Ask a red

[Munch]

Dont forget, this is a political, not just an economic issue. If robots made billion unemployed, it would lead to revolutions, and not many politicians are interested in those. Personally, I think there will always be work for most people, but what is considered menial work will become progressively more and more complex. Just think, menial workers now include people who have to use highly sophisticated equpiptment, and it certaintly didnt 200 years ago. the 'menial worker' of the future will probably have skills far beyond the workers of today.

the robots might not directly need us but the mechanics/engineers/scientists always will.

Hmm, interesting points, particularly the increasing complexity of 'menial' tasks.

 

[RedRalph]

Hmm, interesting points, particularly the increasing complexity of 'menial' tasks.

Some, but not all will. However, this is really getting more into futurology than Marxism. But Marx could never have imagined the technology of today.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Personally I'm all for it. We're not Luddites you know

I'm fairly skeptical of technology, myself.

 

[Munch]

However, this is really getting more into futurology than Marxism.

I wasn't intending this to be a thread derailment, I am still interested in whether there is anything particular to be said from a communist position about the supplanting of manual labour by machines.

 

[RedRalph]

I'm fairly skeptical of technology, myself.

Nah, it's great. Unless it becomes sentient and attacks us in a huge, bloody war. thats not going to hqappen, is it?

I wasn't intending this to be a thread derailment, I am still interested in whether there is anything particular to be said from a communist position about the supplanting of manual labour by machines.

Fair enough, FWIW, I have never heard any Marxist views on this myself, and it does make an interesting question.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Nah, it's great. Unless it becomes sentient and attacks us in a huge, bloody war. thats not going to hqappen, is it?

At the risk of sounding slightly paranoid, you won't know until its too late. I trust humans more than machines, because the human mind is so much more complex than a computer is. And I don't like that we are becoming dependent on them to make and do things that humans should know how to do and make. And the increase in complication means people have to rely both on other computers and on the people who own them for help. One example is the computers that are now in cars: its so effing complicated under the hood on newer cars that you can't do a whole lot to fix a problem there yourself: you HAVE to take it to the dealer, who has the special equipment to understand what the problem is and how to solve it. Then you have to pay him for it. I'd rather be able to solve it myself and tinker with the machine as I wish.

 

[West 36]

Automating unskilled labor would decrease the amount of work some would have to do while still creating some, if not more, wealth, and since we're talking leftism we can suppose that it's collectively owned and so the benefits of that wealth could be passed on the the community.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

A question for Luce:

You seem to have a particular bite against Trotsky and particularly the Fourth International; may I ask why?

 

[RedRalph]

Automating unskilled labor would decrease the amount of work some would have to do while still creating some, if not more, wealth, and since we're talking leftism we can suppose that it's collectively owned and so the benefits of that wealth could be passed on the the community.

Well, yeah this raises a good point, if the machines were collectively owned then the benefit would be spread evenlly in as much as that would be possible

 

[Huayna Capac357]

A question for Luce:

You seem to have a particular bite against Trotsky and particularly the Fourth International; may I ask why?

Speaking of that, what did Trotsky believe and what are Internationals?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The Fourth International is an international communist organization formed by followers of Trotsky that regards both Stalinism and Maoism as illegitimate methods of attaining communism. I suspect that Luce's objection to them comes from what has become a common misinterpretation of Stalinism and the Stalinist Era, though I think their problems with Stalinism arise from the NKVD and the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet Union beginning in 1928. I admit that I agree with much of what FI stands for, which is why I am so confused why Luce regards them with animosity, if not outright hostility.

 

[Richard Cribb]

I don't have neither the time nor the health to post something today, but will do my best to catch up the coming days.
Until then I want to draw your atention to the following article I just discovered, which apart from being worth reading on its own merit at least partly addresses Cheezy's last question:http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/left-anticommunism/
BTW, if there is interest for it, I will continue posting links and articles about topics relevant to this thread.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

That was a great read. It answers part of my question, yes. However, the main criticism of Trotsky in the article was that he favored further decentralization to compliment the NEP, which would not have yielded the extraordinary industrialization that Stalin did with his Five-Year Plans. However, it was the World War that closely followed those Plans that put the need for that buildup, and the extraordinary measures taken to achieve it, in context. Had the Soviet Union not been invaded in that war, the expediency claimed by Stalin that justified his measures would have been discredited, and perhaps Trotsky's system would have been better. The article surely notes that his system would have been more humane and more desirable, but that "siege communism" was the call of the day. It also noted, as will I, that the growth experienced under the NEP was in itself quite fantastic, and understanding of how great that growth was, and how much greater it was under the Five Year Plans, shows how truly miraculous that growth was. In that, way, I still find your opposition to the Trotskyists strange; surely they were not "Left Anti-Communists," and it was only the man himself, not his followers outside of Russia, who put forth the plan that later proved to be inadequate.

