Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 11:44:06 -0800 (PST)
From: urban fear <urbanfear75-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: something to add to the discussion


I haven't posted to this list before, however, I
recieved the follow on another email listserve.  I
thought it might be something worthwhile to add to the
discussion here regrading the earlier posts on Chavez
and Tariq Ali.  Please forgive the messy formatting.. 


The Knowledge of a Better World
[Presented at Encuentro Mundial de Intelectuales y
Artistes en Defense 
de La Humanidad, 3 December 2004)
Michael A. Lebowitz
Canada
mlebowit-AT-sfu.ca

There is an old saying that if you don’t know where
you want to go, 
then 
any road will take you there. I think that recent
years, years of 
neoliberalism, imperialist outrages and the virtual
destruction of 
almost every effort to create an alternative, have
disproved this 
saying. Our experience tells us that if you don’t know
where you want 
to 
go, then no road will take you there.

	Our greatest failing is that we have lost sight of an
alternative. 
And, 
because we have no grand conception of an alternative
(indeed, we are 
told that we should have no grand conceptions), then
the response to 
the 
neoliberal mantra of TINA, that there is no
alternative, has been--- 
let’s preserve healthcare, let’s not attack education,
let’s try for a 
little more equality, a little more preservation of
the environment. 
Because of our failure to envision an alternative as a
whole, we have 
many small pieces, many small ‘no’s; indeed, the only
feasible 
alternative to barbarism proposed has been barbarism
with a human face.

	Let us think about a real alternative to barbarism, a
grand conception 
but yet a very simple one. I have in mind a simple
idea expressed by 
Karl Marx in 1844 (but which runs throughout his
work)--- the unity of 
human beings based upon recognition of their
differences. That is a 
conception which begins from the recognition that
people are 
different--- that they have differing needs and
differing 
capabilities--- and that they are interdependent.

	Whether we act upon the basis of this understanding
of our 
interdependence or not, we cannot deny that we produce
for each other, 
that as beings within society, there is a chain of
human activity that 
links us. We produce inputs for each other, and the
ultimate result of 
our activity is the reproduction of human beings
within society. We can 
think of this as the activity of a collective worker,
as that of the 
human family, or as that of the family of workers;
but, this chain of 
human activity exists whether we consciously produce
on this basis or 
not--- whether we understand our unity or not.
	In fact, as we know only too well, outside of little
oases (some 
societies, some families), in this society we do not
consciously 
produce 
for the needs of others, and we do not understand our
productive 
activity as our contribution to this chain of human
activity. Instead 
of 
valuing our relationship as human beings, we produce
commodities, we 
value commodities; instead of understanding this chain
of human 
activity 
as our bond and our power, we understand only that we
need these 
commodities, that we are dominated by them.

The Knowledge of Commodities

	This, as is well-known, is what Marx called the
‘fetishism of 
commodities’ in the first chapter of Capital. It is a
powerful concept. 
In my view, no one has ever communicated this idea
better than an 
artist--- Wallace Shawn, an actor and playwright from
the United 
States. 
In his play ‘The Fever’, Shawn’s protagonist at one
point finds a copy 
of Capital and begins to read it at night. He thinks
about the anger in 
this book, and then he goes back to the beginning
which he had 
initially 
found to be impenetrable. Here I’ll quote a long
passage from Wallace 
Shawn:

I came to a phrase that I'd heard before, a strange,
upsetting, sort of 
ugly phrase: this was the section on "commodity
fetishism," "the 
fetishism of commodities." I wanted to understand that
weird-sounding 
phrase, but I could tell that, to understand it, your
whole life would 
probably have to change.

His explanation was very elusive. He used the example
that people say, 
"Twenty yards of linen are worth two pounds." People
say that about 
every thing that it has a certain value. This is worth
that. This coat, 
this sweater, this cup of coffee: each thing worth
some quantity of 
money, or some number of other things—one coat, worth
three sweaters, 
or 
so much money—as if that coat, suddenly appearing on
the earth, 
contained somewhere inside itself an amount of value,
like an inner 
soul, as if the coat were a fetish, a physical object
that contains a 
living spirit. But what really determines the value of
a coat? The 
coat's price comes from its history, the history of
all the people 
involved in making it and selling it and all the
particular 
relationships they had. And if we buy the coat, we,
too, form 
relationships with all those people, and yet we hide
those 
relationships 
from our own awareness by pretending we live in a
world where coats 
have 
no history but just fall down from heaven with prices
marked inside. "I 
like this coat," we say, "It's not expensive," as if
that were a fact 
about the coat and not the end of a story about all
the people who made 
it and sold it. "I like the pictures in this
magazine."

