[p2p-research] Fwd: Launch of Abundance: The Journal of Post-Scarcity Studies, preliminary plans

[Michel Bauwens]

Just a little side note from personal experience here on the (South) East
Asian side of things, at least in Thailand

In November, I was puzzled by a Dutch professor at Un of Chicago (sorry, I
forgot his name for now), who advocated an alliance between european and
asian social capitalisms ...

This is puzzling, because in many ways, we look at Asia as
hyper-exploitation, i.e. a very non-social capitalism,

yet this set me thinking about some things I observed here, and are related
to Kevin's remarks.

- yes there is a lot of enclosure, but most workers here still have strong
ties to the land and their rural families, hence, when a crisis hits, like
the terrible 98-99 financial crisis, they all go back there, and while there
are poor, they have food, shelter and human warmth, often being re-united
with their children ... this is a strong social cushion and shock absorber

- also, minimum overhead cost requirements are almost not present here. This
means that in thailand, everybody is working however minimally in very cheap
ways, if only selling food at the door of their house (but many other
things, you can have your house build by a flurry of non-licensed
architests, get your teeth done by experienced non-licensed dental
assistants, etc...); many popular service jobs require only minimal
investment (think about the many traditional massage places)

- a lot of work is group-oriented, and done 'socially'; people get low pay,
but to European standards, work very little, because rather than using a
'industrial' model (replacing workers by machines), they use a 'industrious'
model, using many people; it is very customary here for mothers to bring
their sick children to the job, even in banks, or to take a few days off, in
unspoken agreement with their boss, to deal with family emergencies; a big
pro blem here in some places, like department stores, is 'boredom', but a
lot less of it is stress, since there is always a surplus of people to deal
with any problem

All those elements here are not universal, but it is very present, not
marginal, and serves to socialize and soften many of the more harsh aspects
of capitalist society ...

