[lbo-talk] Comments on Cybermarx?

[Sean Johnson Andrews]

But all of this is actually a bit narrow compared to what CyberMarx actually 
is looking at.  First, he is surveying a number of economic 
philosophies--mostly to land up saying Autonomist Marxism is the best way to 
think about the "post-industrial" age.  His version of the third way is that 
we shouldn't have faith in technology (on its own) to solve the problems we 
face, but that people could use these new technologies to make a new type of 
communism--one where there is less labor, where there is a true 
communication commons, and decentralized, democratic social planning.

Aside from the more faniciful passages, the biggest problem I have with the 
book is that, while he does a lot of parsing of different theoretical 
paradigms--dismissing a good deal of the other work out there as outdated or 
unable to account for change--his main argument makes his "alternative" 
quite contradictory.  Because while he points out the ways that capital is 
operating on a global scale, his alternative is posited as being only 
relevant to the already technology rich areas of the world.  This is not a 
tiny problem.  I don't object to an insular strategy that is only relevant 
for one area--that is probably the only way to go.  But, despite spending 
much of the first sections arguing with Bell's post-industrial society, he 
basically makes the same mistake I saw Bell making, to my mind anyway (it's 
been a while since I read it and I lost patience about halfway though and 
started skimming).  Namely, that the post-industrial thesis doesn't say 
we'll be outsourcing all of our labor: it just says that we'll overcome the 
problems of capitalism by not having to work anymore--the economy will 
simply function with less labor: we'll have progressed beyond that.

Dyer-Witheford is right (I think) to point out that this teleological 
understanding of the "stages of growth" is almost totally lifted from Marx. 
It was also the key theory of economic growth theorists (and Cold Warriors) 
like Walt Rostow.  The problems with the latter are well rehearsed (even if 
some of the benefits are now overlooked).  But the real problem with all of 
them is that they fail to see the system operating on the scale that D-W 
sees it working, that is, on a global level.  Without moving to either a 
dependency or world systems argument, it seems the both of the latter 
descriptions had at least reminded us (at a moment when this scale was 
intensifying) that if we are getting deindustrialized, it isn't because we 
are able to endogenously produce all that we need with our own "creative 
class:"  it's because someone else is industrializing and the crumbs left 
here are for people willing to make sure that we still have a portion of the 
pie. He bases this prediction off of some fragment in the Grundrisse where 
Marx predicts that the "general intellect" will ultimately be able to be 
harnessed to produce value.

All of this is basically on par with proposals I have heard that make the 
"creative economy" into a development model.  For one such model, cf: 
Shalini Venturelli "From the Information Economy to the Creative Economy." 
http://www.culturalpolicy.org/pdf/venturelli.pdf   Whatever the role of 
information assymetry in economic development, I don't think having that 
squared up is the only thing that has to be done.  Then again, I am one of 
those people who don't believe there is much truth to the idea of creating 
capital out of the circulation of capital.  I figure someone, somewhere is 
getting the shaft, either by buying an overpriced stock or currency or 
working for an exploitative wage.

D-W isn't totally unaware of these problems, but his answers remain largely 
unconvincing, retreating from the "alternative" to say that, basically, 
there is still possibility for resistance usingthe tools of technology, and 
positing (basically) a set of revolutionary intellectuals that will help 
bring this general intellect about (presumedly without a state run education 
institution).  In other words, he virtually abandons the socio-economic 
argument to focus more on the political strategic argument (not surprising 
for an autonomist) and this is basically a catalog of possible refusals and 
reversals at different moments rather than a coherent strategy.  D-W is 
probably saying much more than this that I missed and much of his 
intellectual engagement with other social and economic theorists is 
interesting, but, for all its paeans to global capitalism, it remains pretty 
parochial.   Again, as a sort of starting strategy for a particular locale 
the problem with it is that it denies the material interconnection on which 
it would necessarily rely and says little about changing those external 
relations except in terms of dispersing knowledge.  Judging from the 
fierceness that IPR is being defended, this is obviously important, but you 
still can't eat a patent.

-s




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dwayne Monroe" <idoru345 at yahoo.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 2:48 PM
Subject: [lbo-talk] Comments on Cybermarx?


> Doug:
>
> In other words, it's not a model for running a real
> economy, but for free-riding off a money economy
> financed by others?
>
> =================
>
>
>
> People who insist that Open Source and other
> non-balkanized methods of production and distribution
> are models for how the present muck-up can be replaced
> are mistaken in my view.
>
> It would be more accurate to say that OSS makes the
> process of producing, obtaining and modifying software
> less onerous *within* the existing cage (to paraphrase
> Simone Weil, it's like having a cell with lovely
> accommodations).
>
>
> On the other hand, I think "free riding" is a bit off
> the scanner inasmuch as the money economy always
> absorbs and benefits from these activities, shouting
> to the contrary notwithstanding (note IBM's embrace of
> OSS as a countermeasure against MSFT - an action Sun
> Micro has recently mimicked).
>
>
> .d.
>
>
>
> --------- 
>
> http://monroelab.net/blog/index.html
>
> <<<<<>>>>>
>
> I'm sending the two of you to hell to take more lessons from your dead 
> teacher!
>
> White Lotus Chief Bai Mei
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>