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Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft



* Ref.: »Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft«
*        Graham Seaman 	(2004-01-14  13:10)

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Casimir Purzelbaum wrote:

*        Graham Seaman 	(2004-01-14  09:54)
There is an 'invisible hand' in a free society. It doesn't
work through the medium of money, but directly through
need. If I (for large enough values of I) need some
software, but that software doesn't exist in free form, I
will write it. If the software already exists in just the
form I want it, I won't bother. The supply of programmers
for particular types of program is regulated by need: this
invisible hand is the hand that scratches your own itch...

My attempt at picturing a new mode of organizing production
(etc.) would deny the use (and existence) of invisible hands.
Need as an invisible hand is nothing else than the state of
mankind before it started to become class society. (I mean
what is called Ur-Kommunismus in German, how does this
translate to English?).

'primitive communism'. I don't think mine is at all a
description of pre-class society, though: everything I've heard
about these says they are extremely rule-bound and inflexible;
certainly not working by people randomly doing new things. In
any case, my invisible hand needs a very large population to
work at all.

 Every invisible hand is a mythical thing.

So I would replace the "invisible hand" with "vision" and
"conscious action" .

May be I should better call it something like
"consciousnessful acting" in order to hint at the difference
between what I mean, and what I take for our current level of
"consciousness", a mixture of belief and individual
awareness.

And I would not see the "need" as limited as you do (here).
It sounds a bit like "if you're hungry, you will go and do
something about it...". 

That's not a core part of the argument; I used 'need' to
simplify to brotchen level... In my sense I would see 'need' as
including for example 'I need to go and explore mars', with all
the consequences that would have for production...

The difference between a one-off reaction to a need and the
organization of life lies within the level of consciousness.
Over most parts of history this quasi-consciousness was
hidden in various myths, because people could not grasp what
they did and how to consciously organize it... so they
pictured it out of themselves and put it into "inherited
wisdom" or "god" or "commandments" or "law" or "habit" or
"tradition" etc..  And that's why this part of history has
been called pre-history of the human kind.

(I'm not sure if it helps to supplement the "need" with
"desire" and "whish"... because all of them exist on fairly
unconscious levels too, and, usually are dealt with, as if
they were of biological nature...)

---- I think this refers to both of your questions, but I'm
not sure how far I'm off the mark by your account (probably
very fa...;)

Well, it definitely refers to the question :-) But...

The classic argument from right-wing economists (eg. Hayek) as
to why the invisible hand is needed is that given the
complexity of a modern society, and the number of sub-products
and levels of processing needed to create any one product,
conscious control of production would require omniscience. And
the only way to have omniscience is also to have omnipotence.
Since neither of these is actually achievable, a planning
system like that of the xUSSR is all that can be realized: they
pretend to set realistic targets, we pretend to work, etc...

I think, we are lacking a bit of phantasy here ;-)  I think,
there must be some regulatory mechanism for organizing complex
structures that does not require omniscience nor omnipotence.
And I think this is possible, because it already exists on the
biological level: an organism does not work by mere central
control or omniscience/omnipotence of the brain nor any other
part of it.  And yet, I would not think fit searching for an
invisible hand that would make all the parts of an organism work
together -- surely one can assume that there must be something
like that and search for it, but I don't think this kind of quest
helps understanding what really goes on in an organism.
(Please don't over-stretch this "analogy" ;-) I know
we are talking about social structures, not biological ones; but
I'm convinced, that the social level of material organization can
not be less complex than the biological level...)

My alternative hidden hand side-steps this argument; it is a
self-adjusting system, or maybe an emergent system, with
actions dictated neither by the needs of the market, nor by a
Stalin-like planner. But, as you point out, it also means that
the way the overall system behaves is not under conscious
control.

Did I say conscious *control*? I dit not mean to. It would in
fact be the corner stone for the arguments that you cited above.

You want to reinstate conscious control, but without the need
for separate planners. Which certainly sounds positive, but is
even more abstract than my suggestion. How do we all get
conscious control over the direction of the whole of society
without that itself being the only thing we have time to do in
our lives?

Sorry, but it I think you are right: it is more abstract ;-)  And
I do not have an answer other than questioning, why should not
everyones' most dominant need and preoccupation be his existence
in society and therefor the well-being of society? And why should
there be more fun in anything else?

What I'm trying to say here is probably heavily influenced by the
following quote (-- sorry for the lengthy citation):

  »Further, the division of labour implies the contradiction
  between the interest of the separate individual or the
  individual family and the communal interest of all individuals
  who have intercourse with one another. And indeed, this
  communal interest does not exist merely in the imagination, as
  the "general interest", but first of all in reality, as the
  mutual interdependence of the individuals among whom the labour
  is divided. And finally, the division of labour offers us the
  first example of how, as long as man remains in natural
  society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the
  particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as
  activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man's own
  deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him
  instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the
  distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a
  particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon
  him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a
  fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so
  if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in
  communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of
  activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he
  wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes
  it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow,
  to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in
  the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind,
  without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
  This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we
  ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out
  of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught
  our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical
  development up till now.«  (Marx, German Ideology Ch.1/4) [1]

By recognizing that whatever you do *does* "control" the
direction of the whole society and *how* it does it -- and by
conscious action based on this recognition -- you make central
planners superfluous.

Yes, this does require a fairly high level of education... But
hasn't education already risen beyond measure compared with the
time of the first enlightenment activists?

with an optimistic note,
cheers,
Casi.

[1] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4

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