Michel

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 4:38 AM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/23/09, Christian Siefkes <christian at siefkes.net> wrote:
>
> > The power of Marx argument is that he demonstrates that all the
> detrimental
> >  effects of capitalism actually do occur regardless of unequal exchanges,
> >  i.e. _even if all exchanges are equal and "fair"_. Hence, you can demand
> as
> >  much as you like that all exchanges should be equal, you might even
> >  completely realize that goal -- it won't make a difference. All the
> >  detrimental results of capitalism (social inequality continually rising;
> >  most people either having to work very much or live in poverty;
> competition
> >  preventing interoperability and the free sharing of innovation; the need
> for
> >  endless growth destroying Earth and people; etc.) will remain in place.
>
> Marx makes an argument as to why he believes these detrimental effects
> occur regardless of unequal exchange, but as to whether he actually
> demonstrates it (i.e., whether the argument holds up), I disagree.
>
> >  As for exploitation (Marx uses that word in a purely *technical* sense,
> not
> >  in the *moral* sense as it is commonly understood), that's a different
> >  matter. Exploitation results from the simple fact that capitalists can
> hire
> >  people's labor power, and that the value produced by a worker is usually
> >  higher than the value of her labor power.
> >
> >  Exploitation will usually only be possible if some people are *forced*
> to
> >  sell their labor power because they have nothing only to sell. If they
> had
> >  some means of production, it would usually make more sense for them to
> >  employ these means and sell the *results of their labor*, rather than
> >  selling their *labor power*, since in that way they can realize the full
> >  value produced by their labor, not just the value of their labor power.
>
> I think you're ignoring the dialectical relationship between the
> conditions of wage labor, and the availability of means of subsistence
> or self-employment outside the wage system.  Even when a worker
> chooses wage labor, the practical terms of the exchange (i.e., how
> much of his labor product he receives as a  wage) will be determined
> by the effects of competition from the possibility of self-employment.
>  The widespread availability of independent access to means of
> subsistence and production may make the wage relationship itself less
> numerically prevalent; but just as importantly, it will make it less
> exploitative where it does exist.
>
> But
> >  the fact that there are people who have nothing except their labor power
> to
> >  sell ("workers"), is an the inevitable outcome of any system based on
> trade
> >  (exchange).
> >
> >  Hence you can't, as Marx shows, have it both ways: you can have trade
> (e.g.
> >  "free trade") _and_ exploitation, or you can stop trading and end
> >  exploitation. (The latter option requires that we regard the means of
> >  production as commons and that we jointly, more or less loosely
> coordinated,
> >  produce what we need and distribute it among ourselves--as is already
> the
> >  case in commons-based peer production.) The choice is yours (ours), but
> it's
> >  a choice you (we) have to make.
>
> Perhaps I should clarify that by "market" I do not simply mean "cash
> nexus," but rather the sum total of all voluntary exchanges and
> relationships.  I do not regard either common property or networked
> organization as inconsistent with the market.
>
> > The historical analysis you mention (I agree that it is brilliant) is
> >  actually quite short, is comprises only chap. 24 (on the "so-called
> >  primitive accumulation") of vol. 1. Marx always separates logical
> analysis
> >  and historical developments--the rest of vol. 1, and most chapters of
> vol.
> >  2+3, are dedicated to the logical analysis of the operations of
> capitalism,
> >  where he shows that the division of most of humanity into two classes
> >  ("capitalists" who jointly control the means of production, and
> "workers"
> >  who don't) is the inevitable outcome of market exchange (trade). So
> Engels
> >  only confirms what Marx already demonstrates, with powerful arguments,
> in
> >  his analysis of Capital.
>
> But I don't think Marx demonstrates this.  He asserts it, and puts
> forth some of the same arguments you do in defense of the assertion.
> But I don't think he succeeds in proving it.
>
> > > As a wide range of thinkers have pointed out, it is only possible to
> >  > get labor to work for less than its full product only when it is
> >  > deprived of independent access to the means of subsistence and
> >  > production.
>
> > True--but how exactly can you avoid the possibility of bankruptcies and
> >  other personal failures that would leave a person with nothing except
> her
> >  labor power to sell, if, on the other hand, you want "free trade"?
>
> See my response to your later comments, below:
>
> On 2/25/09, Christian Siefkes <christian at siefkes.net> wrote:
>
> > Yes, they would trade, and initially their trading wouldn't be
> capitalistic,
> >  since labor is not available for hire. But assuming that trade/exchange
> is
> >  their primary way of organizing production, capitalism would ultimately
> >  result, since some of the producers would go bankrupt, they would lose
> their
> >  direct access to the means of production and be forced to sell their
> labor
> >  power.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by exchange being the "primary way of
> organizing production."  For one thing, my idea of trade is perfectly
> compatible with widespread production in the household and informal
> economy, with exchange taking the primary form of exchange of
> surpluses with neighbors through a neighborhood/community barter
> system (using LETS or local currencies).
>
> If none of the other producers is rich enough to hire them, they
> >  would be unlucky and starve (or be forced to turn to other ways of
> survival
> >  such as robbery/thievery, prostitution, or begging--which is what we
> also
> >  saw as a large-scale phenomenon with the emergence of capitalism, and
> which
> >  we still see in so-called developing countries where there is not enough
> >  capital to hire all or most of the available labor power). But if there
> are
> >  other producers/people would *can* hire them, the seed of capitalism
> with
> >  it's capitalist/worker divide is laid.
> >
> >  Of course, the emerging class of capitalists won't be just passive
> >  bystanders watching this process happen. Since they need a sufficiently
> >  large labor force, and since independent producers are unwanted
> competition
> >  for them, they'll actively try to turn the latter into the former. Means
> for
> >  doing so are enclosure/privatization laws that deprive the independent
> >  producers of their means of productions, technical progress that makes
> it
> >  harder for them to compete (esp. if expensive machines are required
> which
