Re: [OPE-L] fully automated economy and capitalism

[Paul Cockshott <wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree that without wage labour you could not speak of capitalism in the normal sense, but

That does not follow that all prices would be zero, since the firms might still be

Aiming to maximise profit.

 

More unclear would be who or what was consuming the output?

 

One could assume all was reinvested and the rate of profit would then the the rate of growth as analyzed by von Neumann

 

From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of GERALD LEVY
Sent: 28 November 2007 12:20
To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OPE-L] fully automated economy and capitalism

 

>. Firms are abstract
> juridical subjects able to buy and exchange commodities one
> with another. As such firms could in principle be entirely
> automated, and could appropriate their own profit. One
> can envisage a science fiction world run entirely by robots
> in which private property relations persist and capitalist
> firms are run by management computers.
 
 
Hi Paul C:
 
Yes, it is possible - as an exercise in  science fiction - to
envision a fully automated economy where robots produce
robots.  Without *capitalist social relations of production*
- and that includes wage-labour - then it would not be a
*capitalist* social formation. 
 
In solidarity, Jerry