I don't remember who it was, but there used to be someone on one or more
of the email lists I am on who had a signature line that went like this.
The optimist says that things don't get any better than this. The
pessimist is afraid that it is true. If that signature line is correct
then it seems to me that it is the pessimist who will be more likely to
get things done. If the optimist thinks that things don't get any better
then he is likely to just remain complacent.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst
out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how
wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 11/24/2018 4:26 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
That’s great! I hadn’t thought of that.
So pessimism can be a positive force after all. That increases my conditional optimism for the future. <smile>
Evan
*From:* Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Saturday, November 24, 2018 4:18 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would communism work with computers?
Ah, but when I am pessimistic, I’m angry and that causes me to want to act against the forces that make me angry. I’ve made choices in my life that expressed my social values and my anger at the anti-humanistic forces in society. So pessimism and anger can be positive.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *Evan Reese
*Sent:* Saturday, November 24, 2018 3:38 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would communism work with computers?
I agree, it is what one does with those facts that really makes a difference.
But whether one is optimistic or pessimistic can have a lot to do with what one does with those facts.
For example, if one is pessimistic, one could well give in to despair and opt out of the political process altogether. Conversely, if one is optimistic, then one might decide to not drop out, perhaps even to increase one’s efforts to ensure a positive outcome.
There is a danger in optimism though. There is a risk that one can become complacent. That has to be guarded against. I’ve already mentioned the danger of pessimism, the possibility of a sense of hopelessness that can cause one to just disengage from things.
The economist Paul Romer distinguishes between two kinds of optimism, complacent optimism, and conditional optimism.
Complacent optimism is the child waiting for presents on Christmas morning.
Conditional optimism is the child who wants a treehouse, and realizes that if he gets some wood and nails, and persuades some other kids to help him, he can build one.
Conditional optimism is the belief that problems are solvable. Complacent optimism is the belief that they will solve themselves.
So I am conditionally optimistic about our future, not complacently optimistic.
Evan
*From:*Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Saturday, November 24, 2018 2:55 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would communism work with computers?
But what difference does it make? It seems to me that it is what one does with those facts that makes a difference.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst
out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how
wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 11/21/2018 10:14 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
I don’t think it is pessimistic to assess the world as it is. But
two people can take the same set of facts, one feels hopeful,
while the other sees gloom and doom. Facts are facts, but people
can have differing opinions about what those facts portend for the
future.
For example, one person can view all the actions of the Trump
administration and still be optimistic that the checks and
balances of our constitution will ultimately do their job, while
another person can take the same facts and be pessimistic that
those checks and balances will hold up.
I’m not saying I am one or the other of those two examples. I just
picked the first thing to come to mind for illustration.
Evan
*From:*Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for
DMARC) <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Wednesday, November 21, 2018 3:20 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would communism
work with computers?
But what good is optimism? It seems to me that we are better off
assessing the world as it actually is in order to act accordingly
to get what we want. That means that being realistic is
advantageous over either optimism or pessimism. But it also seems
to me that any attempt to see the world realistically is what you
call negative or pessimistic.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation,
burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation,
measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no
matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more
ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 11/18/2018 6:14 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
Yes, genetics, which is horribly complicated, has to be a lot
of the source of our outlooks on life.
It seems that circumstances may be able to move that outlook
perhaps a little, but I’m doubtful that circumstances would,
say, make someone who is really pessimistic convert to raving
optimism.
Now I have a book here called Learned Optimism by Martin
Seligman,, who’s a big wheel in the modern positive psychology
movement, but I haven’t read it yet. I imagine he has data on
this subject that I haven’t heard about, and obviously, from
his title, he may disagree with me that people really can
learn to be optimistic. I’ll see what he says and then
reevaluate if he sounds convincing enough.
For now at least, it seems that people’s temperments are
pretty set early on in life, probably by genetics.
Evan
*From:*Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Sunday, November 18, 2018 5:59 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would
communism work with computers?