A naked woman leans over a fence. A man buys a
magazine and stares at 
her picture. The destinies of these two are linked.
The man has paid 
the 
woman to take off her clothes, to lean over the fence.
The photograph 
contains its history—the moment the woman unbuttoned
her shirt, how she 
felt, what the photographer said. The price of the
magazine is a code 
that describes the relationships between all these
people—the woman, 
the 
man, the publisher, the photographer—who commanded,
who obeyed. The cup 
of coffee contains the history of the peasants who
picked the beans, 
how 
some of them fainted in the heat of the sun, some were
beaten, some 
were 
kicked.

For two days I could see the fetishism of commodities
everywhere around 
me. It was a strange feeling. Then on the third day I
lost it, it was 
gone, I couldn't see it anymore.

	In this quotation from Wallace Shawn a certain type
of knowledge is 
described--- price. Price is the form in which that
chain of human 
activity and human relationships appears to us. This
knowledge comes in 
monetary units. We know the prices of the things we
need. We know the 
price we have ourselves received. And, now we must
take that knowledge 
and make individual rational decisions…as consumers,
as capitalists--- 
we’re all the same, maximizers on the basis of the
knowledge we have, 
maximizers on the basis of money.

	Think about the knowledge we do not have in this
world where money is 
the medium of knowledge. We know about nothing that
does not come to us 
with a price--- the natural environment around us, our
own needs for 
development of our potential; we know nothing about
the lives of all 
those people who have produced the things we purchase,
all those people 
with whom we have entered into a relationship by
buying the results of 
their activity. Our situation is one of social
ignorance, and that very 
ignorance is what permits us to be divided, turned
against each other 
and exploited by the owners of commodities, the owners
of the chain of 
human activity.

	When our knowledge is the price of things, how can we
avoid being 
divided? When we don’t recognise our unity, how can we
avoid competing 
against each other to the benefit of the owners of
knowledge?

Another Kind of Knowledge

	Think about another kind of knowledge--- a knowledge
based upon 
recognition of our unity, knowledge based upon a
concept of solidarity. 
It is a different knowledge when we are aware of who
produces for us 
and 
how, when we understand the conditions of life of
others and the needs 
they have for what we can contribute. Knowledge of
this type 
immediately 
places us as beings within society, provides an
understanding of the 
basis of all our lives. It is immediately direct
social knowledge 
because it can not be communicated through the
indirect medium of 
money.

	Knowledge of our needs and capacities is radical
because it goes to 
the 
root, to human beings. And, when it is obtained
because we recognise 
our 
unity, it is knowledge which differs qualitatively and
quantitatively 
from the knowledge we have under the dominant social
relations. It is 
quantitatively different because existing relations no
longer make its 
monopolisation and restriction a source of private
gain. It is inherent 
in knowledge that it is a public good. Knowledge can
be reproduced 
almost costlessly, and unlike scarce commodities, I do
not have less 
knowledge if I give you some of mine. In a rational
society, knowledge 
should be shared without any restriction.

	The existence of institutions which make knowledge
property and a 
source of private gain, then, are contrary to the
concept and ethos of 
knowledge and demonstrate the social irrationality of
those 
institutions. Take the grading mechanism in many
universities, for 
example. It is a common practice for professors in
North America to 
grade according to a normal statistical curve--- so,
many A’s, B’s, 
C’s. 
etc to F’s—regardless of over-all student performance.
What kind of 
behaviour does this make rational for those who
function within such a 
structure? Clearly, it is to keep knowledge to
themselves (or to a 
small 
subset of friends). The more other students know, the
lower are one’s 
own chances for a good grade. (In fact, it makes
rational giving other 
students false information.) The structure in this
case puts students 
in 
competition--- a situation that Robert Wyatt, the
British singer, once 
sang about with the line, ‘How can I rise, if you
don’t fall?’ This 
artificially created structure produces a zero-sum
game in the case of 
knowledge which, by its very nature, is not zero-sum.
Thus, whereas 
ideally a university might be viewed as an environment
dedicated to the 
fullest possible development and dissemination of
knowledge--- 
something 
which a collective learning process would encourage,
we can see that 
the 
creation of an environment which rewards private
ownership of knowledge 
is contrary to the idealised concept of the
university.

