From: Howard Engelskirchen <howarde-AT-wsulaw.edu> Subject: RE: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 13:07:23 -0700 Hi Colin! You say markets won't go away because "there will still be systems where objects are produced and exchanged." Later you say "we cannot live in a marketless world due to our social being." I take it in this last quote you mean the same thing as in the first -- that is, it is in the nature of our social being to produce and exchange objects, therefore, we will always have markets. Notice that this is exactly like saying that the Stone Age hunter is a capitalist because he uses a spear. After all capital is the way we refer to means of production, the spear is a means of production, and it is in the nature of our social being to use means of production. So therefore we will always have capitalism. Socialized capitalism, no doubt, democratized capitalism too, but capitalism always, can't get around that because we will always need to use means of production. I mean we are not just going to rip things off trees with our hands. So the first problem with your statements is that they are ahistorical and unscientific insofar as they say any time human beings exchange objects there is a market. Instead of trying to specify the form of a thing as it is transformed through history, and trying to present the distinctions of social form which occur in words we use, you reduce everything to one general abstraction that applies to all social forms indifferently since, you are absolutely correct, human beings always have and always will exchange objects among themselves. Or in fact by saying we can't live in a market-less world you mean to cling to the historically specific social form the word market actually does refer to, ie to the social relation of autonomous entities engaged in independent production for private exchange. But now what you are saying is that we can't live in a world without some form of private property. In response to my statement that "I'm concerned with whether we mean to take social control of social production," you wrote: "But this is the eradication of the private control of social production, as Heikki says Capitalism, not the eradication of the market." You miss the significance of Marx's analysis of the commodity here. The basic contradiction of capitalism, is that while production is social, the form of appropriation is private. But close attention to the commodity form shows that this germ is already present there. When a good is produced for the market, there is already social, not private production. But since production occurs autonomously and is not in coordination with others, production is private in form. (My little excerpt from the I Ching was already social production, but private in form.) This contradiction, so deeply important ideologically (bourgeois notions of equality and freedom live there), already carries the need for coercion, even without the wage relation, and carries also as a tendency inherent within it the germ of capitalism itself. By contrast, if we democratically coordinate production and distribution with others, we still exchange things, but not through a market. The democratic coordination of production and distribution makes production both social in form as well as in substance. You ask: "Is your target private property or the control of the means of production? . . . One doesn't have to be a biological determinist to see that the thing that generates the desire for private property is us." In other words, the desire for private property is part of our being, what we are (essentially?) as humans. Marx is typically criticized for not realizing that, e.g. greed is part of human nature. Of course some sort of instinct like greed is part of our makeup. But that is not what marxism is about. The question is what the social terrain is within the framework of which greed gets exercised. So here. Human beings must consume things individually, without doubt. That sets up individual desires for individual things. But nothing in these facts implicates private property. Questions of property concern the social relations within the framework of which nature is appropriated. The commodity presupposes autonomous units producing privately for private exchange. Private property is a way we speak of this form. Anyway if producing and exchanging entities consciously coordinate their production, then they are no longer autonomous. They don't produce autonomously and they don't exchange autonomously. The point is that the transition to socialism is not just about overcoming the social relation of capital, but of bringing an end to the operation of the law of value, also. The law of value, remember, operates beyond social or private control. The idea is, step by step, to bring it under social control, and finally to eliminate its operation altogether. But for this to occur we must abolish not only the wage relation but also the autonomy of productive units. In other words, ending private control of the means of production means not only overcoming the capital relation as such, but also the commodity relation. Abolishing the autonomy of private productive units means that we relate democratically to one another. For the autonomy of productive units, we substitute their coordination. This is what is meant by abolishing private property. That is what I mean by taking conscious and voluntary social control over the production of our commonwealth's common wealth. Howard -----Original Message----- From: Colin Wight [mailto:Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 2:24 AM To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Subject: RE: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed Hi Howard, I must admit, it is a very strange experience for me to be pushed into the role of defending postmodernism, but it is not an altogether unenjoyable experience. My definition of markets was a very off the wall, rough and ready affair and I certainly would not want to defend it all of the way. However, I will defend it in this context, because doing so might help us see the epistemological and methodological limits of social inquiry. You argue that according to my definition the Ford assembly line would count as a > paradigm I wouldn't agree that it would count as a paradigm, but I do accept that it would count. But is this is problem? To go into pomo guise, surely all this demonstrates is that we can describe all sorts of things in many ways; i.e. there is no one true description of either a market or the Ford assembly line. But, equally, and to drift back into CR mode, this should not be taken to mean that each description is equally valid and the Ford production line, is best described as a production line and not a market. This puts the onus very much on the ontological nature of the object under description. But I do see the problems you are pointing to here and it certainly seems to suggest that my definition would require modification. However, this need not imply an instance of Popperian falsification. On the family, I would defend my definition. Certainly the exchanging of presents is probably not best described as a market, but as an exchange of presents, but there is certainly a flourishing market in terms of my family relations re who does the washing up etc. > The issue, of course, is not words. if you want the word > "market," take it. No, I don't want it either Howard, but that is the point, which was about the critique of MOM. Now it seems to me that if a market is X (money exchange+commodities (which incidentally I am not saying is your position)) then any attempt to reform the market can only be seen as more of the same; i.e. playing into the hands of the capitalist lackeys. Now it may be that when the form of socialism advocated by the review of MOM comes that those who advocated it will say, "we have no market". This won't have made the market go away however, because there will still be systems where objects are produced and exchanged. This is necessarily the case since we are not isolated individuals but social beings with needs wants and desires that we cannot fulfil individually. So the critique of Bhaskar's position on market transformation etc. is based on a very particular form of market. Socialism under Radical Chains will still have markets, and more than likely the will be of exactly the form that Bhaskar advocates, the only difference will be that Bhaskar will still refer to them as markets and radical chains as something else. I'm not concerned with how we label categories. I'm > concerned with whether we mean to take social control of social > production. But this is the eradication of the private control of social production, as Heikki says Capitalism, not the eradication of the market. I don't think we disagree, reforming and transforming the market, and abolishing others as Rb advocates, does not mean he is susceptible to the critique launched in Radical Chains. he would only be susceptible to such a critique if one thought that all markets must rest on the private control of the means of production. You asked for another word, Heikki has given you one - Capitalism - not the market. We can live in a non-capitalist world (I hope); we cannot live in market-less world due to our social being. We want to cling to the thing that generates private property. And that, Marx showed, is inconsistent with > genuine human > emancipation, at least if we mean by that taking conscious social control > over the conditions of social life to the end that we make the > full and free > development of each a condition for the full and free development of all. It seems to me Howard, that you have moved the ground of argument somewhat. Is your target private property or the control of the means of production? It seems to me that if you are arguing that emancipation depends upon getting rid of the thing that generates private property you are close to saying that we can only be emancipated when we no longer exist. One doesn't have to be a biological determinist to see that the thing that generates the desire for private property is, in part, us. Unless, of course, we are falling back into a structuralist determinism. Cheers, =================================Dr. Colin Wight Department of International Politics University of Wales, Aberystwyth Tel: 01970 621769 http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cow ==================================> --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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