Not blindness, one’s individual experiences along with, I
suppose, biology. As a matter of fact, I’ve known many blind
people who have an extremely positive view of life and who do
not feel that blindness has, in any way, affected their life
negatively. I remember one woman, I think it was when I was
getting the one guide dog I had, who was totally blind, who
told me vehemently that she had no wish to see and if doctors
said that they could restore her sight, she’d refuse because
she was perfectly content as she was and she didn’t believe
she was missing anything. No, it isn’t blindness. It’s the way
that I, a person with partial vision, adjusted to my
situation. But different people adjust differently. I’ve met
people with approximately the same amount of sight as I had,
who didn’t see as much as I ddid because they didn’t use it as
I did or because, perhaps, physically, it was different.
Actually, maybe it’s an inheritable trait. My older daughter
is pessimistic, more so than I, but not my younger daughter,
whom we adopted.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *On Behalf Of
*Evan Reese
*Sent:* Sunday, November 18, 2018 5:40 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Optimism, was Re: Would
communism work with computers?
Miriam, you are not paying attention.
I cannot now recall, (although I know it’s been several times
at least), that I’ve said that I do not ignore bad news.
Did I not say that I read most of what you post here? And the
proof is in the fact that I often respond to the stories you
post here. I even posted a bad news story myself, from the
Economist, about Jamal Khashoggi's murder, and how it looked
as though it was bearing out my cynical prediction that it
would probably pass without much serious consequence to Saudi
Arabia, or MBS. I could certainly post more, and I may if I
think it’s important; but you’ve got the darkness angle pretty
much covered.
So I vehemently reject the notion you seem to have that I look
for only positive stories, view the world through rose colored
glasses. That is demonstrably false, false, false! I’m not
going to let you mischaracterize my views in that way.
What I do in fact do is read both bad, and good, news. I
actually read more bad news than good, because it really is
important to know what problems exist so that we can know what
they are in order to work to mitigate them. However, I also do
in fact look for good stories because I think the notion that
paying attention to only one side of a story is not only
mentally unhealthy, it is dangerous because it leads to, what
can be, a self fulfilling pessimism. I do not apologize for that.
And being blind has little or nothing to do with one’s
optimism or pessimism. I have been almost totally blind since
birth, and I do not feel that the world is going to hell in a
handbasket. Conversely, there are many sighted people who feel
as you do, and also many that feel, as I do, that while we
have many serious problems, that is not the same as believing
that we are doomed. I am not sure what ultimately causes
people to have an either glass half full or glass half empty
outlook on life, but I am highly doubtful that blindness is
connected to it.
Evan
*From:*Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Sunday, November 18, 2018 4:46 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Optimism, was Re: Would communism
work with computers?
I guess I want to respond to Evan’s underlying charge, that I
have a negative attitude, that I read only negative stories.
One can, if one chooses, ignore the bad stuff and look for
positive stories, look at the world through rose colored
glasses. That’s a personal choice, similar to the choice of
having faith that God loves us and has a reason for
everything. For me, the signs of disaster are all around us
and if we don’t heed them and make our choices based on
reality, we not only doom ourselves, we doom succeeding
generations. I imagine that my life experience has
predetermined me to view life in this way. As a visually
impaired person, I had to, from childhood on, understand the
world in which I lived, plan ahead to be able to function
effectively in that world, and never underestimate the
obstacles. When I’ve been diverted from that manner of
functioning, bad things have resulted. So, while I support and
applaud any honest efforts to improve life for people, I’m
cognizant of the dangers and difficulties. I know that human
nature includes the capacity to cooperate, to love, to
sacrifice for others, but it also includes the lust for power,
and aggression, and rage. Therefore, I don’t assume that human
institutions are benign. And I do think that we are now living
in a very dangerous time in a sick and corrupted society.
Aside from news articles and books, I see the problems in the
everyday experiences of the people around me and in the
changes that I’ve encountered in my own life. The symptoms are
people’s distraction, forgetfulness, feelings of being under
pressure, and the impersonal nature of the interaction between
people.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of
*Miriam Vieni
*Sent:* Sunday, November 18, 2018 4:10 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
Evan,
I think it’s really nice that Amazon is increasing the wages
of their workers. I imagine that, probably, they might be
increasing the hourly wage to $15 for warehouse workers, if
they’re lucky. One of those bad news articles to which you
refer, that I read the other day, said that if the minimum
wage were keeping up with our economy’s productivity and if it
were comparable to its value in 1970, it would be $25, I think
that was the amount. So if you had a family, a wife and one or
two children, and wanted to provide a relatively comfortable
life for them, nothing fancy just comfortable, could you do it
on $15 an hour? I know that you read a lot and you’re very
intelligent. But I think that it’s all theoretical to you. I
don’t know if you have daily contact with real people who are
living under our present conditions.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of
*Evan Reese
*Sent:* Sunday, November 18, 2018 2:26 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
Oh come Miriam.
