Re: RE: RE: Productive Forces

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 2/28/2002 10:06:01 AM Central Standard Time, jdevine@xxxxxxx writes:


> I wrote: >>How do we measure the "productive forces," anyway?<<
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> Miyachi writes: >We measure productive force by quantity and value of commodities produced. It all. you forget always object people act on. labor productivity itself can't be measured without commodity workers product. An price of commodity is money-form of commodity value, it often hide real value of commodity.<
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> I don't quite get this. Are you saying that productive forces can only be measured in commodity-producing society? If so, I'd agree. This suggests that folks such as G.A. Cohen who see history as a long process of the increase in the "forces of production" (pushed by an assumed human drive to increase such forces) is limited to only those modes of production that produce commodities - mostly, capitalism. Of course, that goes against Cohen's pretensions, which is to present a "theory of history" (which he presents as belonging to Marx) !
> which applies to all modes of production. 
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> It also means that "productive forces" aren't always a good thing (a sign of "progress"), since producing more commodities (exchange-value) isn't the same thing as producing more use-value. 
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> Eric N. writes: >I would go further. It could be argued that no "objective" measure of the level of productive forces can exist. Presumably a productive force is considered productive because it leads to some good or service that people want and/or need. But, as Smith and Marx recognized, wants and needs are (partly) socially/historically determined.... <
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> I agree. 
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> Melvin P. writes: >My measure of the productive forces would be based on the application of advancing technology that complete the quantitative stages in the development of the infrastructure. 
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> >Such a measurement was not possible for me, as a specific quantitative measurement of the industrial infrastructure, with revolutionary significance, until a new qualitative development in technology occurred...<
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> I don't understand this. Are you saying that nowadays that use-values can be quantified, so that use-value productivity (use-value per unit of labor input) can be compared over time and between goods or services produced?
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> Jim Devine


Yes, use value can be quantified or counted in detail or measured. 

I took - perhaps unjustly and incorrectly, liberty with the question  "How do we measure the productive forces, anyway?" and reinterpreted it to mean "who do we measure the growth of the productive forces in society, because as historical assertion productive forces evolve?"  If this is not the meaning of the question then there is no measurement other than society at a certain period of history produced "X" amount of material services - use-values, for itself, without a previously existing amount of "material services." 

I don't suggest that weight has weight or one can ascertain the heaviness of heavy. Therefore the measurement of productive forces is capacity. 

I understand the word "productive forces" to mean and embrace man - human beings and instruments and nature or those things man finds in his environment, used in the production of material values or as you state use-values.  From this standpoint point a measurement can be made of an existing magnitude of material services - use values, compared with a preexisting magnitude of services or use values. 

What I isolated for examination and quantified that reveals a qualitative enhancement of the tools and instruments man use in his environment to produce material services - use value, is not the magnitude of commodities but the specific technology being used today as distinct from 100 years ago, that creates the greater magnitude of use values. The production of a greater magnitude of material services - use values, than previous contain certain features that reveals a "logic" or path of development in the tools as distinct from the environment. In as much as use-values and then commodity production arose before the advent of commodity production on the basis of capitalist appropriation, my specific measurement of the productive forces is a combination of tools and energy that express itself in an increased magnitude.  

At each stage of human society energy and tools and their usage delineates why a previously existing magnitude of use-values has been enlarged. The sum totally of all of these tools - instruments of production and man is inseparable from his tools, constitutes the infrastructure of a given society.

Tools and man is the critical ingredient in the productive forces undergoing quantitative and qualitative changes thousands of years before the advent of commodity production on the basis of capitalist appropriation. The plow as opposed to fire or the transition from the hoe to the plow - in my estimate, was a technological revolution that created the productive forces as an infrastructure transforming a collective of humans into society. I do not claim that the plow created division of labor in human community but that society emerges on the basis of the outline of the infrastructure and experienced quantitative development and enhancement. 

