Re: The labour of the bee

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK Paul, I agree with much of what you say. We are struggling over the
significance of two sentences which refer to spiders vs weavers,
architects vs bees, within the context of the whole paragraph,
in which Marx was discussing the relationship of human to animal
labour. And this is in a thread which I think started out with that theme.

Paul's comments interestingly coincided with an announcement that a scientist
claims to have recorded crows using tools on New Caledonia, twigs or
something to hook food, not dissimilar to the earliest tools of
humanoids. If confirmed, perhaps the only surprise will be that we
found it surprising.

I go along with what I think I read as one of Paul's implications that there
is a continuum of experience between human beings and animals, that human beings
are animals, and can only be understood as animals. If so I would agree. 
Perhaps we
should talk about a punctuated continuum.

But reading the whole paragraph (the second para of Chapter 7 of Capital for
late browsers), I do not see why Marx's formulas would have difficulty with 
this.

If we step aside from empricicist evidence about tool use by animals, we
know that observations record the complex interaction of a pride of lionesses
circling a prey, co-ordinating their actions, until they move in to kill.
This can only happen if each lioness has a mobile internal representation inside
her head about what is going on within each individual and the group, however
intuitive that representation may be.

Maybe Paul is wary of a trace of romanticism in my emphasis on the role
of imagination. I do not mean to deny how mindless many working class jobs
are as a result of the devision of labour. (But perhaps a full re-examination
of this requires a separate thread taking in a reappraisal of whether Marx's
earlier writings about alienation are totally incompatible with later
writings).

I am mainly concerned to bang away about the indispensible role of mental
processes in the production, distribution and exchange of the capitalist
economy, which I think easily gets overlooked in discussions, and this biases
them towards a mechanistic type of model.

Marx's sentence in this paragraph seems to me to all intents and purposes
incontrovertible:

<<<At the end of every labour process we get a result that already existed in
the imagination of the labourer at its commencement.>>>

I presume the German word is "die Phantasie". If I am wrong perhaps someone
can correct me. But this would appear to be correctly translated as
imagination. My dictionary gives the example "er hat Phantasie" as "he's got
imagination".

I think it is very contstructive to wrestle over this remarkable passage
of Marx's and I do not want to imply a dogmatic interpretation that Marx
must be right at all times, if only we understood him properly. It is just
that I think, understood sympathetically, Marx's way of looking at things
is a very robust and flexible one, and in this paragraph, does
arguably hold up quite well. What we take and what we don't as being
relevant for today, is perhaps more what we are arguing about.

Chris B
London.


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<,
From: wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Paul Cockshott)
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 23:28:39 GMT
Subject: Re: Re the labor of the bee

Chris B:
- -------

I suggest it is a vivid image and not a failure to acknowledge the
complex division of labour of an economy. The essential sense
of the whole paragraph would be preserved if the two sentences about
spiders and weavers, bees and architects, were omitted.
It is about the role of the imagination in marking  human labour
as exclusively human.

Imagination is essential to human labour.

Paul C
- ------
There is a trace of romanticism here, which inevitably follows
if you abstract from the realities of the division of labour.

If you consider the detail labour described in the sections
of capital dealing with manufacture, or described in more modern
form by Braverman, one finds that there is precious little
opportunity for imagination. Millions of people are engaged in
rote tasks which become a set of stereotyped conditioned
reflexes. Where is the imagination here, but are they not
labouring, are they not human?

On the other hand, who is to say that an ape preparing a stalk
to fish for termites does not imagine in advance what she
is going to do?

My opinion is that this passage, like much of philosophical
anthropology is just empty self praise, designed to make us
feel warm inside and glad that we are human. Its scientific
status is zero.




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