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

[Ian Hunt <ian.hunt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

Dear Paul,

The cogs of abstract models turn but without engaging anything. I agree that we can construct models- the problem is their interpretation. What rights would members of a society accept as the basis for social cooperation? I simply question whether the structure of rights characteristic of capitalism could be agreed as the basis of cooperation in a society where industry process are fully automated. I doubt that full investment of returns could the basis of a system owned by a society of human beings. In the model, you just have maximum growth of a mechanical automaton. Whose interests would that serve? If all resources are ploughed back into the growth of the productive mechanism, would the human bystanders of this process live on air?

I agree there is some mathematical interest in the models. I agree also that one could approach close to the science fiction case of an economy with only the labour of supervision. But I find it hard to conceive how the juridical (and practical) categories of a capitalist system of distribution of rights and duties, burdens and advantages of social cooperation could get any purchase in the situations envisaged. You can't just simply assume that they do. I they do not, then the model has some mathematical affinities to a model of capitalist production but it cannot be interpreted as such,

Cheers,

Ian

> I agree that it has nothing to do with
> the study of capitalism
>
> I think though that we can at a very abstract level model a
> large number of growth processes via i/o tables. These have
> an implicit maximal growth rate. As a particular example of
> an i/o system a capitalist economy has a maximal growth rate
> which corresponds to the maximum profit rate.
>
> However one could also perhaps model a commodity producing
> slave society in a similar way.
>
> Paul Cockshott
> Dept of Computing Science
> University of Glasgow
> +44 141 330 3125
> www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OPE-L on behalf of GERALD LEVY
> Sent: Wed 28/11/2007 2:14 PM
> To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L] fully automated economy and capitalism
>  
>
>
>
> Hi Paul C:
>  
> How are you defining 'profit' and the 'rate of profit' below?
>  
> If we take the  formula s/c+v  to be the rate of profit, in
> a
> fully automated economy v = 0 and this implies that s =
> 0 unless you think that c can create surplus value.
>  
> I suppose one could define 'surplus' (NB: as distinct from
> 'surplus value') in a different way,  such that it could exist
> in
> your fully automated society.  But, it would be difficult
> because in pre-capitalist (or post-capitalist) societies a surplus
> refers to an amount of the total product produced beyond the
> necessary reproductive requirements  of the direct
> producers. 
> But,   there are no direct producers in a fully automated
> society
> unless you take the robots to be the 'producers'.   [If so,
> then
> the (non-labor) costs associated with maintaining and
> reproducing the robots could be seen as 'socially necessary'
> and a pre-requisite for the reproduction of the system.]
>  
> Who would be consuming the output, you ask? Well,
> I guess that would be the human (or non-human) parasites
> who live off of the product produced by the robots,
> right?
>  
> What any of this has to do with real economies is unclear
> to me. I don't think such an abstract, ahistorical model  has
> *anything* meaningful to say about capitalism.
>  
> In solidarity, Jerry
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>  
>  
>  
> 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
>

--

Associate Professor Ian Hunt,
Dept  of Philosophy, School of Humanities,
Director, Centre for Applied Philosophy,

Flinders University of SA,
Humanities Building,
Bedford Park, SA, 5042,
Ph: (08) 8201 2054 Fax: (08) 8201 2784