Paul Mason: 'the end of capitalism has begun'

Submitted by Joseph Kay on July 18, 2015

Paul Mason's got a new book out, and there's an extract/summary in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun

Paul Mason

The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant goods and information; and a system of monopolies, banks and governments trying to keep things private, scarce and commercial. Everything comes down to the struggle between the network and the hierarchy: between old forms of society moulded around capitalism and new forms of society that prefigure what comes next.

Joseph Kay

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on July 18, 2015

Seen a lot of praise and a lot of criticism on social media. Here's what I wrote on Facebook:

1. The claim that elements that could form a possible post-capitalist mode of production already exist is more defensible than the stronger claim they those elements are already combining and that the superseding of capitalism is already under way.

2. The marginal cost of 'information' may approach zero, but the infrastructure cost is paid in poisonous assembly, high energy demands, and toxic waste dumped on the racialised poor. Dyer-Witheford's Cyber-proletariat at least acknowledges this, though without necessarily 'solving' its implications for cyber-communism.

3. One solution to the above is 'cradle to cradle' design, and one barrier to that (aside from it not always lowering costs) has been refusal of supply chains to share information on components, processes etc due to commercial confidentiality. This would suggest ecological production is incompatible with competitive private ownership, in line with Mason's argument, but imho without resolving the toxic waste aspect tech-utopia is premised on neocolonialism.

4. As usual with these pieces, there's no mention of care (except a suggestion that trying to stop the privatisation of healthcare is picking the wrong battle?). The post-capitalist purpose of labour saving technology might be to share and degender, deracialise caring, domestic, and reproductive labour but that isn't an automatic consequence and shouldn't be an afterthought.

5. The stark opposition between network and hierarchy doesn't really work (indeed a graph of a classic hierarchy looks like a 'network' because it is a form of one). Networks can certainly be capitalist, and hierarchies can be anti-capitalist (if not communist). Nick Srnicek's 'the command of the plan must be married to the improvised order of the network' seems a more productive way to think about this. We need distributed improvisation and formal collective deliberation at varying scales, though the 'command' of the latter is not necessarily a hierarchy in any conventional sense (e.g. could be direct democratic mandated federalism thrashing out binding greenhouse gas limits or something).

6. The mechanisms of non-informational peer-production need to be elaborated. Not necessarily in the guardian piece but in the book. The von Mises/Hayek arguments against socialist calculation can be countered imho but aren't trivial. Iirc von Mises limited his criticism to 'higher order' goods (raw materials and means of production), conceding consumer goods could be distributed rationally on a non-monetary basis. But unspecified 'algorithms' isn't a satisfactory answer, since part of Hayek's argument is that the necessary information is *created* in market transactions. I'm reading up on this and will write something in future.

7. The insistence that the state will play a role is either trivially true, or wishful thinking, given the very public humiliation of Syriza. If everything comes down to the opposition between the network and the hierarchy, why would we expect the state to side with the network?

8. Also see Harsha Walia's comment here: https://www.facebook.com/harsha.walia/posts/10153532282379337?pnref=story

Debris

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Debris on July 18, 2015

My first grumpy grunts:

'Postcapitalism' is just another variant of capitalism socialised, a phase in the technologically determined evolution of the commodity economy. The transformation is essentially an economic and not a social one. This is old skool economist orthodox marxist theory v2.0 "Hippy Hamster". But economic freedom hardly means freedom from the economy.

The whole story is premised on the old idea of humanity plagued by scarcity, where technology-induced abundance of material goods emerges as the savior.*

Social media may suffice instead of an immediate human community, and let's not even speak of a reconciliation with nature, the extension of community beyond the human.

---
*) "Economics is defined in most textbooks as "the study of the allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends." Humans, it is said, have unlimited wants and limited means to satisfy these wants, so the inevitable result is scarcity. We cannot have everything we want, so we must choose what we would have. Every act of consumption is thus also an act of denial. The more we consume, the more we are deprived. In this dismal state of affairs, our job as economic beings is to allocate our limited incomes so as to get the greatest enjoyment possible from the relatively few things we are able to buy."
https://libcom.org/history/hunter-gatherers-mythology-market-john-gowdy

rooieravotr

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by rooieravotr on July 18, 2015

I see a blog post coming up in Joseph Kay's point-by-point comment... It is certainly worth it.