I’ve read a lot of what you post here, and if that is any
guide, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, you spend most
days consuming bad news. It’s an unbalanced news diet. Just as
someone who only consumes one kind of food would not be
expected to get proper nutrition, someone who only consumes
one kind of news is not likely to draw trustworthy conclusions.
We are not all screwed. Didn’t you, (perhaps in an unguarded
moment), post an article about how Amazon was increasing their
wages?
And I am not talking about certain autocratic governments that
ran what I define as a planned economy. I am talking about
certain autocratic governments that ran what they themselves
defined as a planned economy.
Evan
*From:*Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Sunday, November 18, 2018 11:10 AM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
I actually have more to say on the subject because you
originally said that our economy works better than a planned
economy. I don’t read The Economist and therefore,I’m not
thinking within the usual framework of how mainstream
economists think and write. But I’m familiar with it because I
hear it on the news. I certainly hear it on Marketplace on NPR
which, by the way is sponsored by, (yes I know supposedly
there are no sponsors), the Koch Brothers). When economists
say that an economy is working well, they’re talking about it
working well for business, for the stock market, for
investors. We’re all supposed to assume that the rest of us
will benefit. But we don’t necessarily benefit. Production is
up. Output is up. Profits are up. But the workers don’t
benefit, nor does the general public. The profits are
re-invested into the business but only in financial terms.
Stock holders profit. CEO’s profit. The business doesn’t
improve working conditions or service to its customers. Games
are played with its finances. Everything is financialized.
Most of us can’t even understand the intricacies. One of the
things I’ve been reading about for years is how we manufacture
money and what that means. It’s complicated. Apparently, what
it means eventually, is that we’re all screwed. It’s like
global warming. The use of fossil fuels is killing us. So, for
that matter, is raising cattle so we can consume all that
meat. The raising of cattle produces even more CO2 than the
fossil fuels. But all those corporations are making money and
they’re officers are living well. So we’ll fight wars to keep
control of oil supplies. Oh, and by the way, fighting those
wars is also bad for the environment. So people can be wealthy
and live high on the hog now, and to hell with the future. My
point is that talking about economic systems and saying that
our “mixed” economy works better than a “planned” economy,
makes no sense to me. It depends on what you mean by “works
better”. And the other thing is that when you say that, are
you actually talking about the economy, or are you thinking
about particular autocratic governments that had, what you
define as”a planned economy”? Just suppose, if Cuba had been
treated as a friendly country after its revolution, if it had
been left alone and had set up a socialist economic system, if
the US had had normal economic relations with it, that planned
economy might have done really well. Castro would not have had
to be as authoritarian because he wouldn’t have been under
threat of US invasion or his own assassination. It’s hard to
know what a real socialist economy in a truly democratic
country would be like because the western nations have never
permitted such a thing to exist.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of
*Evan Reese
*Sent:* Saturday, November 17, 2018 10:28 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
It is a mixed economy. That is, certain aspects are planned,
but certain aspects are not.
If you believe our economy is anything like the kind of
planned economy Roger is talking about, I think you are not
understanding what he means by that.
Nobody is sitting in some central ministry somewhere and
deciding how many boxes of cereal should be produced.
Nobody is sitting in some central ministry somewhere and
deciding how many cars should be produced.
I could go on with a few million more examples, but I think it
is clear enough.
Our economy is not planned in anything like the way Roger is
thinking of.
Evan
*From:*Miriam Vieni <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Saturday, November 17, 2018 10:14 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
Evan,
From everything I read, we have a planned economy. It is
planned and structured to benefit the wealthy. Just read a bit
about how the IMF deals with developing countries. Look at our
tax structure. Look at how the international banking system
works. Think about all those meetings like the G 7, G 20,
Davos, etc. Look at the world population or even, just at the
US population, at the percentage of people whose health,
housing, nutritional, and educational needs are met. The
economic inequality isn’t accidental. The fact that you feel
that you are part of a sector of humanity whose needs are met,
doesn’t mean that our economic system is working properly or
that it is unplanned.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of
*Evan Reese
*Sent:* Saturday, November 17, 2018 9:27 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
So far at least, despite all of its shortcomings, and there
are many, the unplanned economy has done quite a lot better
than any planned ones I’ve heard about.