 

[Masada]

But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

By far the best lines of the piece, 'pure' believers on both sides are impossible to deal with.

 

[innonimatu]

I've just read that article, and frankly I don't buy it. It makes some good points (especially those about the real situation on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe being different from what was and still is portrayed in western media, about how the positive points were ignored.

But I can't believe that the same writer who complained about "second-guessing" by what they call the "pure socialists" also wrote this:

The latter course, I believe, would have produced a more comfortable, more humane and serviceable society. Siege socialism would have given way to worker-consumer socialism. The only problem is that the country would have risked being incapable of withstanding the Nazi onslaught. Instead, the Soviet Union embarked upon a rigorous, forced industrialization. This policy has often been mentioned as one of the wrongs perpetrated by Stalin upon his people. It consisted mostly of building, within a decade, an entirely new, huge industrial base east of the Urals in the middle of the barren steppes, the biggest steel complex in Europe, in anticipation of an invasion from the West. “Money was spent like water, men froze, hungered and suffered but the construction went on with a disregard for individuals and a mass heroism seldom paralleled in history.”

Stalin’s prophecy that the Soviet Union had only ten years to do what the British had done in a century proved correct. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, that same industrial base, safely ensconced thousands of miles from the front, produced the weapons of war that eventually turned the tide. The cost of this survival included 22 million Soviets who perished in the war and immeasurable devastation and suffering, the effects of which would distort Soviet society for decades afterward.

Because this was a real example of second-guessing! In the 15 years before WW2 many things could have happened differently. Germany's development was not independent from that of the USSR. Events in Europe could have gone differently if Stalin had never taken power in the USSR, and we cannot foresee what might have happened. Or even know how a red army with less resources but without the purge would have done against a german invasion. Or know how fast Germany would have rebuild its army without the soviet material help and military cooperation supplied on Stalin's orders.
And many of those "heroic workers" building the industrial plants beyond the Urals were slaves in the gulag. Nothing can excuse that, nothing can justify that. If that were truly necessary to attain communism (and I don't believe it is), then to hell with it.

So I feel compelled to play the devil's advocate here. Another small issue with the article, and common in many pieces defending the USSR: the Soviet Union may not have practiced economic imperialism, but it certainly practiced ideological imperialism, and the end result was also death on a grand scale. Without the soviet hand pushing for the Korean War, for example, what would have happened there? I believe that I could argue that a large number of people would not have died uselessly... and pro-soviets cannot simply blame the "UN" forces, because it takes two sides to make a war. The USSR cannot even claim to have helped with the independence of most former colonial territories, it was the effects of WW2 and competition also among western countries which liquidated most of those empires. The USSR, in the meanwhile, went about reconquering and enlarging the former Russian Empire (failing only in Finland)...

I don't like to see the wrongs of capitalism whitewashed, but nor do I like to see it done with soviet socialism either. Khrushchev did had good reasons to denounce Stalinism.

 

[potatokiosk]

because it takes two sides to make a war.

No, not really. Unless you think that if a country doesn't give into unreasonable demands, it is partly responsible for the war.

 

[Frank327]

Because of technology, a communist or socialist state would never be like USSR or china. Technology is now getting advanced enough for people to not need work at all times anymore. Many communist states centered around everybody having work and home etc. With machines taking over, more humans are freed from their job.

This is a problem in a monetary system. This is a blessing in a non-monetary system.

 

[Richard Cribb]

How do you think about the assembly line and the impacts it has on labour?

