----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 1:54 AM Subject: Re: Scarcity (was Re: Doug's points)
>
>
> >
> >However, Marx was not such a simpleton as to think that there is no
> >material limit to natural resources & that we may get to live
> >practically forever (as Condorcet apparently did). His belief that
> >we may overcome scarcity was thus rooted in neither of the above.
> >What then made Marx think that we can?
> >
> >Yoshie
>
> There is probably a deep answer to this that I do not understand. Here's
my
> take on what I do understand of it. Marx thought that capitalism had
> developed productive forces to the point that under communism they could
be
> unfettered to produce enough so that material and (for lack of a better
> word) temporal scarcity would not matter--not that there would be no
limits,
> but that they could be pushed back far enough so that we would not reach
> them. Marx actually did not think that scarcity in the sense that I have
> mentioned it would be defeated, just that it would be defeated enough so
> that we would be beyond the circumstances of justice (moderate scarcity
and
> moderate egoism).
>
> I don't think he gave much thought to material scarcity. It just didn't
> occur to him that humanity would, within a short time from when he wrote,
> actually put the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources within the
foreseeable
> future. If he had considered it, he might have given a Heartfieldian
answer,
> that communist technology would be so good as to work a way around it.
(But
> Jim H thinks that capitalist technology is that good.) Marx also thought
> that the socialization of production would also socialize consumption, so
> that people would do a lot more sharing, and he seems to have supposed
that
> would help--which it would, of course.
>
> As to "temporal" scarcity, I think Marx really believed that a planned
> economy would be so transparent and rational that the choices about how to
> allocate our efforts would be easy and obvious, and that human effort
would
> not wasted under communism, no big deal. See his remarks on Robinson
Crusoe
> in the chapter of CI on the fetishim of commodities, where he analogizes
the
> organization of necessary production according to a rational plan by the
> associated produces with Robinson's choices, and contrasts these to the
way
> that markets make these choices mystified, operating behind the backs of
the
> producers. He understood correctly how markets do mystify, without
grasping
> that plans do too, and he did not appreciate the inherent technical
> difficulty in choice of alternative production techniques and the problems
> of large scale economic coordination.
>
> I think a lot of leftists do not even have this deep an answer to the
> question of scarcity. Many orthodox Marxists deny that scarcity is
permanent
> because they think Marx said so, and that ends the matter. Others suppose
> that socialized humanity will just want a lot less--this is the leveling
> down solution of crude communsim that Marx attacked in the Paris
> Manuscripts.
>
> --jks
>
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