Re: RE: neomercantilism, trade

[Gar Lipow <lipowg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think we are getting two definitions of "material want" confused here.
Can material want in the sense of people wanting material things they
can't have be eliminated? I would say that Marx is agnostic on this
question.

But we can eliminate material want in two other senses. One is that
everyone can have the neccesiticies of life. The other is that we can
reduce inequality at least to the point where no one is living in a
mansion while others are living in shacks. In short we don't have
material want in the sense that we want something because someone else
has it and we can't...

David Shemano wrote:
>
> Charles wrote:
>
> <<<To answer in brief, there is significant anthropological evidence that in
> hunting and gathering and gardening based societies there is not the
> distinction between rich and poor we know, for example in indigenous
> American societies. These societies did not have private property in the
> sense I mean here. Unlimited acquisativeness is not "human nature" as
> perhaps implied in one of your questions.
>
>  On the other hand, capitalism especially has increased technological
> development enormously, such that there is , well, a lot of stuff produced
> shall we say.
>
> Marx and Engels' idea was that a kind of combination of the old communalism
> with the new level of technology would mean the "lots of stuff" distributed
> without classes, without rich and poor, would mean no poverty or material
> want in the sense that we mean poverty today. Everyone would be guranteed
> all the material basics of living.
>
> This does not mean that new problems would not emerge, such as global
> warming or exhaustion of fossil fuels or issues we cannot anticipate now.
> These problems would require new efforts, discoveries and solutions, but the
> old problems of class societies would not be among the new ones.>>>
>
> -------------------
>
> I am trying to think this through.  Let me summarize my understanding of the
> discussion.  Your original argument was that the elimination of "private
> property" would eliminate "material want."  There are several assumptions
> here.  First, eliminating "private property" would result that all were
> "guaranteed the material basics of living."  The next assumption is that if
> we "guarantee the material basics of living," we will eliminate "material
> want."  I assert, to the contrary, that "material want" is relative, and
> that guaranteeing the material basics provides no assurance that
> acquisitiveness will be eliminated.  You argue that we have evidence of
> hunter-gatherer societies in which acquisitiveness is not a feature.  You
> further argue that we can wed the consciousness of a hunter-gatherer society
> to our modernized society.
>
> Do I have this right?
>
> David Shemano