In its time it was an innovation. i think we are fooling ourselves if we get too nostalgic about the good old days also regarding working routines.And we all want PCs ,Tv sets,
cars, dialysis apparats etc.available in the most rational way.
That said, obviously being on the assembly band, carrying out the same dreadfully boring routine operation day in and day out affects you in bad ways. Already some of the classical liberals were worried about this. Clearly society must make arrangements to minimize damage with for instance a certain job rotation and of course automatization when possible.
What one also must be aware of and which is a real problem for everybody who are interested in real progress is the disciplinary function here. While the ruling elites in the West want to abolish traditional industry for political purposes, see forinstance Margaret Thatcher, they also seek to impose the same routines in the service sector.

What are your views on the following people?

Tito
Nasser
Putin

Tito:Great partisan, excellent chess player, not my kind of guy politically (to cosy with the West, I am not sofond of hs econmic model either)
Nasser: Progressive nationalist who did soe important work to modernize Egypt. No socialist.
Putin: Intelligent, authoritarian and cynical. No socialist at all, but probably the best available leader for Russia after the catastrophic Yeltsin years. Loses a lot of attitude points for releasing Kasparov from prison so soon.

What are your thoughts on automation?

I don't believe that it is far fetched to say that we will have in the next few years (if not now) the capacity to automate a large amount of (unskilled?) labour. For instance, agriculture could make moves towards being largely controlled by machines. Not 'intelligent' machines of course, but machines programmed to plant, grow and correctly harvest crops, with little or no human involvement except for maintaining the machines.
Is automation something to be resisted, or is it something of a new emancipation from labour?

West 36 hit the nail on the head.BTW West 36 my apologies for never answering your enquete, if it is not to soon I might give it a stab.
Automatation is something we should welcome. Sure, technology has a Janus face, and a technological imperative is a dangerous thing, but automation liberates millions of people. Keep in mind that we work to live, not the other way round.

A question for Luce:

You seem to have a particular bite against Trotsky and particularly the Fourth International; may I ask why?

Trotsky himself was intelligent and did a lot of good things but turned out to be an opportunist and the later trotskist attitude towards the USSR was a destructive one. I don'tthink it is a mere coincidence that quite a few prominent Trotskists ended up as reactionaries, like some of the noecons, Orwell or Hitchens to name a few.

I've just read that article, and frankly I don't buy it. It makes some good points (especially those about the real situation on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe being different from what was and still is portrayed in western media, about how the positive points were ignored.

But I can't believe that the same writer who complained about "second-guessing" by what they call the "pure socialists" also wrote this:



Because this was a real example of second-guessing! In the 15 years before WW2 many things could have happened differently. Germany's development was not independent from that of the USSR. Events in Europe could have gone differently if Stalin had never taken power in the USSR, and we cannot foresee what might have happened. Or even know how a red army with less resources but without the purge would have done against a german invasion. Or know how fast Germany would have rebuild its army without the soviet material help and military cooperation supplied on Stalin's orders.
And many of those "heroic workers" building the industrial plants beyond the Urals were slaves in the gulag. Nothing can excuse that, nothing can justify that. If that were truly necessary to attain communism (and I don't believe it is), then to hell with it.

So I feel compelled to play the devil's advocate here. Another small issue with the article, and common in many pieces defending the USSR: the Soviet Union may not have practiced economic imperialism, but it certainly practiced ideological imperialism, and the end result was also death on a grand scale. Without the soviet hand pushing for the Korean War, for example, what would have happened there? I believe that I could argue that a large number of people would not have died uselessly... and pro-soviets cannot simply blame the "UN" forces, because it takes two sides to make a war. The USSR cannot even claim to have helped with the independence of most former colonial territories, it was the effects of WW2 and competition also among western countries which liquidated most of those empires. The USSR, in the meanwhile, went about reconquering and enlarging the former Russian Empire (failing only in Finland)...

Thanks for your input, but I think that we have so different perspectives on those historical topics that any debate is bound to be futile and contrafactual history is bunk anyway. It could be interesting though, to learn about some of your historical sources.
I must also add that both I and as far as I have understood Michael Parenti are fully aware of the crimes and errors of socialism, but that there is a qualitative difference between those and the (larger) commited by capitalism.

I don't like to see the wrongs of capitalism whitewashed, but nor do I like to see it done with soviet socialism either. Khrushchev did had good reasons to denounce Stalinism.

Of course he had. But that doesn't mean that he was right.

