tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18648436.post7495119967542399126..comments2024-03-29T13:52:13.860+00:00Comments on Wading Through Treacle: Marx: "Right about capitalism, wrong about socialism"Nigel Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14407392760306614271noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18648436.post-48953612517296629612017-10-30T17:16:18.748+00:002017-10-30T17:16:18.748+00:00You could be right that production at the largest ...You could be right that production at the largest scale is just resistant to total automation, in which case I guess capitalism just keeps on self-reproducing. But since the pressure will always be to innovate and cut costs, I suspect the march of automation is actually inexorable.Nigel Seelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17960803873815821524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18648436.post-40265760011990639422017-10-30T17:12:25.493+00:002017-10-30T17:12:25.493+00:00Both the Foley papers referenced are interesting t...Both the Foley papers referenced are interesting to read as an account of the history of attempts to mathematically model post-capitalist economies.<br /><br />On your substantive point, economic activities at the largest scale may involve marshalling large numbers of people but it's not obvious this requires *capitalist* organisation. Counterexamples might include mass political parties and mass-membership churches.<br /><br />If the commanding heights of the economy are run as capitalist enterprises, i.e. production is for capital accumulation, not for use-values per se - then the economy is just capitalist, not socialist.Nigel Seelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17960803873815821524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18648436.post-10868910067484902372017-10-30T16:32:38.968+00:002017-10-30T16:32:38.968+00:00" ... only when it has created sufficient cog..." ... only when it has created sufficient cognitive-robotic automation to essentially displace the proletariat from production ..."<br /><br />There is undoubtedly a lot to this point, but I still havent stopped thinking about that Magic Box. This AI future may also involved assumptions about physics. More specifically, it is imaginable that "workers" get displaced from smaller scale enterprises, but they are always needed in larger and larger scale projects. Alternatively that "Total Automation" always has limits in what it can achieve. In prosaic terms the Capitalists always control the Energy supplies, build the larger airliners and spaceships - Dyson sphere production is always demanding more workers. So Capitalists are never wholly replaced just disappear into the management of the Corporation(s).<br />On a smaller complexity and size scale though, our Magic Boxes might remove entire swathes of Industry and corresponding Capitalists.<br /><br />This would make the automated future a "Global Corporation" one, rather than than a non-Capitalist one per se.<br />Royhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17844610890344836500noreply@blogger.com