[lbo-talk] [Marxism-Thaxis] absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

[c b]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Peggy Dobbins <pegdobbins at gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree, as a student of Marx and Engels.
>  Bucky Fuller did not understand the labor theory of value, much less its roots; He did not see humanization (prior to and including human civilization and history)as a function of the exchange of different forms of labor time,  the productivity of which develops unevenly, inevitably, inevitably creating surplus labor time.  Fuller did not see, nor do many who learned the interpretations of CAPITAL that helped organize industrial Laborers wrest a portion of the surplus value they created from private capitalists with state sanctioned right to allocate it,  that this SV -- in the epoch of global electronic trade in goods, services, and the financial commodities derived from monetizing the different forms of labor time embedded in all the different goods and services exchanged -- is the same as the Social Surplus, the allocation of which is the question.  More justice, more prosperity, more,yet inconceivable, human good, less evil.   Who dictates where the social surplus, call it capital, revenues, profits, growth or surplus value is the political question.  But where they allocate it matters more to the welfare of each next generation.   What Marx and Engels grasped conceptually, not possible to track in their time, but tracked to the nanosecond where Capital (stored labor time)  pursues the highest rate of profit, is that Surplus Value is the monetized privatized Social Surplus, we still see money changers steal:  the difference between world average labor time we add to products of same kind minus that (world ave labor time) others put into what we have to pay for to work another day.  Thinking of the global population as the human family, the common wealth really is the total labor time we add minus the labor time others put into what we consume.  Productivity, constantly reducing the labor time of others in what we must buy to "remain competitive" in the labor market, and social controls preventing prices from obfuscating  real labor values,  generated the social surplus, discussed more or less as economic world growth, that we have reached today.
>
> The task is not to go back to nature in a geodesic dome except to vacate and refresh to be about the work of human peace and justice
>
> I say 'work' to differentiate it from labor. Engels did this and so do european languages  i know (eg  oeuvre versus travail, obra versus tranbajo etc) My short hand definition of labor is 'bossed time for pay.' Being bossed is doing what another bids you do, whether you feel like it, want to, or approve, in exchange for whatever currency you need to exchange for what you use to keep on keeping on.
>
> The discipline of labor is a human good. Bucky Fuller enjoyed his work.
>
> I used to believe in the Ludens engine, that all created goods flow from play. And I still am on the side of thinking most does and increasing real freedom, free time which requires a modicum of economic security to feel free, is an absolute social good. But the discipline of labor, of forbearance and patience, of meeting the demands, expectations, needs of others as they see fit, not as I think best, of acquiring new skills and tools to do so, should not be lightly dismissed as  onerous for our species

^^^^

CB: Definitely not a Marxist-Leninist idea (smiles).  He is a sort of
indigenous American intellectual like a Chomsky of the previous
generation. Sort of an immanent cultural critique of American
bourgeois ideology; "from within" criticism.

There is a Marxist idea that freedom is leisure time, and with
developed technology, the necessary toil time per day can be vastly
reduced such that we sing in the morning and party all evening or
whatever.  I'd say Fuller's emphasis on thinking and school is a
nurdish version of fun.


>
> On Jul 13, 2012, at 9:27 AM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=382617351803729&set=a.382617281803736.92654.151145971617536&type=1&theater
>>
>> "We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody
>> has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of
>> us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the
>> rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this
>> nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this
>> false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery
>> because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his
>> right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors & people making
>> instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of
>> people should be to go back to school & think about whatever it was
>> they were thinking about before somebody came along & told them they
>> had to earn a living. - Buckminister Fuller
>>
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