Re: [Marxism] Downloading: communism is the future

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 12/19/03 9:45:18 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

>Where is this increased productivity coming from? Simply from the
intensification of labor? I don't think so. Some, yes, but much or most
is coming from a revolution in manufacturing technology. Computers +
robotics + related technologies, like imaging, are doing in
manufacturing what they have already done in fields like publishing and
banking. 

And advancing in the labs is a new generation of technology unimaginable
without micrometer-precise robotics, gigaflop computers and megapixel
imaging that will fashion objects out of plastic or composite materials.

I wish I could say that this augurs a new era of prosperity, but
actually, I think we're headed for new and even more profound economic
crisis. What the collapse of the dot-com boom showed is that despite all
the new economy mantras about the wealth being in the "intellectual
property" and in the "ideas," the law of value still holds, and the
socially necessary amount of labor time necessary to produce many
commodities is collapsing, and with it surplus value, which is the
source of profit.

In the longer term, we can begin to see the outlines of how technology
will make communist society possible.  

José


Comment

Great article as was another piece you did sometime ago on the old CD format 
still in use and the refusal of the music industry to produce high quality 
music. 

The objective basis for communism is in formation and this did not exist 
before the 1980s in a meaning way. One cannot overthrow the value system or the 
commodity form by political will, correct program or political fiat. Obviously, 
the Soviets could not have overthrown the commodity form because the commodity 
form of the social product evolves on the basis of the development of the 
means of production - the value system, and not simply the property relations 
within. 

A discussion of the commodity form unraveling becomes possible on the basis 
of the technological revolution we are living as this juncture of history. 
Since production is increasingly carried on with less and less labor, without 
creating value, such production cannot be distributed with money. 

The visible stage of the social process you described is understood by most 
people in America. The first visible stage of a social process is its second 
stage of evolution because the human eye cannot see emergence - only that which 
has emerged. 

Communism is the future and it is not an ideological category as in 
yesteryears. 

Melvin P. 

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