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Capitalism its evolution & the Communist Manifesto

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Capitalism its evolution & the Communist Manifesto
thewatcher
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Posted 11/03/09 - 06:19 PM:
quote post
#111
davidasearles wrote:


Why, because it hasn't happened yet concerning the govt. via the democratic process helping to set collective worker control enterprises?


Because certain notions (such as capitalism, property and the like) hold particular positions within the Western episteme that effectively limit our options with respect to economic reform. There is a sense in which we cannot imagine an economic system without at least some capitalist trappings (trade, property and the like). It it simply not an option for us.

In consequence, political and economic reform must be enabled by some sort of intellectual reform. Now, where this reform should (or even can) come from is something of a matter of dispute. Some might say philosophers, others (like Rorty) would say poets.


davidasearles wrote:

I don't know what it means to focus on revolution without looking at the relationship of worker to means of production. Certain Marxists recognize? Marx didn't, that I know of, focus on revolution to the exclusion of the relationship of worker to means of production.


I think you have misunderstood me. I was merely referring to the recognition that change within the current system is not possible. Indeed, this was recognized, to some degree, by Marx himself who, lest we forget, (scandalously) did not support reforms that would have improved the lives of workers because said reforms would merely postpone the revolution (by keeping said workers complacent).
davidasearles
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Posted 11/03/09 - 07:12 PM:
quote post
#112
thewatcher wrote:


Because certain notions (such as capitalism, property and the like) hold particular positions within the Western episteme that effectively limit our options with respect to economic reform.


Just like how in New Orleans years ago I saw with my own eyes a sign over a water fountain that "whites" only could use it, and that just a year ago that same city overwhelmingly voted for a black man to be president of the United States. Just like in my own lifetime my godmother who was at least 38 years old at the time and had a full time job with the federal govt. could not under state law borrow money in her own name because she was a woman. Just like how friends of mine had to have an attorney purchase property for them anonymously because they were Jewish. Just like at one time homosexuality was "the sin that dare not speak its name" and people could be arrested simply for being at a "queer" bar.

All of these things just prior to their changing were considered part of the western episteme - until they weren't.


thewatcher wrote:
There is a sense in which we cannot imagine an economic system without at least some capitalist trappings (trade, property and the like). It it simply not an option for us.


I have not suggested a system without trappings such as trade, property and the like. I have suggested merely that Congress start to set up worker collective enterprises to the extent that workers can obtain by working an amount of time products and services of basically equal labor value as the work put in. (What Marx in Capital described as a system of labor shares.)

thewatcher wrote:
In consequence, political and economic reform must be enabled by some sort of intellectual reform. Now, where this reform should (or even can) come from is something of a matter of dispute. Some might say philosophers, others (like Rorty) would say poets.


I learned this poem in Beacon High School many years ago:


Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat--nay, drink your blood?


Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?


Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?


The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge; another bears.


Sow seed,--but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,--let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,--let not the idle wear;
Forge arms,--in your defence to bear.


Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.


With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]

http://www.online-literature.com/v...69?term=men%20of%20england

thewatcher wrote:

I think you have misunderstood me. I was merely referring to the recognition that change within the current system is not possible.


What you and I give recognition to are worlds apart, apparently.

thewatcher wrote:

Indeed, this was recognized, to some degree, by Marx himself who, lest we forget, (scandalously) did not support reforms that would have improved the lives of workers because said reforms would merely postpone the revolution (by keeping said workers complacent).


I find that usually when people think they are paraphrasing Marx that somehow they can never seem to find a quotation. Do you have one?

And why would anyone care one wit if Marx in fact said something like that which you described. Does someone "recognizing" that the system cannot change mean that it cannot?

Galileo reportedly said -

"E pur si muove!

"And yet (the Earth) moves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove!


Edited by davidasearles on 11/04/09 - 03:34 AM
willem
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Posted 11/05/09 - 12:02 AM:
quote post
#113
thewatcher wrote:


What was an option for one culture is not necessarily an option for another. There are radically different intellectual, social and material circumstances at work in native american culture than in what we refer to as "Western Civilization."



