Sean:
>Your claim, for instance, that there was some 2-300
year boom in production that can be attributed mostly to capitalism
fails because its two variables--purported political economic system
and technological change--don't exist in isolation or even in any
purity. on the purported economic system, of course, there is the
question of whether the capitalist system was really all that
capitalist--or if the gains were actually innovations (instead of
skimming surplus in a variety of creative ways) or if those
innovations were solely the result of increased competition (the
scientific revolution is not the same thing as capitalism, despite
what boosters for the latter would have us believe).
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It is precisely because 'economic' systems and technological change
"don't exist in isolation or even in any purity" that the two can't be
parceled out with one into separate causes. You can't seal off
capitalist pressures and competition from the motives of technological
change. It is all with in the same social system. Hence why I and
others use social relations instead of saying things like political
economic systems. There is not capitalism over there and
technological change over there. The technological changes that came
during the capitalist era of social relations happened in capitalist
social relations. Again, I have no idea how you parcel out how much
capitalism did or didn't influence those changes, other then by mental
abstraction and a lot of reduction of complex interactions.
Sean:
> I'm saying that it is not a linear relationship by any means and you
are making a far too simplistic conclusion based on a set of
corresponding variables that does not necessarily produce the things
you say it will produce. Technological change occurred for thousands
of years before capitalism, we just convientently forget that this was
and is the case--and in recent years some of the more important
changes have been the result of appropriating knowledge produced in
this way (i.e. biopiracy) because capitalism's profit motives don't
always work in the way you seem to assume they do. Social relations
of capitalism (especially those of monopoly capitalism) often actually
mitigate against innovation; and as Michael Perelman has discussed in
many places, it is a complete misrepresentation of history to leave
out the state as a major funder of basic science and technological
research. In other words, some of the greatest innovations have
happened in non-profit seeking situations
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I am not saying that it will always produce what it did. Just that it
did. Technological change did occur before capitalism, just not at
the same pace. You can either attribute that speed up to capitalism
or to some separate entity called technology. I have no idea how one
would even do the latter. Do you really think that "some of the more
important changes have been the result of appropriating knowledge
produced" by biopiracy? Sure there has been some innovations through
biopiracy, not many, but how do you separate this piracy from the
capitalist drive to innovate? Again, how does one separate an
innovation in science or in a means to extract technologies from
capitalist social relations? You seem to be assuming that there are
discrete social systems that have not been impacted by other discrete
societies or by capitalism. That is not the case and has never been,
read Eric Wolf. I never said capitalist profit motives only produce
positive effects. State innovations are not outside capitalism or are
not non-profit seeking. Here again you are trying to separate
sections of society out from each other and the impacts of capitalism.
This only works in your head, in abstractions from reality.
Sean:
>You are idealizing (along
with Brenner) a fairly complex set of relationships that in many ways
feeds directly into the defense of these kind of exploitative
relationships--themselves, full stop--without any clear need to
investigate whether, in any given case, the correlation between
capitalism and innovation actually exists--or, as Alan insinuated
(IIRC) if the capitalist definition of innovation is truly an
innovation.
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No, saying that capitalism has produced innovation is not to defend
the exploitative relationships! Nor does questioning the capitalist
definition of innovation mean that it hasn't produced actual good.
That simply is not true and if it were then Marx, Lenin and many
others would be guilty of the same. I would say that you are reducing
complex systems into a 'everything in capitalism is bad, see how it is
impacting these pristine areas of society' argument that fails to
distinguish between the positive attributes of capitalism from its
exploitative nature and is based on a false pure view of things you
see as outside capitalism. This leads nowhere but reactionary
romaticization of the past. Good luck getting people on board that
type of project, other than the most conservative folks.
Sean:
>But even Brenner and Wood are clearly saying that it is the state and
the law that help to shift those relations--social property relations
aren't effective without a state, at some level, to defend them. And
whatever Wood's earlier proto-rat-choice positions might have been,
her more recent positions in Origins of Capitalism and Empire of
Capital are clearly positioned more in the vein that Doug has sort of
insinuated here, namely that there is a sense that the promise of
emancipation doesn't lie in the Scottish enlightenment but the French
Revolution--that whatever the claims to capitalism to produce more
stuff for everyone, this is only valid if that extra stuff is actually
distributed more equitably.
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I have no idea what you are talking about. I said the exact thing you
are arguing against me with. The point is precisely your last one
though the point is how to get to this more equitable distribution,
not returning to the past or denying the actual increase in
*potential* living standards.
Sean:
>you're conflating capitalism with science which is just
ridiculous. And in the current moment, the use of science to merely
further capitalism, rather than actually increase the long term
sustainability of the planet seems to fly in the face of this
conflation rather well.
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Which one is it- are capitalism and science discrete social processes
which would mean that science could advance despite the drives of
capitalism, or are they internally related which produced the drive
away from what is best for the planet by science because of
capitalism? You are trying to have it both ways: capitalism is evil
and corrupts and influences all and capitalism is not responsible for
the good things. To accept that capitalism produced good is not to
validate or apologize for the bad. Likewise, to say capitalism has
produced social ills does not mean that therefore every aspect of
capitalism is bad and it cannot be responsible for any sort of good.
Your moralizing and letting this influence your analysis.
Sean:
> I can't quite get
my head around how people in the slums should thank capitalism for
destroying their livelihood and sending them to the slums, but I guess
it takes a perverse kind of first world paternalism to see this as an
unmitigated gain for them.
and:
>You seem to see this as a benign systemic process
that we should simply accept as inevitably innovative and cheery. I
say bullshit.
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Who said they should? Who said it was an unmitigated gain for them?
Who said it is a benign systemic process that we should simply accept
as inevitable innovative and cheery? That's just misrepresenting what
I have said. And I say bullshit.
Brad