Perhaps, at some future date, with sufficiently powerful
computers, a planned economy might work. But I would have a
hard time trusting the people in charge of the computers doing
the planning.
Evan
*From:*Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for
DMARC) <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:*Saturday, November 17, 2018 8:53 PM
*To:*blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:*[blind-democracy] Re: Would communism work with
computers?
Well, I don't think this author quite understands what Marx
was all about and he really goes wrong when he equates
Stalinism with communism as if there is no other choice, but
he still hits on a few things that can be agreed on. I have
answered you claims that communism could not work by pointing
out that for the majority of time that humans existed it was
the only economic model, but primitive communism is still not
something that we would want to return to. Even though
prehistoric people participated in a communist economy they
didn't know it. They had no concept of economy and one thing
they did not do was plan their economy unless you count
something like storing up food for the winter. Capitalism is
not a planned economy either. Oh, the federal reserve may
fiddle with the interest rates or tax policy may be changed
with claims of definite effects, but the real effects are not
even close to the effects claimed in the rhetoric. What we
need is an economy planned with human needs in mind and
without profit as a motive. Marx, lenin and others have had a
lot to say about how that should be done, but it is
unquestionable that they did not have computers. Computers
have become a lot more powerful than they used to be and are
becoming even more powerful. In the past economic planners
could use pencil and paper to make calculations and then came
adding machines and then came computers which are primitive by
today's standards. By the way, I remember reading a book from
the NLS called Stonehenge Explained. Without digressing too
much into what it was all about I will just say that the
author used what he considered an extremely advanced computer
to make calculations about the rocks that make up Stonehenge.
He raved about that computer that he used in the early sixties
that took up a whole building and that he had to apply for
time on and had to wait for months. Most of us now have home
desktop computers that are many times more powerful than that
one. So when doing economic planning we really should take
advantage of whatever tools that we have available to us and I
am sure that these computers can make that planning many times
more efficient than Marx or Lenin ever imagined. One of
Lenin's more famous quotations was, "Soviet power and
electrification equals communism." I doubt that he literally
believed that. It was more of a political slogan meant to
emphasize the importance of bringing electricity to the
Russian people. And, like I said, Russia was something of a
backward country at the time of the revolution. There were
very many areas where no one had ever seen a light bulb and
bringing electricity to the masses was a high priority. That
has been mostly accomplished. I suppose there might still be s
few outposts in the backwoods of the Russian territory that
still don't have electricity, but that would be very rare. The
essential technology now is the computer. It just could be
that a world soviet power combined with the use of computers
for an economy that would be geared toward human needs rather
than profit would equal communism.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved
negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation,
measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no
matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more
ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 11/12/2018 10:21 PM, Evan Reese wrote:
Roger, I found this while looking for something else. It’s
something I saved and then forgot about. It’s speculative,
but thought you, and perhaps others here, might find some
interest in it.
Evan
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122568/what-if-stalin-had-computers
What If Stalin Had Computers?
A new book contemplates the end of capitalism
(again)—it's a nice story, but a terrible plan
ByMalcolm Harris
<http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/malcolm-harris>@bigmeaninternet
<https://twitter.com/bigmeaninternet>
*W*hen will capitalism end? It’s not a new idea, and even
the capitalists suspect it will happen. After all, every
other mode of production has fallen, and capitalism isn’t
a steady-state system. It simply isn’t built to stay the
same. As firms incorporate new technologies, capacity
increases per-capita, and jobs change, so too does the
nature of commodities and consumption. It happened with
the assembly line, and it’s happening again with
information technology. In 1930, John Maynard Keynes
famouslypredicted
<http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf>these
trends would reduce everyone’s daily toil to part-time by
now, while Karl Marx thought the same developments would
compel workers to seize the whole system and abolish
wage-labor in general. But the system still lives.