Ed

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ed on July 19, 2015

I would like to second the popular request of a Joseph Kay blog post on the topic.. come on, JK! The people have spoken!

Joseph Kay

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on July 19, 2015

mcm_cmc's blog already covered similar ground: https://libcom.org/blog/fully-automated-luxury-communism-utopian-critique-14062015

If I do write anything I'll wait until I've read the book at least!

Chilli Sauce

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Chilli Sauce on July 20, 2015

What's that you said, JK, you're going to write a book on the topic?

autonomice

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by autonomice on July 20, 2015

Isnt the elephant in the room the fact that Mason is a celebrated author and successful journalist. His position in the division of labour lends itself to reform and the state, as if there were no state to protect his privileges then he'd just be a smo like everyone else

Rob Ray

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Rob Ray on July 20, 2015

The liberal wing of the media tends to keep a few pet opponents on its roster just so it can point to them and say "dunno what Chomsky's on about, look at this guy we've hired to talk about Marx and stuff." Mason's basically in that zone.

Mr. Jolly

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mr. Jolly on July 20, 2015

He laid out his thesis a while ago,

https://youtu.be/s5teO3W4LrM

Joseph Kay

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on July 21, 2015

There's a critique here: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/paul-mason-and-postcapitalism-utopian-or-scientific/

If Mason is telling us that the development of the productive forces have now created the pre-conditions for a society of abundance and an end of class exploitation, then that is right but it is nothing new. It what Marx said 160 years ago. (...) But Mason also seems to be saying that this new information/knowledge revolution is by-passing the contradictions of capitalism, the law of value and the exploitation of labour by capital. If so, then he is wrong.

ocelot

8 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by ocelot on July 21, 2015

Hmm it is the critique of an "orthodox" technological determinist criticising an unorthodox technological determinist for heterodoxy though. Without seeing the technological deterrminist continuity that links Mason's previous incarnation as Workers Power journalist to his current Channel 4, etc, gigs. And which comes from the same source as Michael Roberts' view of FROP and objective crisis:

The great contradiction of capitalism is that, as the necessary labour time falls due to technical progress, it lowers the value of commodities and thus puts downward pressure on the profitability of production. And under capitalism, it is profit (surplus value) that matters, not more output (use value).

Zusammenbruchstheorie

Joseph Kay

8 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on August 11, 2015

Andrew Flood's take: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/end-capitalism-paul-masons-guardian

What matters is not so much whether capitalist companies can incorporate networks (they clearly can) but whether capitalist companies are the best fit for what is developing. If they are not than over time the pressure builds for the new forms to 'burst through the boundaries' just a capitalism eventually burst out of feudalism.

Benzo89

8 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Benzo89 on September 5, 2015

Did this article come out around the last episode of Mr Robot? :)

Interesting article but I don't think access to information and new business models that use the title "sharing economy" is something that will lead to the withering away of the capitalist model.

If anything has the possibility of doing that I would go with technological advancement and immigration. World gets smaller and we realise we are all the same and our ability to reach a post scarcity worldwide situation happens it could lead to a withering away of capitalism.

However I would imagine withering away would be something we would see hundreds and hundreds of years in the future when we are 3d printing all our houses, all our transport runs on solar power and agricultural technology has made food production so advanced.

ocelot

8 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by ocelot on September 6, 2015

Andrew has orchestrated a reading group on this text here in Dublin. This Wednesday we covered section 1 (i,e, chapters 1-4). My comments on that section:

