SA wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > But only Marx latches on to the horror of a system
> > that operates wholly independently of human will.
>
> It's worth acknowledging that there is a counterview - that capitalism
> operates independently of human will (to the extent that it does) not
> because it's capitalism but because there's a large-scale division of
> labor. So that any society with a large-scale division of labor will
> find itself vulnerable to processes independent of human will.
And Marx thought the division of labor had to be overcome. (Kenneth Burke, a Communist for a time) comes back to this over and over again as his reason for not accepting Marx.)
SA is probably correct in some sense. The continued existnce of the division of labor in the Soviet Union was essentially Postone's reason for arguing that it too was capitalist. (I have no strong opinion on that, though I suspect that the SU was as good an mitation of socialism as was possible at the time.)
If the division of labor is unavoidable, and if SA is correct, then humanity is fucked.
Note: The "social division of labor" and the "technical division of labor" are not the same thing. And the bridge humanity has to cross is maintaining the latter while overcoming the former. And we won't know whether that is possible until a large socialist movement triumphs in several countries at least. Then and only then will the _really_ difficult struggles begin. (I think that is what Marx meant when he spoke of pre-history ending and human history beginning.)
Carrol
Carrol