If the history of postcapitalism so far is a repeating
chorus asking “Are we there yet?”, then the new book from
Channel 4 economics editor Paul Mason,/Postcapitalism: A
Guide to Our Future/, is a reassuring “Almost!” from the
front seat. Like a good co-pilot, Mason keeps his eyes on
his indicators, and he has the end in sight. Or at least
on his graphs. How the transition might occur is less
important than that it must.
*M*arxist economics is not a vibrant field within the
anglophone academy or public sphere. Even Thomas Piketty’s
best selling import,/Capital in the Twenty-First Century/,
didn’t take much more than a good title from the
communists. Mason is an oddity, as an economics
commentator of some stature (at least in the UK, where he
has been an economics/business editor since 2001) who
believes that labor is the source of all value. He spends
much of the first half of/Postcapitalism/redeeming the
work of heterodox Soviet economist Nikolai Kondtratieff,
whose model of 50-year four-phase market cycles is Mason’s
preferred historical gauge.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Kondtratieff wave explanation is an intuitive way to
look at 200 years of economic history: In Mason’s telling,
industrial capitalism has completed four cycles since
1790, driven by the interrelated processes of
technological innovation, global expansion, capital
investment, and not least by labor struggles. The story a
cycle goes more or less like this: Capitalists incorporate
new productive technology, sharing the proceeds with
workers; profits slow and workers fight with their bosses
as firms try to depress labor costs; when capitalists
can’t find any more savings, they’re forced to incorporate
new technology and start the cycle over. Despite its
Soviet origins, mainstream British and American economists
have found the model useful for describing how capitalism
manages to persist.
The problem is we seem to have broken the cycle. Where
workers should have been able to leverage their power for
higher living standards, capital instead outsourced
production, smashed unions, captured the regulators, and
expanded money supply by unpegging the dollar from gold.
Mason calls this counter-cyclical move “neoliberalism,”
and it’s a helpful definition for a term sometimes used
carelessly to refer to anything bad and capitalist.
Kondratieff described a dance between capital and labor
that was theoretically sustainable—a heresy that did not
go over well with Stalin, who felt that the proletariat
was only days from halting the waltz.
As it turned out, Stalin was wrong and capital broke up
with labor, not the other way around. Mason calls our
current situation the “long, disrupted wave”: The lights
are on, and Kondratieff’s dance is over. This isn’t the
only relationship that’s broken; capitalist economics is
incompatible with information technology, Mason claims. As
the supply of some commodities (like music files) becomes
infinite, price-setting becomes arbitrary and
unsustainable. How do you measure the amount of labor in
replicable file? The adaptable system of production that
Kondratieff saw from the other side is sinking. “The most
highly educated generation in the history of the human
race, and the best connected,” Mason writes, “will not
accept a future of high inequality and stagnant growth.”
/Postcapitalism/really begins here, at the bargaining
table with capital and labor looking for a plan that will
settle their differences once and for all. If the world is
headed for imminent ecological collapse, then to continue
on with our current capitalist mode of production is
suicide. Maximizing actors don’t kill themselves, so the
operative question is what to do next. How can we maintain
people’s standards of living while socializing production,
reducing labor, saving the environment, and making the
best use of new technology? Mason has some ideas.
*T*he book really comes into its own when Mason addresses
the possibilities of contemporary planning. He does not go
as far as to endorse “cyber Stalinism” but at the very
least poses its thesis: What if the problem with the
Soviet Union was that it was too early? What if our
computer processing power and behavioral data are
developed enough now that central planning could
outperform the market when it comes to the distribution of
goods and services?
If you raised your hand and said this in an American
ECON100 class, you’d be laughed out of the room, so Mason
as prominent public employee deserves a lot of credit for
bringing it this far into the English-speaking mainstream.
The possible socialized uses of technology is an exciting
can of worms. Using large sets of behavior and population
data, capitalist firms like Amazon and Google have
developed predictive capacities that would make Soviet
cyberneticians weep with joy. Capitalism says that the
best use of this capacity is to sell people stuff, but
parts of this process are so socially unproductive and
unnecessary—we don’t just have clickbait sites, we have
third-rate clickbait sites—that it can’t possibly be the case.