1. Problem of two voices. Voice 1 is an upgraded historical materialism 2.0 voice, based on a notion of geological time where all parts of the earth are always at the same level of development and the boundaries between different periods of development occur simultaneously on a global level like the geological K/T boundary. Voice 2 is a more global economic history one, which accepts, for instance, that for neoliberalism to be successful, it was necessary that parts of the OECD, like Germany and Japan, did not adopt that regime of accumulation, but instead stuck with a productivist Keynesian/Mercantile model. Another example being the characterisation of the 1930s Great Depression as being partially caused/aggravated by the eclipse of British imperial power in conjunction with the US's then lack of willingness to assume it's place.
.
2. Not only are voices 1 & 2 not well joined or intersected, but they don't even complement each other, taken to its logical conclusion, the unilinear a-spatial stageism of voice 1 is in contradiction with the world systemic, combined and uneven development narrative of voice 2.
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3. A further problem with voice 1 - as a model or guide to political strategy - is that historical unilinearity implicitly creates a hierarchy between "modern" - i.e. closest to the future - and "backwards" - i.e. further away from the future. Implicitly then, progress towards the universal future must clearly come from those closest to it, not from the relatively "backwards" areas of the Middle East and North Africa or the Lacandon jungles of Southern Mexico. Therefore, arguably some of the most interesting phenomena of political alternatives to neoliberalism of recent times - the Zapatistas and Kurdish Democractic Autonomy - are the reactive struggles of backwards peoples and societies, doomed to irrelevance (or worse) by the relentless wheels of modernist progress.

spacious

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by spacious on October 13, 2015

There's an interesting critical review here of both Post-capitalism and Nick Dyer Witheford's Cyberproletariat:
http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/25/postcapitalist-futures

Khawaga

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on October 13, 2015

Thanks for posting that spacious. It's a slap in the face of Mason for sure.

Spikymike

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on October 16, 2015

Just finnished reading Paul Mason's book. It's certainly worth a read as it is well written and an easier read than others (see note below) on a similar theme correctly identifying several significant trends in the evolution of modern global capitalism including his particular focus on the interelationship between capitalist competition, class struggle and the increasing role of information technology which is starting to exacerbate other underlying tendencies towards increased social and economic crisis, even if he exagerates that impact in the short to medium term. More particularly I think he exagerates the radical potential of both the established and his more recently identified 'non-market' social and economic relationships, which whatever their value in imagining alternative futures, have continued to be absorbed into and contribute to the reproduction of the value system. I also agree with the main criticism made by Daniel Whittal in the above linked text regarding Mason's dismissal of the working class as the main agent of change to a post-capitalist future whilst acknowledging the changed composition of and divisions within the modern global working class.
It struck me that whilst Mason is keen to dismiss some of the traditional left scenarios of revolutionary change he associates with the forced march of Bolshevik Russia his road map to a post-capitalist future is little more than a rebranding of left social democracy - a kind of Cyber-trotskyism!
Note: There is a usefule review with my brief comment of Franco 'Bifo' Berardi's book 'After the Future' and Life-boat Communism elsewhere on this site.

ajjohnstone

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by ajjohnstone on October 16, 2015

The SPGB blog just recently posted an article about Mason by a member which you might think useful.

http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2015/10/paul-mason-and-socialism.html

Joseph Kay

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on October 16, 2015

Spikymike

More particularly I think he exagerates the radical potential of both the established and his more recently identified 'non-market' social and economic relationships, which whatever their value in imagining alternative futures, have continued to be absorbed into and contribute to the reproduction of the value system.

For argument's sake, i'll play Mason here...

The more the value of goods becomes informational - including tangible goods such as cars - the more their marginal cost (the cost of producing an extra unit) tends to fall to zero. As such, commodity relations are reproduced less and less 'spontaneously', and more and more through direct state supported monopolies (i.e. intellectual property rights). So Apple can only commodify mp3s because of IP law, their 'natural' state is to be shared freely.

Insofar as that starts to apply to tangible goods too, maintaining commodity relations requires more and more intervention to maintain monopolies to prop up profits. So while it's true the 'free production' today just provides free inputs to capitalism (e.g. all the corporate servers run on Linux), or even intensifies exploitation (companies employing a few coders and going open source instead of having a whole team coding a proprietary system), it's actually undermining commodity relations in the medium term.

A similar 'zero marginal cost' effect is visible with solar (photovoltaic) energy in Germany. Almost all of the cost is up-front in manufacturing and installing the panels - once they're installed, they produce electricity. And the brighter it is, the more energy you get at no extra cost, unlike e.g. gas or coal plants, where producing more energy requires more fuel. The effect of this has been to push electricity prices negative at peak times, seriously threatening the financial viability of fossil fuel generation. So there's an example of a very physical thing - energy - where the zero marginal cost effect tends to make the commodity form a very 'unnatural' fit for the use value.