	In many respects, this can be seen as a parable of
intellectual 
property rights. What intellectual property rights do
is to attempt to 
create an artificial scarcity that will compel people
to pay more for 
knowledge than its actual cost of reproduction. Their
purpose is to 
make 
what Marx called the products of the social brain a
source of private 
enrichment. In a society, on the other hand, which
begins from the 
recognition of the needs of all its members, the
logical and rational 
impulse is to make knowledge available to all at its
true cost of 
reproduction—zero.

	Where our social relations and institutions are not
such as to lead us 
to view our knowledge as property, there is another
way by which the 
knowledge available to all is expanded. Much
knowledge—especially about 
how we work is not codified; it is ‘tacit
knowledge’--- knowledge, eg., 
of how work could be done better, knowledge of how it
could be easier. 
Within antagonistic productive relations, the
situation especially of 
the wage-labourer, this is knowledge to be kept to
yourself --- in 
order 
to ensure that it is not used against you. In a
rational society, 
though, it is knowledge we would share. ‘Gold in the
workers’ heads’ is 
what Japanese labour relations experts called it when
they introduced 
mechanisms to induce workers to share ideas about
improving products 
and 
production processes. This knowledge is wealth which
would flow 
naturally in a society which is based upon the
recognition of our 
interdependence.

	Tacit knowledge is an example of a type of knowledge
available freely 
under a different set of social relations. It is not,
however, the only 
difference in the knowledge which would be available.
When we begin 
from 
the conception of an alternative society, it becomes
clear that a 
certain type of knowledge is hidden from us under our
existing 
relations. The knowledge that is not communicated in a
commodity 
economy 
is that which has no price in the market. The natural
environment in 
which we live, the air we breathe, the sights we see,
the sound we 
hear, 
the water we drink (ah, once the water we drank) has
no price and thus 
does not enter into our monetary calculus. And,
without that price, it 
is invisible when we as atomistic maximizers make our
decisions. It 
means that these decisions, based upon partial
knowledge, are 
inherently 
biased. If we were able to place an appropriate price
upon clean air, 
our actions as calculating producers and consumers
would produce 
different decisions--- ones more likely to ensure the
maintenance of 
clean air. Hypothetically, too, if we were able to
place a price upon 
the full development of human potential or upon the
ability to live in 
a 
just society, faced with this altered set of prices,
our individual 
decisions (and certainly that of those who currently
purchase our 
abilities without the need to consider these) would
differ.

	But, how, in the absence of commodity exchanges can
such information 
which takes into account what Marx called ‘the
worker’s own need for 
development’ be generated? If we share Marx’s emphasis
upon the 
importance of the rich human being, ‘the totally
developed individual’, 
then certainly we must concern ourselves with the
mechanisms by which 
the knowledge of needs and capabilities can be
produced.
The Accumulation of Knowledge for Human Development

	Those who are here to discuss ways to defend humanity
against the 
barbarism it currently faces begin from certain
values. They are values 
embodied in the Constitution of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela--- 
in the goal described in Article 299 of ‘ensuring
overall human 
development’, in the declaration of Article 20 that
‘everyone has the 
right to the free development of his or her own
personality’, and in 
the 
focus of Article 102 upon ‘developing the creative
potential of every 
human being and the full exercise of his or her
personality in a 
democratic society.’

	That Constitution also is quite specific on how this
human development 
occurs—participation. Much like Marx’s stress upon
human activity as 
the 
way people transform both circumstances and
themselves, the Bolivarian 
Constitution in Article 62 declares that participation
by people is 
‘the 
necessary way of achieving the involvement to ensure
their complete 
development, both individual and collective.’ Human
development, in 
short, does not drop from the sky--- it is the result
of a process, of 
many processes, in which people transform themselves.
It is the product 
of a society which is ‘democratic, participatory and
protagonistic’ (to 
quote the Constitution once again).