 

[Agent327]

Trotsky himself was intelligent and did a lot of good things but turned out to be an opportunist and the later trotskist attitude towards the USSR was a destructive one. I don'tthink it is a mere coincidence that quite a few prominent Trotskists ended up as reactionaries, like some of the noecons, Orwell or Hitchens to name a few.

George Orwell a neocon? That's original. I think it's more accurate to say he simply got disillusioned with totalitarianism. 'Big Brother' in 1984 is still quite visionary, no matter how vulgarized the idea has become and despite the fact he got the date wrong. (But then, he simply reversed the year of publication in the title, 48=>84.)

 

[Richard Cribb]

George Orwell a neocon? That's original. I think it's more accurate to say he simply got disillusioned with totalitarianism. 'Big Brother' in 1984 is still quite visionary, no matter how vulgarized the idea has become and despite the fact he got the date wrong. (But then, he simply reversed the year of publication in the title, 48=>84.)

My apologies, English is not my first language. I meant some of the neocons and Orwell and Hitchens. Orwell was quite despicable in some ways, but certainly no neocon ( He didn't live long enough, but i reluctantly give him the benefit of doubt) .
But since we are discussing Orwell, here is quite an interesting essay about him by somebody with whom i don't entirely agree but who seemingly knows his toic:
http://links.org.au/node/379
I especially want to draw your attention to this paragraph:

Thus, Orwell’s elitist and patronising attitude towards the working class in Animal Farm reappears in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the headline message is the same: a socialist revolution, even if it were to happen in an advanced capitalist country, would be bound to degenerate because of the innate helplessness and lack of intelligence of the working class.

It is worth noting in passing that Marx himself, despite being an infinitely better writer and thinker than Orwell, had an entirely different attitude towards ordinary people. He wrote, for example:


When the communist artisans meet, they seem to be meeting for the purpose of propaganda, etc. But in the process they acquire a new need, the need for society, and what seemed to be a means has become an end in itself. One can see the most illuminating effects of this practical process if one watches a meeting of socialist French workers. Smoking, drinking and eating are no longer merely an excuse for meeting. The society, the entertainment, which is supposed to be for the purpose of meeting, is sufficient in itself: the brotherhood of Man is no idle phrase but the real truth, and the nobility of Man shines out at us from these faces brutalized by toil (quoted in Werner Blumenberg, Karl Marx: An Illustrated History, Verso 2000, p.47).


And there are deeper differences between Orwell and Marx. Orwell believes that power, independently of the specific social circumstances in which it is realised, is governed by a logic that inevitably leads to corruption and exploitation. In his view, even if the working-class successfully seizes power in an advanced capitalist country, corruption and exploitation will inevitably prevail. This idealist and anarchist philosophy is vastly inferior to Marx’s approach, according to which power can only be studied meaningfully as embodied in concrete social and economic structures.

This point is well-made by Deutscher: ``at heart Orwell was a simple-minded anarchist … To analyse a complicated social background, to try and unravel tangles of political motives, calculations, fears and suspicions, and to discern the compulsion of circumstances behind their action was beyond him. Generalisations about social forces, social trends, and historic inevitabilities made him bristle with suspicion … Yet his distrust of historical generalisations led him in the end to adopt and to cling to the oldest, the most banal, the most abstract, the most metaphysical, and the most barren of all generalisations: all their conspiracies and plots and purges had one source and one source only – ‘sadistic power hunger’. Thus he made his jump from workaday, rationalistic common sense to the mysticism of cruelty which inspires 1984” (Heretics and Renegades, pp.47-8).

Our conclusion is thus that given an understanding of the social and economic factors that led to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, neither Animal Farm nor Nineteen Eighty-Four give us compelling reason to believe that a socialist revolution in an advanced capitalist society must inevitably deteriorate into Stalinism, or worse. Thus, despite whatever other literary merits they may possess, neither of Orwell’s most famous books constitutes an effective critique of Stalinism ``from the left’’.

I can post some more material on Orwell, if anybody wishes.
Let me also issue a warning about using the term "totalitarian". This is a rhetoric word which can be used effictively to mystify politics by hiding socio-economic realities and gives the power of definition to the political right. Besides, what is really totalitarian?
My top candidate would be the advanced late capitalist societies, see Marcuse.

PS: Excuse me for asking, but how do I avoid CTDs when trying to play CivGold? I have Civ4complete.