[lbo-talk] IT innovation and "the Markets"

[Mark Bennett]

And wasn't much of this innovation (flying autos, notwithstanding) actually
achieved under the Soviet regime?  For instance, Soviet war-time production
and innovation, among other things, was pretty goddamn impressive: the T-34
and Il-2 were the best and most important weapons of their kind; designed,
tested, and produced under incredible circumstances.  Sure the Manhattan
Project was a wonder, but as we know now, it didn't do much to end the war.
And the Soviet space program was pretty cool, too, among other things.  So
much of capitalist innovation seems like so much widow dressing: I mean, who
really needs a Blackberry?  I've had two and they were just a pain in the
ass; clients sending me emails at 1:00 a.m and waking me up because I forgot
to the fucking thing off, that kind of thing. I've gone back to an ordinary,
old-fashioned Motorola flip phone, and haven't missed an important message
yet.

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:


>
>
> I would like to point out that the increased rate of change that would
> supposedly be achieved under socialism/communism was in fact a major
> motivation of the Bolsheviks. Hasn't anybody ever read any of that early
> Societ science fiction about how under Communism everybody will have a
> flying car and live for hundreds of years?
> http://www.sovlit.com/space.html
>
> --- On Tue, 3/3/09, Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> >
> > The point is that while it's undeniable the push, push,
> > push of change
> > we experience under capitalism is something we'd be
> > better off
> > without, the problem with this speedup is not it's
> > velocity, but
> > rather, that it's in service to profit enhancement and
> > not other,
> > larger issues.
> >
> >
> > I have similar arguments with back-to-simplicity ecologists
> > who fail
> > to understand that the way technology is deployed under
> > capitalism is
> > not the only available method.  They mistake the machine
> > (broadly
> > defined) for the abuse; remaining blind to the hand at the
> > controls.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > .d.
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
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