Marx, Brenner, Technology (Was Re: [lbo-talk] preferences)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 17 08:47:34 PDT 2003


It's not a question of what you are advocating, but of the real effect of what you are advocating. Marx advocated a society of abundance because he thought that communism would unfetter the forces of production. Moore argues that Marx was wrong about the probable effect of eliminating markets. It was markets that unfettered those forces. Marx identifies nothing else that would increase productivity other than markets.

Your idea is that we can do OK on the detritus of capitalsit technology, but that presumes -- what -- maintenance. I Guess we'd end up in a couple generations like Cuba, cannibalizing old cars and computers for parts. But stuff wears out. Asa technological society, this would not be sustainable.

I have nothing against subsistence societies. I would not say they are "bad." I recently quoted Marshall Shalins on hunter-gathering societies as the first affluent societies. But I wouldn't want to live in one. I doubt whether most workers would either. I think especially well of modern medicine, anasthesia, antibiotics, etc.

jks

--- Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> > Moore argues that the effect on social wealth
> would be
> > drastic enough that society would not be able to
> be
> > productive enough to maintain socialism. That
> would be
> > a problem with Chuck's idea -- a primitive society
> > based on isolated communities at a low level of
> > technical development would probably have private
> > property, though not capiatlist markets -- a
> > subsistance society of petty producers.
>
> Sorry, but I'm not advocating a subsistence society.
> Even after a
> dramatic social change, we would still have a huge
> amout of current
> technology around.
>
> On the other hand, the efforts to associate me with
> wanting a return to
> a primitive society evidence plenty of Western bias
> against subsistence
> societies as being bad.
>
> Chuck0
>
> ___________________________________
>
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