The viability of the commodity form comes to depend more and more on the state, and the state then stands between popular pressures of the 'networked individuals' and the possibility of lots of free stuff. Now, I think Mason is being very optimistic here, but I think that's why he's not so worried about co-optation by capital in the same way workers co-ops in a competitive market are forced to act as self-managed capitalists, because he thinks that that integration is double-edged, giving capital a free gift that is a trojan horse for post-capitalist relations.

Spikymike

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on October 16, 2015

Joseph,
Yes I do understand his argument about this on the back of Marx's 'fragment of the machines' and it is a genuine tendency, but he is more than optimistic here in terms of timescale and counteracting influences and I would see this tendency only one amongst others more imediate, that are moving capitalist contradictions towards historical crisis levels which of course still require an organised and conscious recognition and response by the global working class to move, not just to some ill-defined post-capitalism but to a global communism. Mason's Cyber-trotsyist road is still mired in a reliance on a co-operating nation state (presumably guided by Mason-style think-tanks) which is as likely as any other to contribute to the more inward looking anti-globalisation tendencies of the radical movements he otherwise looks to. By the way solar panels also need replacing at some point.

Spikymike

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on October 17, 2015

Just picking up on Rob Ray's earlier comment and some references on the AI thread to the 'Accelerationist Manifesto' I have had this lurking suspician (some might suspect paranoia) about a string of material emanating from leftist academia (also given wider coverage in the liberal media) that has gained respect in the wider anarchist and libertaran communist milieu as just the experimental cutting edge of an ideological accomodation to the latest phase of capitalism in the 'developed' sector of global capitalism, as I tried to suggest in this 'conversation with myself' on the back of this review here:
http://libcom.org/library/capitalist-realism-renewed

Spikymike

8 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on October 30, 2015

At the risk of a further bit of derailing.........
I'm not sure about the accuracy of Paul Mason's application in his analysis of Kondratieff's 'long cycles' but an application of some capitalist periodisation beyond a simple pre/post 1914 analysis and the significance of the current period in global capitalism is surely warranted. A different, if still rather deterministically inclined approach, with some overlaps can be found in these two pieces and my comments:
http://libcom.org/library/communism-has-not-yet-begun-claude-bitot and
http://libcom.org/library/investigation-supposedly-victorious-capitalism-claude-bitot

Spikymike

8 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on February 21, 2016

So also worth a read is a recent critical article from the CWO titled 'Post-capitalism via the internet (according to Paul Mason) - Dream or Reality?' My link doesn't work directly but available here: www.leftcom.org/en/articles

S. Artesian

8 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by S. Artesian on February 21, 2016

Is this Paul Mason, the Syriza supporter, or a different person with the same name?

Spikymike

7 years 12 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on April 1, 2016

Flava O Flav's makes some valid criticism of Mason's approach to the state and some useful ideas about the libertarian communist potential of these new technologies but the CWO article seems to have got a better grip on the weaknesses in Mason's grasp of Marxist economic theory.

wojtek

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on April 20, 2016

Debating against the SP's Peter Taffe, he asserts that 'most people want an area of self-control within the system/capitalism'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36084970

It could be an off-the-cuff remark, but does he flesh this out in his book?

Joseph Kay

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on April 21, 2016

He argues for the government to support the creation of a 'collaborative commons' sector alongside the public and private sectors (e.g. through a basic income, allowing people to edit wikipedia or write free software or whatever).

Chilli Sauce

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Chilli Sauce on April 21, 2016

I have to say, I've been reading Mason's Guardian blogs, and is he getting increasingly social democratic?

I mean, he argues a "left-wing case" for nuclear weapons, that Sanders can "break" the power of US capitalism, and even offers advice to companies about changing working practices to avoid what he sees as a potential strike wave.

Has that always been there and I just missed it? I seems to remember thinking he was more radical when I was reading his stuff about it kicking off everywhere.

wojtek

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on April 21, 2016

He's a radical social democrat now:
https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/mickeygate-the-truth-8145cf278b7a#.il406dp2j

Mark.

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mark. on April 21, 2016

Chilli Sauce

I have to say, I've been reading Mason's Guardian blogs, and is he getting increasingly social democratic?

I mean, he argues a "left-wing case" for nuclear weapons, that Sanders can "break" the power of US capitalism, and even offers advice to companies about changing working practices to avoid what he sees as a potential strike wave.