Exactly. Which proves once again that what is the 'best' system is subject to change, consideration and interpretation. I should hope that this discussions moves away from 'Yey Capitalism, down with commies !' and 'No property, go away you silly redneck!' to a more sophisticated debate as to what this society needs and what a changing society might need in the future.
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davidasearles
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Posted 11/05/09 - 04:01 AM:
quote post
#114
willem wrote:



Exactly. Which proves once again that what is the 'best' system is subject to change, consideration and interpretation. I should hope that this discussions moves away from 'Yey Capitalism, down with commies !' and 'No property, go away you silly redneck!' to a more sophisticated debate as to what this society needs and what a changing society might need in the future.


and I would add to that, what positive purposeful changes this society can accomplish without at all disrupting its basic institutions.
willem
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Posted 11/05/09 - 05:30 AM:
quote post
#115
davidasearles wrote:


and I would add to that, what positive purposeful changes this society can accomplish without at all disrupting its basic institutions.



We should be able to change the system if it doesn't serve the community well enough.
Ideally, such change is planned out, forward-thinking and smooth. But humans, I suppose, would not be humans if that were a reality.
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davidasearles
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Posted 11/05/09 - 08:57 AM:
quote post
#116
I think that humans take a long time to see things smacking us right in the face. That's just a part of life. We hate to think of the consequences that such inertia brings but the only thing to to is to continue to try to overcome it.

A story about Galileo comes to mind. I don't know if it's true or not, but it seems that it could be true: In doing his experiments of falling objects he quite readily by simple experiment proved the two thousand year old conjecture by Aristotle -that objects of the same material fall at a rates proportional to their weight- flat out wrong.

But even though he demonstrated Aristotle wrong, that in fact objects of the same material (neglecting air resistance) fall at the same rate - he was unable for a period to be able to see the more general law of astounding import - that this law hold true even for objects made of different materials.

Less than 100 years before I was born the Supreme Court of the United States announced generally accepted rules that a slave freely brought into a free territory by his or her owner still remained a slave even though the stay in the free territory was for matter of years, that "Negroes" even if they were not slaves were not citizens of the United States, and that even Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories - even though this was done with the unanimous consent in the Northwest Ordinance of all of the states prior to the adoption of the constitution . Now, many many people will quickly admit that they thought that it could never be that a black person could be elected president of the United States. Things do change but we must have confidence in our own ability to effect small changes that if properly aligned shall effect changes that are large.



Edited by davidasearles on 11/05/09 - 06:41 PM
thewatcher
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Posted 11/05/09 - 11:41 AM:
quote post
#117
davidasearles wrote:

All of these things just prior to their changing were considered part of the western episteme - until they weren't.


Absurd. These things would never have changed (that is, under the law) if the possibility of their doing so were not already a part of the intellectual and social climate. You mistake legal reforms with intellectual ones and, so long as you continue to do so, you will never understand why capitalism continues to endure. shaking head


davidasearles wrote:

I have not suggested a system without trappings such as trade, property and the like. I have suggested merely that Congress start to set up worker collective enterprises to the extent that workers can obtain by working an amount of time products and services of basically equal labor value as the work put in. (What Marx in Capital described as a system of labor shares.)


Because, of course, this has not already been tried elsewhere and failed miserably. Do you truly take Marx to have only had institutional reforms in mind?


davidasearles wrote:

I learned this poem in Beacon High School many years ago:


Good for you. Poetry is important. Indeed (pace Rorty) poetry may end up being instrumental to the kind of intellectual changes that are needed. Nonetheless, might I recommend that you broaden your reading to include Foucault.




davidasearles wrote:

What you and I give recognition to are worlds apart, apparently.


On the contrary, we are both trapped (at least to some degree) in the same world. The difference being that I recognize the limits and internal structure of that world (or rather, that episteme) while you, clearly, do not.

davidasearles wrote:

And why would anyone care one wit if Marx in fact said something like that which you described. Does someone "recognizing" that the system cannot change mean that it cannot?


