Re: [A-List] Re: Return to an old standard

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

On labor and technology, I would think that the labor eliminating technology started not with robotics, etc. but with the Industrial Revolution. That point marked the change from craftsman to wage earner, from barter to a pre-fiat environment. The capital that technological change demanded fostered an environment that led to fiat. I think monetary history will support this thesis.

Gary


I welcome your political honesty and strength of conviction to express your belief and feelings. I think I am owed the award for getting highly emotional in my writing at the most inopportune times. 

American hegemony or American imperialism or what is called American dominated "globalism" and its opponents "the anti-globalism movement" is a subject everyone in America thinks about on one level or another. I am not opposed to America having a global role. Big productive countries impact historical currents - history-changing events, more than little countries and all of history proves this. 

America's global impact could not be changed if it was possible for every person on earth to vote and this dictated the affairs of the world. Most people on earth would not say, " let's divide the pie into equal slices and give everyone equal authority over everything" - with the exception of the codified anarchist.  With the anarchist - bless their souls, everyone becomes a little bitty state power on to himself, when most people believe that there are bad people and governments on earth that merit watching. Rather what would be said by the world peoples is that "I think America could be more responsible if she did, this that and the other." 

Now if we could implement what the world people thought, using a vast interactive computerized technology that register votes and voice, we would end up with something that nobody wanted, but everyone desired. As the saying goes, "a camel is a horse built by committee." 

The rub is that being the most imperial of all imperial power implies an awesome responsibility to do good or what is right. Good and "right" is determined by what it is possible to do at a given point in history. The world contradiction is not "if I desire Iraq to be the dominated power on earth instead of America." The world contradiction is not Iraq possession of weapons of mass destruction versus America's imperial authority. The world contradiction is not American styled democracy versus others. 

I am a Marxist but this does not say very much. It is like saying one is a Democrat. There are a thousand and one different shades of being Democrat or Republican. I also believe in communism but this does not say very much either. I have written articles supporting Stalin but this does not mean I try and justify everything Stalin the man was responsible for under his rule. Hell, I like the main attributes of Jeffersonian democracy but have profound feeling about him being a slaveholder; after all I am African American black. Heck, I think the American Constitution is one of the greatest documents every written by man, but this document when it was written gave my family and me as generations nothing but misery. Let's face it the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and blacks were shot for trying to vote. 

My point is that the A-List is extreme controversy and tries to dig under the way things appear and try to disclose why things appear as they do and the underlying causes. 

I can state confidently that before man can debate ideology, politics, morality, freedom, political structures, ethics and the price of tea, he must eat and have shelter in order to debate what is taking place in the life of society and with man. The world has always been hungry and lacking shelter but today something different exist in a technology that makes the unattainable food, shelter and clothing possible for the first time in human history. To this I must add education, transportation, literature, musical concerts, high culture and ticket to see Daredevil (yes I did Spiderman and Minority Report). 

Here is one of my points. The Industrial Revolution as a social process did not eliminate labor. It amalgamated labor under one roof and introduced labor enhancing devices. Social process means the societal platform on which people are organized to secure food, shelter, clothing and other needs. From the standpoint of agricultural society, manufacture and then industry created a society of workers or people who had no other means to live except by the sale of their labor power. Whether this labor power was sold to an individual, a company or corporation, or as in the old Soviet Union, the state is immaterial. 


The problem on the level of theory is the difference between a laborer under agricultural relations working to produce the things for immediate consumption by the family and a laborers who produces items to be consumed by someone else and in exchange for these items he is paid a wage that allows him to consume the things he don't produce as the basis for his existence. The Industrial Revolution enhanced the value of labor power and the power of labor. And then something else starts happening and the process of machine development starts to break down the components of the laboring process - little by little, and then begins to destroy the value of labor by replacing labor itself. The Industrial Revolution is another period of time with a unique qualitative signature.  

Today - 2003, we have entered a new period of human history where labor is being absolutely replaced. Check out the movie "Minority Report" and the scenes with Tom Cruise in the automobile plant that is being run without people. Talk about hurt feelings, I worked for Chrysler 30 years as a blue-collar - assembly line or production, worker.  In Minority Report, advance technology replaced the people but the problem is "what do people do to get the money to engage in exchange?" The only people working are those paid by the state. Tom Cruise character is the police - a state agent, or a man on welfare. OK, everyone see this work situation different, but for my money if you are paid by the state and it is not social security for working your ass off for a life time it is welfare. This is another story for later about the totality of the welfare state.  

Although I saw the movie when it opened- without the wife, and later borrowed the DVD from my poker buddy - I think loaning books and DVD's is against the law but no longer care, this is what laboring eliminating devices means. The Industrial Revolution converted humanity into workers or as we Marxist call it proletarians.  

Proletarians are those individuals in society who have no means of existence except by the sale of their labor power. Enough said for now.  

Melvin P. 

PS

When the wife saw Minority Report she freaked and loved it. I had funny feelings about this because I did not know if she was just looking at the square jaw Tom Cruise mutherfucker or checking out the movie. Plus, it I had known that she would like this flick, I would have taken her to the show and maybe got lucky a lot more often. The again, she like Steven Segal. 

Damn, how do you figure that?