tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post6517720784455038829..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: I AM IN PARIS, AND ALREADY I AM THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN TRUMPRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8174381292343121052016-05-22T08:00:30.233-04:002016-05-22T08:00:30.233-04:00In the interview linked below, Chomsky claims that...In the interview linked below, Chomsky claims that most of the consumer technologies claimed by capitalist 'innovators' were made possible through government funded research.<br /><br />http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-reveals-hypocrisies-capitalism-financial-capital-worldAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-30591216791107146622016-05-19T12:36:56.384-04:002016-05-19T12:36:56.384-04:00I agree that it was a depressing conclusion. It i...I agree that it was a depressing conclusion. It is hard to look at the world today as it is and feel hopeful that real working class solidarity will develop. But my aim was to answer the question, Why have things not turned out as Marx anticipated? I am a naturally optimistic person, and I would be delighted to be shown wrong.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25658794599572154312016-05-19T11:15:15.870-04:002016-05-19T11:15:15.870-04:00I just recently read your essay, and I have to say...I just recently read your essay, and I have to say I found the first half (in which you discuss accounting) very intriguing and even hopeful. The second half (the "why aren't we having fun yet?" part) ended the essay on a very depressing note. You seem to be saying that the mechanisms for a socialist future have indeed been born though the structure of the capitalist corporation, but people are unable to shed their nationalism (and other -isms) to an extent Marx could not anticipate, therefore the class based solidarity to do something with these techniques is very unlikely. An initially hopeful read that took a quick depressing turn! Am I missing something? Do you still hold this view? DMLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578180458879730376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-77738908844070146972016-05-19T09:50:38.090-04:002016-05-19T09:50:38.090-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01740206023584262428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-46298226731618765982016-05-19T09:43:54.684-04:002016-05-19T09:43:54.684-04:00How much of the high tech innovation really is inn...How much of the high tech innovation really is innovation which contributes to human flourishing and how much is marketing?<br /><br />Do we need a new even smarter, more rebellious, more creative, more authentically-you smart phone every 6 months, which means the old less authentically-you smart phones go to pollute the planet with more plastics?<br /><br />Wouldn't that money, high IQ and creative energy be better utilized to find a cure for cancer, to find effective treatments for depression, to make sure that everyone in Africa gets vaccinated and has clean drinking water?<br /><br />That is, a socialist society may be less fascinated with innovation for the sake of innovation, but it would have, I hope, a set of priorities which contribute more to human flourishing. If not, humanity is irremediably fucked, which may be the case.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88611328754553947262016-05-19T07:30:46.404-04:002016-05-19T07:30:46.404-04:00http://cdn03.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploa...http://cdn03.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/communicator-840x637.jpg<br /><br />Who invented the cell phone?Andrew Lionel Blaishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01976034095806583387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-39851999431899620872016-05-18T23:17:31.730-04:002016-05-18T23:17:31.730-04:00What I wonder about government ownership of the me...What I wonder about government ownership of the means of production is very close to what Tom Cathcart wonders, though I’m more cynical about it. If government owns the means of production, then the decisions concerning them will be made by politicians, whose primary interest is their own re-election and whose secondary interest, therefore, is in protecting their constituents and their jobs from any threat.<br /><br />As an example, upstate New York, when I was growing up in mid-century, was peppered with typewriter manufacturers—Remington Rand, Royal, Underwood, L.C. Smith-Corona as well as IBM. After World War II, when production of typewriters resumed, IBM immediately jumped in with an electric and the others struggled to compete. They never caught up to IBM, but the personal computer did. Now typewriters are a thing of the past, including IBM’s.<br /><br />This has caused a lot of pain in the communities (including my home town) where typewriters were made. But today we have computers—and are able to enjoy such things as this blog. Would anyone want to go back to typewriters?<br /><br />I don’t see how this could happen with government ownership of the means of production. Government would have to OK the development of products that threaten the livelihoods of many people and many communities. I don’t think that would happen. The politicians would never allow it any more than they allow doing away with farm price supports that were enacted in the 1930s to aid small impoverished farmers. <br /><br />The phenomenon occurs in the private sector as well. You may remember that, in the days before flat screen TV, the Sony Trinitron was the highest rated cathode ray tube. But Sony isn’t much, if it’s anything, in the flat screen TV industry today. I was told that this is because, within the company, the division that produced the Trinitron was powerful enough to block efforts of others in the company to develop a flat screen product. What they couldn’t do was prevent others from doing so. That kind of competition doesn’t seem possible to me with government ownership.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01601151117159492920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-35507148147244765312016-05-18T17:25:05.499-04:002016-05-18T17:25:05.499-04:00This is ‘Unknown’ from above. I forgot to use a n...This is ‘Unknown’ from above. I forgot to use a name.<br /><br />I'd also like to briefly add that it seems plausible that the innovative phases in both Apple and Microsoft have waned largely because they found their market. Their initial innovations and their success in the marketplace have essentially telegraphed to them what products they into perpetuate and attempt to improve. The market no longer says to them, ‘Make something new, interesting and useful’ but, rather, it says, ‘Hey! Keep making that thing that we find useful.’ I’m willing to bet fifty bucks that the same thing happens to Google within the next twenty years.<br /><br />If the affiliation of people now organized under the name of Apple Co. were allowed to invent an iPad and then move on to the next thing without market pressures, I wonder what they could produce.<br />YourPalGarretthttp://www.honkytonkunion.