stuart (03/08/83)
"Under socialism, my life is not my own." Of course, I'm serious. I trade the results of my efforts for things which are the results of other people's efforts. Whether I offer a service or some material product, I spend my time --- I expend part of my life --- in performing that service or making that product. When I trade that service or product, I trade my time and effort. Take away what I traded for, and you effectively take away part of my life. Continue to take from me at will, and you take more of my time, more of my energy --- more of my life. Claim that you may do this when you wish, despite my objections, and you claim my life. You need not take all of my life to demonstrate that I'm not the owner; what fragments you may leave behind is your choice, not mine. "You" may be one person or "you" may be millions of people. "You" may be subject to similar expropriations, too, but that doesn't return the time you stole from me. This point can be approached from another, more revealing angle: How do people provide for their material needs? By re-working available materials (and probably trading some of the results). By separating, mixing, shaping, refining, assembling, or performing any of countless other operations on raw materials. All these operations required, at some point, the application of mental effort, either in discovery or in organizing or coordinating them. With few exceptions, the raw materials are virtually useless without being processed in some way. Consider the wide range of products that you yourself use daily. Consider their material composition, their physical structure, and their function. Think of the human effort involved --- the mental and physical work required for their production. Did anything other than human effort produce them? Machines? And who produced the machines? People. Now you know the real meaning of that sinister phrase, "owning the means of production." -- Stuart Hollander (ucbvax!decvax!genradbolton!stuart)
mmt (03/09/83)
Under Stuart Hollander's definition, anyone whose life was "their own" would probably be pretty lonely and poor. We all owe parts of ourselves to others, both individually and en masse. Martin Taylor
turner (03/12/83)
#R:genradbo:-173400:ucbesvax:7100010:000:2614
ucbesvax!turner Mar 11 05:48:00 1983
I, for one, would like to know what's INTRINSICALLY sinister
about the phrase "owning the means of production." A good case
is made that supposedly collective ownership by those who staff
the productive apparatus might lead to deprivation of others of
what they have rightfully earned -- more, in fact, than happens
in capitalism as it appears in the Western World. (I won't say
"Free World" -- sorry.)
I am opposed to State ownership of the means of production, much
more so than private ownership. I don't think, however, that State
ownership is necessarily equal to collective ownership. Collective
ownership AND management BY the people who work in a business is a
case where the objections and ambiguities in both Capitalism and
Socialism (as discussed here) can be thrashed out and resolved as
appropriate for each workplace. Note that I don't defend the
distributive powers of such a "system" (as both sides of this Cap/Soc
issue try to do.) I think self-management is, in itself, so radically
distributive of power and wealth that it's already like "asking too much".
I am for worker's control of enterprise AS A GOOD TENDENCY, which
requires individual initiative to maintain and advance. I am not
advocating State-level expropriation and intervention. This,
to me, applies no less to software houses than to shop floors.
As a general rule, I think that if the scale of an industry renders
self-management impractical, some thought and work should be put
into rendering that industry impractical.
(A nuclear reactor is an industrial plant, a bureacracy, a large
plot of land, and a large set of assumptions and commitments. To me,
the safety issues COME OUT OF the unwieldiness of the technology --
they are not in themselves the main argument against reactors.
This is not necessarily the case with a Space Program, which could
be a large federation of fairly small concerns working for eventual
profit, and maintaining whatever shared facilities they might not
be able to individually afford.)
Of course, this whole idea is untenable -- it's utopian. But so
are both Scientific Socialism (with it's State-Capitalist realization)
and Laissez-Faire Capitalism (with it's own State-Capitalist outcome.)
There's too much binary logic here. (Socialism/Capitalism,
"right"/"wrong".) Let's not throw up the usual straw men. The
sterility of the thinking here doesn't befit the intelligence of
the participants.
None Of The Above,
Michael Turner