“Imagine if Walmart or Tesco were prepared to publish
their customer data (suitably anonymized) for free,” Mason
writes. “Society would benefit: everybody from farmers to
epidemiologists could mine the data, and make more
accurate decisions.” This is just the beginning; remaking
productive machinery in the collective interest means
driving necessary labor down as far as possible with data
analytics and self-management. Why can’t a meatpacking
factory function like a web startup, with room for
autonomy and achievement targets instead of required
hours? It’s fun to imagine how we could do better than
capitalism if we all decided to, especially if no one had
to worry about creating and maintaining false scarcity
around info-tech goods.
The best existing example I can think of for the kind of
efficiencies Mason predicts is the difference between
Netflix and Popcorn Time. Netflix is, of course, the $28
billion media streaming company with over 2000
employees.Popcorn Time
<http://qz.com/344394/hollywood-should-be-very-afraid-of-popcorn-time-the-netflix-for-pirates/>is
a legally shady alternative that streams media torrents
over a clean ad-less interface. It’s a functional and free
alternative, what economists would call a replacement
good. Popcorn Time makes no money, and has a staff of 20
around the world who volunteer their labor part-time.
Netflix is (as a streaming company) a near-total waste of
time. Those 2000-plus workers could be developing a
nutritious Slurpee and designing a distribution
infrastructure. Or babysitting. Hell, they could be
lowering the collective labor burden enough so everyone
has time to masturbate one extra time a year, and it would
still be more socially useful than charging rent for
access to digital content.
In Mason’s telling, postcapitalism involves an abundance
of resources, including free time. Without capitalism’s
wastefulness, we can refashion the world to allow human
potential and creativity to blossom. It’s an enjoyable
thought experiment, but capitalists are not looking to
make a deal. Given the choice, I have no doubt that the
ownership class will literally abandon the planet Earth
before they surrender capitalism. Bosses no longer
negotiate with organized labor if they can avoid it;
they’d rather make a blanket offer to all workers as
individuals: Work and/or starve. Violence and coercion
don’t play much of a role in/Postcapitalism/, but that’s
not true of capitalism. Huge, advanced police forces
ensure this is the deal whether people “accept” it (as
Mason says) or not.
Imaginative as it is,/Postcapitalism/is not a
revolutionary book. As Malcolm Xobserved
<http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/message-to-grassroots/>very
clearly of revolution after revolution: “What was it for?
Land! How did they get it? Bloodshed!” Capitalists
understand this principle very well, and their state
proxies are well-armed. The vanguard movements of
postcapitalism that Mason identifies—the global occupy
sequence, Brazilian World Cup protesters, fracking
blockaders—have all been forced out of whatever territory
they were able to take temporarily, and that’s with the
authorities exercising significant restraint relative to
their capabilities. Since postcapitalism doesn’t detail
the “How?”, it doesn’t have to answer “How do we kill that
many cops?”
There’s a reason Marxists—even heterodox ones—don’t
usually speculate on how to arrange communism: Marxsays
not to
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#2a>.
“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be
established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust
itself,” he writes with Engels in/The German Ideology/.
“We call communism the real movement which abolishes the
present state of things.” Not even Marx claimed to know
what communism will look like, but he knew it would have
to destroy capitalism first.
It’s hard to follow Marx into his beautifully hopeful
“will have been” idea of history without thinking he’s
doing some sword-in-the-stone prophecy, but he nonetheless
reveals important problems with postcapitalism. I cannot
imagine the real movement that could, in retrospect,
validate Mason’s version of history. The true qualities of
capitalism, including the weak points where it finally
fails, will only be visible in the shadow of whatever
social force destroys it. The people Mason describes,/at
least as motivated and defined by the historical factors
he describes/(education, connection, stagnant wages), do
not seem willing or able to confront the system at the
necessary scale or with the required intensity. To borrow
a perspective from Marx, I do not believe Mason’s theory
of capitalism will have been the case.
The true story of capitalism, like all social forms, will
be written in its ashes. Until then, a theory of
historical necessity and a couple bucks will get you a cup
of coffee. Mason criticizes leftists for being against
things that exist instead of for things that could be, but
the position of the cart in relation to the horse isn’t up
for sensible debate. Postcapitalism is still one
revolution away.
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