[PEN-L:28659] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Drudgery

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 7/27/02 6:07:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time, jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:


> >
> >How about nuclear engineers? Hospital surgeons and administrators? College
> >professors? You think any
> >of those groups currently want democratization of their expertise and
> >accountability if it means a
> >diminution of the scale and scope of their power? Just how much difference
> >would there be in their
> >responses to encroachment on their realm of expertise from the responses of
> >the small business
> >person who says don't tell me how to run my shop?
> >
>
> Why would be a such a great idea to have the demos tell college professors
> how to run their shop? In most of this country, that would result in the
> shut-down of biological departments, except for ag depts, the conversion of
> most philosophy depts into bastions of conservative Christian
> fundamentalism, etc. All the remaining socialists would be fired at once.
> For that matter, what does the demos know about surgery? Would you want to
> be operated on by medical professionals who were accountable, in doing their
> job, to anything but their expertise? Likewise, if I may say so, with us
> legal professionals. Would you want my considered legal judgment, given as
> best as I can give it, or my judgment as informed and limited by what a
> bunch of people who know no law nor how the legal system works nor anything
> much except that they don't like lawyers because we are all greeedy rich
> crooks?
>
> In my typical, class-blinkered, petty bourgeois manner, I am a real fan of
> expertise. Democracy has its place, but not in micro-managing the use of
> real expertise by real experts. There are skills that require long study and
> constant application to master, and where the opinion of the populace has no
> damn role, except indirectly in setting general ethical standards and rules
> and regulations embodied in law. Don't tell me how to manage my shop.
>
> jks (proud advocate of a  nation of shopkeepers)



Pardon my previous comment. It was unwarranted and added nothing to the discussion. It is I that should try comedy considering my hundreds of assertions.  

Within my understanding of Marx theoretical propositions, the general category of the discussion fall under what is called the antithesis between mental and physical labor, with emphasis on general category. It is - in my opinion, not petty bourgeois by any stretch of the imagination to respect expertise.

Skill development and attaining expert level in any category requires immense effort and personal commitment. It is true that a certain disdain is manifested towards experts, engineers and technicians. Some of this has to do with property relations, privileges - real and perceived and money compensation.

I most certainly would want the best engineers and technicians to design my car and the best assemblers, machinist and skilled workers to insure its quality. The issue calls to mind the old Lysenko controversy in Soviet biology, where being "Red" and politically dependable carried more weight and prestige than the results of empirical science.

The essential distinction between mental and physical labor can be lessened with changes in property relations, or rather the antagonism this distinction assumes in daily life can be abolished, but not all distinctions. Distinction will remain and generate social strife. Distinctions in the last instance are based on general and individual cultural and educational factors on the one hand and the specific character of different spheres of work on the other hand.

Democratizing knowledge and access to information in no way can mean a group of "industrial proletarians" trying to run a biochemical lab or dictating how experts engage that which makes them expert. Rather democracy - democratizing a strata's expertise, means access to that which allows the individual to become expert and of course the general ethical considerations you point out. The access to knowledge should not be bonded by money and driven by capital accumulation considerations.

Actually, I read 99% of all post to Pen-L for expert opinion and currently follows the discussion of the "shorter's" of the market closely. Marx cannot help me get some of my dough back. Because I believe that the stock markets have not bottomed out I have every intention of going "short" in the next few months.  The theory of value and knowing how to run complex machinery will not help me get my loot back, but expert opinion can help gauge the market.

It is my contention that the profit motive enforces antagonism as a form of social strife - contradiction, between mental and physical labor and various branches of knowledge. The antagonism can be lessened and removed but not the contradiction.

Melvin P.