Charles Brown <cdb1003 at prodigy.net> wrote:
>For 180,000 years humans were communists
>or cooperative, social, non-selfish producers, and
>obviously they survived, or we wouldn't be here.
Playing devil´s advocate (please try not to lecture me, I´m thinking aloud... think of me as that stupid nephew whom asks grown ups all the ugly questions :-P)
^^^^^ CB: OK . But I like to think of myself as the Devil's advocate (smile) Think of everything I say as decorated with smiley faces and thinking out softly. Actually, Miles Jackson has the best way to approach it. Production, including creativity and innovation is already, _in fact_ enormously social. Capitalism is much more socialized production than the ancient communal societies. It's just that capitalist appropriation is not private, does not match the sociality of production. So, the notion that hi tech computers are only possible or best produced by private enterprises is a kind of ruse a big lie, _the_ big lie in many ways ( smiley face). "Capital" itself is the product of the labor of millions of people, not a few CEO's or private entrepreneurs and geniuses. Bill Gates' actual contribution to creating computer hi technology is so over-rated and overcompensated it's unbelievable.
The USSR did have social funds that correspond to profit, derived from surplus labor. Socialist nationalization (centralization) as nationalization does not imply reduction in innovation for developing technology. It does imply said reduction of technoloigical innovation in being_socialist_ in that reduction or elimination of competition between capitalists removes the motive for constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production. But it is no socially optimum to revolutionize the instruments of production as much as the bourgeoisie do (smile)
...when I read things like these I generally agree, but then the question comes up of.... technology. high-tech. Very capital-intensive tech research and manufacturing.... (ie AMD´s $2.8 billion chip factory in Dresden -and that´s a single one). Would a socialist government nationalize the Intel and AMDs of this world? would the tech industry keep its pace of innovation as cooperatives? wouldn´t we all be still running 386s on a socialist World? it´s the race for "faster, smaller, low-power, better" cut-throat margins in the private tech sector (all due to the ultimate goal of trying to beat the competition and if possible drive them off the market) what I don´t easily envision happening in a cooperatives - nationalized - socialist environment. The workers would be a lot better paid that´s for sure if profits were distributed... but then wouldn´t the rate of re-investment of profits go down and thus the rate of innovation?. Is there any example of succesful, government-made processor?. is there any semiconductor firm operating as cooperative? why? Again, I hate to bring the subject of the USSR as a model because I think they messed up socialist ideas in many ways, but I digress... pardon my ignorance... did the USSR make their own chips or did they buy CPUs from the West? any good books to read about this? I remember reading on Byte that soviet scientists bought intel 286s from Western Europe, sneaked those and built massive parallel systems in Russia. I also remember reading recently that the West (CIA) in turn sneaked buggy software to the East to sabotage their economy. But then the question comes to mind why couldn´t them do what the Chinese are now doing of creating their own innovative and competitive (affordable products) semiconductor industry...... (of course, back then probably nobody in Government thought of this as a strategic area or that people would want or need computers...). Thoughts? Comments? Expletives? FC