The recognition that the system cannot change but must be replaced altogether is precisely Marx's great insight and, indeed, is why the idea of the Revolution has such appeal. I would contend, however, that Marx was not aware, necessarily, of the precise nature of the change necessary.
davidasearles
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Posted 11/05/09 - 03:54 PM:
quote post
#118
thewatcher wrote:
Because certain notions (such as capitalism, property and the like) hold particular positions within the Western episteme that effectively limit our options with respect to economic reform.



davidasearles wrote:
Just like how in New Orleans years ago I saw with my own eyes a sign over a water fountain that "whites" only could use it, and that just a year ago that same city overwhelmingly voted for a black man to be president of the United States. Just like in my own lifetime my godmother who was at least 38 years old at the time and had a full time job with the federal govt. could not under state law borrow money in her own name because she was a woman. Just like how friends of mine had to have an attorney purchase property for them anonymously because they were Jewish. Just like at one time homosexuality was "the sin that dare not speak its name" and people could be arrested simply for being at a "queer" bar.

All of these things just prior to their changing were considered part of the western episteme - until they weren't.



thewatcher wrote:
Absurd. These things would never have changed (that is, under the law) if the possibility of their doing so were not already a part of the intellectual and social climate.


Nothing is possible until it is. There are laws of physics which we expect to be close enough to reality that we will risk our very lives on them - for instance that pieces of timber of certain material makeup, grain orientation and size when combined with other timbers in certain ways are sufficient to told up a roof over our heads even if there is 6 feet of powder snow on the roof.

But other things that we may feel to be a part of our collective knowledge (our episteme) for as long as thousands of years and longer, especially in the social field are often mere constructions based upon faulty biases and unproven conjecture.



Edited by davidasearles on 11/05/09 - 06:44 PM
davidasearles
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Posted 11/05/09 - 04:14 PM:
quote post
#119
thewatcher wrote:
There is a sense in which we cannot imagine an economic system without at least some capitalist trappings (trade, property and the like). It it simply not an option for us.



davidasearles wrote:
I have not suggested a system without trappings such as trade, property and the like. I have suggested merely that Congress start to set up worker collective enterprises to the extent that workers can obtain by working an amount of time products and services of basically equal labor value as the work put in. (What Marx in Capital described as a system of labor shares.)


thewatcher wrote:
Because, of course, this has not already been tried elsewhere and failed miserably. Do you truly take Marx to have only had institutional reforms in mind?


What Marx had in mind??

Systems of labor shares have failed previously for whatever reasons, (any citations for that?) and that simple fact if true would foreclose forever the possibility of society utilizing that idea to deal with the massive problem of unemployment, under-employment and the general insufficiency of wages?

So a system of labor shares could exist alongside of the trappings of capitalism, as you described previously, but still you offer mere conjecture as to why such a system couldn't possibly work - right up there with heavier than air objects cannot fly, I would say.



Edited by davidasearles on 11/05/09 - 06:45 PM
davidasearles
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Posted 11/05/09 - 04:31 PM:
quote post
#120
thewatcher wrote:
In consequence, political and economic reform must be enabled by some sort of intellectual reform. Now, where this reform should (or even can) come from is something of a matter of dispute. Some might say philosophers, others (like Rorty) would say poets.


And I stated that that I had learned a poem by Shelly in highschool. (from which my idea of reform came from - that the conditions described by Shelly ought not exist in a modern society.)

http://www.online-literature.com/v...69?term=men%20of%20england

thewatcher wrote:
Good for you. Poetry is important. Indeed (pace Rorty) poetry may end up being instrumental to the kind of intellectual changes that are needed. Nonetheless, might I recommend that you broaden your reading to include Foucault.


You had mentioned that ideas of reform might come from poets. I had mentioned that I had gotten my idea from Shelly - but apparently Shelly's poem didn't convey the message of the basic idea that you may ascribe to. Then even your own named poet is no longer sufficient so we go outside of poetry altogether and go apparently to a favorite writer of yours, Foucalt.

But isn't this precisely why Jello cannot be nailed to a wall?



Edited by davidasearles on 11/05/09 - 06:47 PM
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