	Through social forms (as set out in Article 70) such
as 
‘self-management, co-management, cooperatives in all
forms’, through 
democratic planning and participatory budgeting at all
levels of 
society, people develop their capabilities and
capacities. This process 
of transformative activity, though, is precisely the
process of 
developing the knowledge required for this alternative
society. That 
information can not come from markets, from surveys
nor negotiations at 
the top--- it comes neither from the fetishism of
commodities nor the 
fetishism of the plan. It is through democratic
discussions and 
decisions at every level that we can identify our
needs and our 
capabilities. The creation of democratic institutions
is precisely the 
way in which we expand the quality and quantity of
knowledge that can 
make a society based upon unity and the recognition of
difference work. 
How else can we understand the needs of others except
by hearing their 
voices? How else can we consciously insert ourselves
in the chain of 
human activity? The knowledge needed to build and
sustain an 
alternative 
society, a society based upon human bonds, is
necessarily ‘democratic, 
participatory and protagonistic’.

The Battle of Ideas

	Knowing where we want to go is a necessity if we want
to build an 
alternative. But, it is not the same as being there.
We live in a world 
dominated by global capital, a world in which capital
divides us, sets 
the people of each country against each other to see
who can produce 
more cheaply, who can drive wages, working conditions,
environmental 
standards to the lowest level in order to survive in
the war of all 
against all. We know, too, that any country that would
challenge 
neo-liberalism faces the assorted weapons of
international capital--- 
foremost among them the IMF, the World Bank, finance
capital and 
imperialist power (including in forms such as the U.S.
National 
Endowment for Democracy and other faces of
subversion).

	The most immediate obstacle, though, is the belief in
TINA, i.e., that 
there is no alternative. Without the vision of a
better world, every 
crisis of capitalism (such as the one upon us) can
bring in the end 
only 
a painful restructuring--- with the pain felt by those
already 
exploited 
and excluded. The concept of an alternative, of a
society based upon 
solidarity, is an essential weapon in defence of
humanity. We need to 
recognise the possibility of a world in which the
products of the 
social 
brain and the social hand are common property and the
basis for our 
self-development--- the possibility (in Marx’s
words—1973: 158) of ‘a 
society of free individuality, based on the universal
development of 
individuals and on their subordination of their
communal, social 
productivity as their social wealth.’ For this reason,
the battle of 
ideas is essential.

	That battle can be fought in many ways. For one, it
points to the 
importance of the deepening of the real process in
societies where the 
beginnings of an alternative have been made. The
glimpses of a better 
world that they provide--- even in the midst of
concerted attacks by 
imperialism--- are an inspiration for struggles
everywhere around the 
world, a demonstration that there is an alternative.

	But, it is only in those struggles themselves that we
spread an 
understanding of that alternative. These are struggles
which start from 
people’s needs, from their discontent over the gap
between what society 
promises them and what they are able to obtain. The
battle of ideas 
begins here by communicating knowledge of the nature
of capitalism--- 
by 
demonstrating that poverty is not the fault of the
poor, that exclusion 
is not the fault of the excluded, that wealth is the
result of the 
chain 
of human activity.

	These struggles, too, are explicitly about
knowledge--- the struggle 
against property rights that deny free access to the
intellectual 
accomplishments of humanity. They are struggles
against 
commodification, 
against the invasion of money and price into all
aspects of life. But, 
they are also struggles for new democratic forms that
are a means of 
tapping the gold in the heads of all people and of
communicating all 
our 
needs and capacities. They are struggles, in short,
for a democratic, 
participatory and protagonistic alternative.

	In this era of capitalist globalisation and
neoliberalism, however, it 
is obvious that more than local democratic
institutions are needed. How 
can we understand the needs and capacities of people
who are 
geographically distant but intimately close as parts
of the human chain 
of activity? How can we see other limbs of the
collective worker as 
human beings with needs rather than as competitors? We
develop our 
understanding of our unity and interdependence with
those who 
capitalist 
globalisation has assembled around the world through
solidarity with 
those people--- not only with their specific struggles
as workers or 
citizens but also by linking up with them directly on
the basis of 
community to community.

	To build a world based upon solidarity, we must
practice 
solidarity—and 
in that way transform both circumstances and
ourselves. If we know 
where 
we want to go and we know what is necessary to get
there, we have begun 
the battle to defend humanity against barbarism.
	Finally, to take up a theme introduced last night by
President Chavez 
and Pablo Gonzalez Casanova about the need to make
real changes in the 
world, let me close by paraphrasing Marx, using the
language 
appropriate 
to this conference: the idea of human society is
sufficient to defeat 
the idea of barbarism. But, it takes real human action
to defeat real 
barbarism. 


		
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