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-51390632123222709102016-05-18T15:58:01.387-04:002016-05-18T15:58:01.387-04:00With relation to Tom's question, I think it...With relation to Tom's question, I think it's also possible that those with high levels of creativity, competitiveness, and drive may find various other outlets for those traits outside of their job. Furthermore, we might find that our work hours are cut substantially in this socialist world, thus freeing us up to pursue and nurture any personality traits that we like. People like Jobs or Larry Page could still find ways to compete and interact with each other. They would likely start groups or clubs that do such things and I bet much of their work would still produce new and potentially exciting ideas. <br /><br />Furthermore, I'd like to point out that cars, steel and corn (yes, even corn) were once 'innovative' products even if we find them very commonplace now. The product is not now and never has been ‘innovation’ itself. Nobody stands in line to buy innovation. They stand in line to buy products. All the smaller ‘innovations’ that had to occur in technology to make the iPhone get almost entirely ignored but I promise there was a longstanding, generational and iterative process that incrementally brought about the components that go into the iPhone. With the tools we have at hand and are now developing to greater levels of sophistication (3D printing, I’m looking at you), we have the potential to unleash vast amounts of creativity within our society. Innovation by definition is not something that one can make happen. It takes a lot of people doing work in various fields building upon the work of their predecessors. If one looks at apple today, we can see how the sun is sort setting on them as innovators. They can make a phone a little bigger or a little smaller. They can make a watch. But their innovative capacity seems to have plateaued for the time being. <br /><br />Will there be a dull bureaucracy in the socialist future? I would be shocked if there wasn’t but it may- and probably will- take a much different shape than governmental bureaucracy as it appears under capitalism. We may find that even bureaucrats have incredible capacities for creativity if society is organized towards the goals of human flourishing and taking care of those who need it.<br /><br /><br />What may not happen is the Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01143573100024726912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81480444089689206872016-05-18T14:52:07.784-04:002016-05-18T14:52:07.784-04:00According to Chomsky (who was there), most of t...According to Chomsky (who was there), most of the basic IT research was done at MIT and other similar universities, funded by government, often Pentagon, grants.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-14230257250996184602016-05-18T14:14:13.770-04:002016-05-18T14:14:13.770-04:00S wallerstein, True enough, although I wonder how...S wallerstein, True enough, although I wonder how many IT engineers the universities would have turned out if the crazy, driven people hadn't more or less invented the field. (Frank Land and Bill Gates dropped out of my alma mater in frustration in order to invent the Polaroid camera and Microsoft.)Tom Cathcarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136970056480275148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-43294580899286790632016-05-18T13:28:23.632-04:002016-05-18T13:28:23.632-04:00Tom Cathcart,
I've never been at Google headq...Tom Cathcart,<br /><br />I've never been at Google headquarters, but I did teach English as a foreign language to the smart kids in the Servicio de Impuestos Internos (Internal Revenue Service) in Chile, the kids who took a bureaucratic, slow, old-fashioned government service and modernized it, making it fast, online and efficient. They were mostly fresh out of the university, engineers, high-tech people, of both genders and there was excitement there. It depends on the people, it depends on the team-leaders, it depends on the social context.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-76205328964008597822016-05-18T12:18:02.073-04:002016-05-18T12:18:02.073-04:00Bob, I have read your paper, and I have a probably...Bob, I have read your paper, and I have a probably ignorant but sincere question. I follow the analysis as long as we're talking about cars or steel or corn. An increasing driver of our economy, though, is innovation, Apple being the paradigm case, but one can think of hundreds of others. I've worked for a number of non-profits and a number of government agencies, and I've never seen anything there like Apple. Steve Jobs and his disciples were apparently driven by a number is self-serving passions: competitiveness, intense desire to create, neurotic personalities. In the agencies I've worked for, Steve Jobs would have been side-lined and frustrated to the point where he resigned. Well, we got along for centuries without iPhones. So what? In this century, though, we live in a world economy, so some other country would become the leading innovator. [Cp. China/US 50 years ago and now.] (Is this why Marx warned against socialism in one country?) Danny and I gave a talk at Google headquarters, where the excitement of the employees was palpable. Those at the Department of Motor Vehicles, not so much. So there's my ignorant/sincere question: how do we keep the economic engine of the country from looking like the DMV?<br /><br />Enjoy Paris! (As if one couldn't.)Tom Cathcarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136970056480275148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17386954797007514572016-05-18T11:29:02.140-04:002016-05-18T11:29:02.140-04:00A few quick thoughts before rushing off to work:
...A few quick thoughts before rushing off to work:<br /><br />I've never read Mises, and am not eager to, but I think you're giving a bit unfair characterization of Hayek here. I've certainly not read all of his work on the subject, but I've never seen him say that the information processing of the market is "perfect" - he makes use of the fact that people in markets over and under shoot all the time, and this feed-back is what allows them to adapt, on his account. Maybe I don't understand what you mean here, but it seems like an odd way to characterize his view. <br /><br />For people who are interested in such things, I cannot ever tire of recommending Alec Nove's _The Economics of Feasible Socialism_ for some careful discussion of the problems face, from someone who is a supporter of socialism. It is less "theoretical" and more based on close examination of various systems than many other accounts.<br /><br />On the functioning of large firms - there is a very big literature on this, how they are or are not like socialist planing, what it entails, the role of markets in them and in relation to them, etc. I know _of_ this literature, but can't say much at all about whether it's good, whom within it should be looked at, or even (right now, while running off) give citations, but this is a very much discussed and considered topic, for people who are interested in it. Maybe someone else reading the blog knows it better than I do.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01446428606119200980noreply@blogger.com