The path of development from the wooden plow to the wooden plow with a steel tip and metal fixtures and bolts to a steel plow increased the productivity of labor, which is measurable by an increase in the yield of use-vales or the decrease in the amount of human energy used to drive the plow. Attaching the plow to the oxen is the use of another energy source. 

The greater increase in the magnitude of material services - use value, always indicates quiet changes in the productive forces, which contain boundaries - quantitative configuration, that at a certain point constitute a further qualitative development in technology and energy.  There is an absolute limit to the development of the productive forces, resulting in stagnation outside of tool development and increasing usage of energy. 

How do we measure the productive forces at any given period of time? On the basis of the tools and energy source that produce a magnitude of material services - use values. This measurement is not a measurement outside of comparison with a previously existing magnitude of use values. 

The use of the most elementary lever in society on a mass scale is a quantitative development in the use of energy. Utilizing ten men to accomplish a task as opposed to two men is an increase in the human understanding of energy as a productive force. How we measure this development backwards, that is from the dawn of man to the emergence of society to the production of use-values to the production of commodities contains boundaries that indicates a quantitative and qualitative enhancement of tools and energy usage and consequently a greater magnitude of "use-value." 

The transition from one mode of production to another, as distinct from isolating the mode of appropriation of the social product, takes place on the basis of the qualitative development of the productive forces. Something new that represents a qualitative development in production and its resultant association among human beings must come into existence. Under feudal landed property relations there developed a new growing system of production amongst scattered producers. This growing mass of people engaged in scattered production of material values, as distinct from agriculture work as the primary life function represented the evolution of the productive forces in society and consequently an increase in the magnitude of production of commodities. The boundary of this development can be delineated on the basis of man plus tools plus energy usage. 

In examining what is taking place in society today, I have come to the conclusion that we are in transition to a new mode of production, based on the qualitative development of tools - electronic digital production and the emergence of a new energy source is the "form" - at this point in time, of fuel cell energy as distinct from fossil fuel. This most certainly - in my opinion, is the driving force creating a greater production in the magnitude of commodities, than a previously existing amount of labor and tools, but also a transition from one mode of production to another. 

This increase in the productive forces, measurable and expressing itself as an increase in the amount of commodities is not simply the result of increasing the intensity of human energy applied in the production process. 

"My measure of the productive forces would be based on the application of advancing technology that complete the quantitative stages in the development of the infrastructure," 

means that a new qualitative development in the production process combined with a new emerging energy source defines all the quantitative boundaries of the infrastructure in every mode of production or measurement as transition of capacity based on a new development. 

The productive forces are in my opinion measurable on the basis of the configuration of the tools and energy source that drive the creation of ever increasing magnitudes of material services - use values, which in turn describes (generally speaking) how people are organized to use a specific development of the aforementioned. Our current state of development of the productive forces is measurable and definable on the basis of the emergence of a qualitatively new method of production.

The emergence of electronic-digital processes as distinct from electro-mechanico process is revolutionary in its enhancement of the capacity of labor. This is measurable in increased capacity of labor. Intel's 4004 chip in the early 1980s) I think it was the 4004) destroyed the slide rule and mechanical adding machine as the primary accounting instruments in every accounting department in every business in the world. Very few cars are hand painted in mass production and at a certain point in the development of the productive forces, the sum total of new qualitative features in the productive forces set the base for the transition to a new mode of production and you know you have completed all the quantitative expansion "possible" under the existing infrastructure, only after the new qualitative feature has arisen that reconfigure the infrastructure. You don't know "exactly where you are at "until the new quality arises that defines the boundary. 

The productive forces can be objectively measured by anyone on the basis of their previous capacity. Our current pace of development can be measured in ten year increments based on how much labor goes into the production of "X" amount of use-values today compared with a previously existing magnitude of the same use-values. The productive forces are measurable in term of capacity or growth i.e., materially countable products. Use value can be quantified in their mode of _expression_ as commodities. Increase in magnitude of commodities today, means an increase in use-values because of commodity form of value. 

Other factors enter into the equation like restricting technology implementation because of lack of profitability and wars that destroy productive forces. 


Melvin P.