will consciously recognise and overcome not just the alienation of man from man, but man from nature of which, in truth, he is neither subject to nor master over but an intrinsic and living part of: a conscious part at that.

But isn't it precisely this human mastery of nature which Marx and Engels see as humanity's goal - to learn the laws governing nature and subject nature to the will of human beings? Indeed, isn't this the foundation of Marx's materialism - that for humans to be free, they need to be able to consciously control their material surroundings, their environment?

Indeed, didn't Marx see the beginings of this subordination of nature to human demands as one of capitalism's more revolutionary features? He explains this quite nicely in the Grundrisse:

'Hence the great civilizing influence of capital, its production of a stage of society compared with which all earlier stages appear to be merely local progress and idolatory of nature. Nature becomes for the first time simply an object for manking, purely a matter of utility; it ceases to be recognised as a power in its own right; and the theoretical knowledge of its independent laws appears only as a stratagem designed to subdue it to human requirements, whether as the object of consumption or as the means of production. Pursuing this tendency, capital has pushed beyond national boundaries and prejudices, beyond the deification of nature and the inherited, self-sufficient satisfaction of existing needs confined within well-defined bounds, and the reproduction of the traditional way of life. It is destructive of all this, and permanently revolutionary, tearing down all obstacles that impede the development of the productive forces, the expansion of needs, the diversity of production and the exploitation and exchange of natural and intellectual forces.'

[Rawthentic]

The idea that scarcity generates the class system is the very Marxist assumption that I challenged
You didn't challenge anything. I challenged you to quote Marx and show what he thought and why he was wrong, and you cowered away.

[syndicat]

i'm not interested in citations of Holy Writ. that's for people who treat politics as a religion. if you don't agree that scarcity inevitably generates class division, then you agree with me, and you can just say so. or if you disagree, then provide an argument against.

[Rawthentic]

Shut your trap with the "Holy Writ", you said that Marx was wrong and you never backed it up, even after thats all I've been asking for.

So, admit you were again lying, or quote Marx and prove he was wrong.

[syndicat]

when you tell people to "shut up" when they say things you disagree with, you sound like a thug. it doesn't matter to me what Marx said. as I said before, if you think Marxism is NOT committed to the idea that scarcity inevitably generates class division, you can try to find a quote from Marx yourself, if quoting the Old Man is your way of arguing for things. I don't really care.

the fact is, lurch did provide a quote from Marx that suggests exactly the idea that i was responding to:


Without material abundance, as Marx puts it in the German Ideology: “want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business [ie of class society and exploitation] would necessarily be reproduced.”

This quote suggests that it is the absence of "material abundance" that generates class division. but what is "material abundance"? if there is scarcity, is there an absence of "material abundance"? if so, then Marx is saying that scarcity generates class division. and that is the idea that i have argued against.

[co-op]

syndicat,
If the human-race is doomed never to eliminate scarcity, who decides who consumes a limited resource?

Clearly the development of class itself needs certain conditions but scarcity, whether artificial or otherwise, is something I believe is a condition present in all manifestations of class society. If we one day have material equality then surely we must also have economic equality as the mode off production must have advanced past the capitalist one. Scarcity is a situation individuals could exploit to dominate and coerce others.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:24 am
This quote suggests that it is the absence of "material abundance" that generates class division. but what is "material abundance"? if there is scarcity, is there an absence of "material abundance"? if so, then Marx is saying that scarcity generates class division. and that is the idea that i have argued against.
Marx, just as any writer, can not be taken literally for every quote. In that section of The German Ideology, he was discussing the basis for socialism; he was mentioning the necessary historical prerequisites for a socialist society. Marx, in that quote, was actually stating that competition couldn't be eliminated unless the productive forces were "developed to a higher level" that would make it materially possible in the first place; Trotsky actually used this quote to press the fact that Russia could not have socialist property relations yet, considering that they were not advanced enough to economically eliminate the "old filthy business" that was historically required in the advancement of one mode of production to another. He wasn't suggesting that socialism begins with the elimination of scarceness, but rather, the basis for it begins with a buildup of material wealth that is capable of providing for a whole mass of workers. With the economic growth in capitalism unevenly distributed, a "post-scarce" society is an impossibility.

[syndicat]

but note that this is all very vague. what exactly is the level of productive capacity that is required to eliminate the class system? Marx doesn't say.

scarcity is not the same thing as people's needs not being met. scarcity is not the same thing as a society that hasn't the capacity to educate people. scarcity isn't the same thing as people starving or extreme deprivation.

if Marx were to argue that the reason capitalism is a precondition for a society without class division is that it brings together immediate producers into cooperative relations with each other, no longer working as isolated farmers or artisans, and faced off against bosses exploiting them so that they are motivated to get together and act in union against the bosses, then i would be inclined to agree that this is a plausible argument.

but this isn't about "scarcity."

coop:
syndicat,
If the human-race is doomed never to eliminate scarcity, who decides who consumes a limited resource?

we all do. the existence of scarcity simply means that we must decide priorities for the use of scarce resources. there is no reason whatever that this must necessarily lead to class division.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 04:40 pm
but note that this is all very vague. what exactly is the level of productive capacity that is required to eliminate the class system? Marx doesn't say.
Uhm, when the productive forces are developed to a "higher level"; when industrial development has allowed the sustainment of a whole society, instead of small, backward home-scale production that is unreliable in many circumstances.

[syndicat]

Uhm, when the productive forces are developed to a "higher level"; when industrial development has allowed the sustainment of a whole society, instead of small, backward home-scale production that is unreliable in many circumstances.

That doesn't tell us exactly what the level of productivity is. in the late middle ages peasants in western Europe generally worked the equivalent of an 8-hour day. this wasn't attained again til the mid 20th century after the onset of capitalism, which greatly lengthened the working day. capitalism was born through enslavement, death and misery and the lengthening of the work week.

eventually capital was accumulated to the point that production could be re-organized on the basis of science-based engineering. but the process of forced proletarianization and misery is still going on, in the third world, where capitalism in recent decades has driven millions of peasants off the land.

capitalism is also inefficient and retards productive development in many ways. it under-develops the skills and potential of the working class for example. it's a mistake to think that the organization of production that capitalism develops is fit to simply be taken over and then used as is.