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

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Sep 17 09:09:56 PDT 2003


andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >
> Now, does that mean that technical change would slow
> under socialism? Depends in part on whether the
> socialism is a market socialism. The one I advocate
> would be. In that case the incentives for technical
> change would remain ins ome ways similar to what they
> are under capitalism. That is why most of you reject
> market socialism.

I'm not going to debate market socialism, but I think the general issue of market socialism can be bracketed in a discussion of this particular point. Whatever the social system is, I would argue that a central goal must be, precisely, slowing up technological change (or any other kind, for that matter).

A clarification. My objection to change has nothing to do with avoiding disruption of "The Plan." There will always be plenty of disruption under all circumstances. But assuming that market socialism is both reachable and tenable, I would think that controlling (i.e., slowing up) change would be central to its survival.

The dogma of the "goodness of change" seems to be almost universally accepted as an obvious truth. It is not at all obvious to me.

One correction:


> The hand mill gives you the feudal lord,
> the steam mill the industrial capitalist, the
> microchip . . .

This was simply false. Feudalism required the _elimination_ of the hand mill, since the whole system resided, to some extent, on the necessity for the peasant to bring his grain to the lord's mill to have it ground. French lords had their thugs, er, retainers, go from peasant home to peasant home smashing the hand mills.

And, of course, it would be more correct to say that the "industrial capitalist gave us the steam mill." I believe the steam engine was invented the first time around 200 c.e., but was only used to open temple doors at one particular place.

And while Jim Blaut, et al were terribly wrong about Brenner, their error was / is a theoretical misunderstanding of capitalism. If one abstracts from that error, then the evidence they accumulate about the productivity of pre-capitalist social orders (which they mistake for capitalism) is strongly suggestive that capitalism was _not_ necessarily a precondition for much of what we call modernism. After all, there _was_ tremendous technological development between 10,000 BP and 1500 c.e. -- it just didn't come with the breakneck and destructive force of the last half millenium.

What is the total number of annual infant deaths worldwide at the present time?

How many people under 30 die each year today, after having lived short brutish lives?

Would you rather sleep on a sidewalk during a blizzard or sleep in a cave? Of course one would prefer neither. Does anyone on the list have access to any estimates of the total number of homeless in northern cities around the globe?

It's truly wonderful that we have today very simple and foolproof treatments for dehydration due to diarrhea. That certainly is an advantage we have over the past. How many children die each year from dehydration around the world? How would that compare with the infant and children deathrate among Athenian peasants of the 5th and 4th centuries b.c.e.?

Carrol



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