> >  they simple lack the money to buy), other laws that increase the
> overhead
> >  for independent producers (e.g. high bookkeeping requirements), creation
> of
> >  big sales points that non-capitalist producers don't have access to
> >  (department stores etc.), simple overproduction that drives small-scale
> >  producers (who can't stand huge losses) out of the market, etc. But even
> if
> >  they were passive bystanders (which is an unrealistic assumption), the
> >  conversion of independent producers into workers forced to sell their
> labor
> >  power would still take place through the simple laws of the market,
> which
> >  cause some producers to fail and go bankrupt.
> >
> >  So whenever you start with trade as the primary way of production,
> you'll
> >  sooner or later end up with capitalism. It's not a contradiction, it's a
> >  process.
>
> I think you're assuming (as did Marx) certain conditions of production
> as "natural" in a non-capitalist market economy, and hence leading to
> capitalism.  And I don't think these assumptions are valid.  For one
> thing, the assumption that there would be a high rate of failure and
> bankruptcy implicitly assumes high initial capital outlays for market
> entry and attendant high overhead expenses.  But one of the central
> functions of the state from at least the beginning of paleotechnic
> industry in the Industrial Revolution, and intensified with the rise
> of mass-production industry as an alternative to the kind of
> small-scale craft production with power machinery that Kropotkin
> envisioned, has been to impose minimum mandatory overhead costs and
> criminalize a great deal of low-overhead production.
>
> In a market economy without such mandated minimum overhead, a great
> deal of production would take place in the household for direct
> consumption or trade through small barter networks, and it would rely
> primarily on spare capacity of household capital goods most people own
> anyway.  So there would be little or no risk of failure, and no real
> cost to riding out periods of slow business.
>
> So the very idea that "failure" of a business would mean the lack of
> any alternative means of support, and hence desperate acceptance of
> wage labor on any terms available, is an unjustified assumption.
> First of all, absent enclosure of vacant land, falling back on
> subsistence production would be a safety net for those whose
> commercial production ventures failed.  And the sizable fraction of
> subsistence needs that could be met by small-scale production in the
> household or for immediate exchange with one's neighbors, would
> provide a great deal of cushion against unemployment, so that those
> taking wage labor could take their time holding out for an offer to
> their liking.
>
> In addition, both you and Marx seem to overestimate the importance of
> the firm as primary economic unit, in considering the consequences of
> "failure."  In a networked economy, like that of Emilia-Romagna today,
> firm boundaries are quite porous, and the model of employment tends
> toward de facto self-employment, with employment organized around the
> project rather than the firm.  The line between "employer" and
> "employed" is also fluid, changing from one project to the next.  And
> in many cases (as in the American garment industry) the cheapness of
> minimum required capital equipment means that projects can be
> organized around individually owned capital equipment that is carried
> with the individual from one project to the next.  And given a
> bargaining power of labor determined by the ongoing availability of
> capital and land, such networking would take much more of a pattern of
> relations between equals than it does even presently in
> Emilia-Romagna.
>
> In short, the boundaries between self-employment, household
> subsistence production, and commercial production in the worker-owned
> enterprise, would be much less distinct than at present.  And the cost
> of "failure," slipping from one to the other, would be much less
> significant than at present.
>
> At the same time, the benefits to the "winners" would be limited by
> the unavailable of state-enforced scarcity rents on capital and land,
> so a little "win" couldn't continue to build on itself through the
> power of compound interest, or through barriers like IP prohibitiing
> market entry.  There would surely be some inequality resulting from
> differences in effort and pure luck, but it's a level of inequality
> that would reach a saturation point fairly quickly and then be
> restricted by built-in systemic safeguards.
>
> It's interesting that you list enclosures, state impositions of
> minimum overheads, etc., as active measures the capitalists might
> take.  But it's impossible to consider the rate of failure that took
> place historically, outside the context of these forms of intervention
> that did in fact take place.  With the free availability of
> low-overhead production in the household economy, the free
> availability of squatting on vacant land, etc., "failure" would not be
> nearly as big a stick to hit people with.  In such circumtances,
> "failure" would just be the resting period between amassing a minor
> sum of capital to reenter the market--if amassing such a sum was
> necessary at all, as opposed to simply ramping up a bit of surplus
> production for exchange using the capital you owned all the time.
>
> > Yes, and he also says that trade (as the primary way of production) would
> >  necessarily cause this expropriation (see above). That's why he could
> knew,
> >  with absolute certainty, that a post-capitalist way of production (which
> he
> >  denoted as "communism") would *not* be based on trade (or at least not
> >  primarly). If it *was* based on trade, it would inevitable revert to
> >  capitalism, and so it wouldn't be "post-capitalist" after all.
>
> I think it's pretty clear that, while Marx may have thought he knew
> this with absolute certainty, his certainty was unfounded.
>
> > Yes, but these markets were never the primary way of organizing
> production.
> >  Markets played only a minor rule for the exchange of surplus produce and
> >  some specialized items (e.g. luxury goods), people didn't depend on them
> for
> >  their survival.
>
> But it's only because of the state's arificial limitation of
> alternatives that people depend so heavily on the cash nexus for their
> survival.  IMO the very sharpness of the distinction between the cash
> nexus, and the informal subsistence and barter economy, is an
> artificial state of affairs.  My view of a market society is simply
> one based on individual self-ownership and whatever mix of individual
> and common ownership results from social consensus, in which people
> can freely choose to deal with each other through whatever combination
> of exchange, gift or network that suits the individuals involved.
>
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Anarchist Organization Theory Project
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
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