Has that always been there and I just missed it? I seems to remember thinking he was more radical when I was reading his stuff about it kicking off everywhere.

I was wondering the same. I suppose working for the BBC there were restrictions on what political opinions he could express, and maybe to an extent this left his writing open to interpretation. I think I preferred it that way.

Spikymike

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on April 22, 2016

Thanks to wojtek for that link and Mason's straightforward admission and Chill's updates but we are treading water with this - see my earlier posts 18 and 23. Mason is not alone in efforts to present a more modern version of left social democracy adequate to recuperating the tender shoots of youthful rebellion in the internet age.

Maclane Horton

7 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Maclane Horton on April 27, 2016

Paul Mason says technology has produced a new route out of capitalism. Apparently modern technology is going to make production so cheap that the material goods people consume will become available for all. That is all of us will be able to consume or use all the material goods we want and along the way profit taking from capitalism will wither away because it cannot control the new technology.

For what it's worth this sounds like deja vu. It sounds a lot like the situation Caesar found among the Germanic and the more remote Celtic nations of the first century BCE. There they had abundant goods which they shared freely and which required a minimum of effort to produce. Fruit grew on trees, vegetables grew in kitchen gardens, Animals fattened in enclosures or were hunted in woods and plains. Thus food and clothing were provided for. And for shelter, land and materials for housing were freely available.

Mind you, their wants were basic. Probably due to simple ignorance. Indeed some nations refused all contact with Roman traders – even going to the extent of using only their small weak native ponies rather than the new breeds of horses then being developped, much to the detriment of their cavalry.

Also, what's wrong with basic? In my twenties I lived in a house in rural Ireland without electricity or running water. We used rainwater for washing and walked every morning to the spring to collect two buckets of drinking water. Actually, those Celts in the first century had it good. They didn't have 60% of the population overweight, slumped in front of TV sets, brainwashed out of their minds.

But there was no happy ending to that idyllic or barbarous utopia of the first century. Aristocracies were even then on the rise in the Gallic and Germanic lands. First there were leaders and then the leaders required helpers and the helpers became servants and more servants were needed for bigger houses and a grander life style for the leaders, now called nobles. Soon, so many servants were needed that there was no longer an abundance and all the poor had to work longer hours to maintain the life style of the rich, and taskmasters were needed to maintain production.

Frankly I don't see why the same scenario should not be expected to develop in Paul Mason's utopia. If, that is, his proposed utopia were for real, which I don't for the moment accept.

What I do accept is that the word capitalism no longer describes the economic system in which we live. Ownership and power are not the same thing. On paper some people still own a whole lot of things, shares, properties, lands, businesses, copyrights and get a lot of money from them, but they don't control them. Contol is in the power of executives, managers, agents, administrators, senior civil servants, lawyers, accountants. With this power increasingly go obscenely fat salaries – dividends, profits, returns on capital go on falling while executive and higher professional incomes and bonuses keep on rising.

So the power of owners or capitalists is slipping away and contol is being administered by new authorities. However all is not clear sailing. This new authoritarian age is being actively opposed. Their new found wealth is coming under attack both from the envious remnants of the capitalist class and from from the middle classes which spawned the new authorities. Donald Trump in America attacks the gross salaries of top management while hacks in the normally subservient media expose fat cat pay.

My money, though, is on the new authorities. The whining of the capitalists will die away as they themselves die out and the media will be brought to heel by the new establishment. I do wish it weren't so. I wish we had hope. I wish I could say, “Come on lads. Let's start a campaign of fair shares for all. Fair pay for a fair day's work.”

Well, of course I just did say it. And whenever I get the chance in meetings or events I do go around spreading my anti-establishment bile bad-mouthing the obscene incomes of the new plutocrats. Maybe it will do some good.

One elephant in the room that nobody has commented on is the modern unbalanced economy. Historians talk about the unbalanced Victorian economy with 30% of the adult working population in domestic service and only 70% in production or essential services. Happy days. Now it's only 30% in production or essential services. The other 70% of us are in the equivalent of Victorian domestic services. Passing paper it's called. They use lots of job descriptions for it. Marketing, advertising, insurance, accountancy, legal actions, make-work education, elaborate taxation and benefit procedures. But it's still just passing paper. No goods are produced. No essential services are performed.

What will follow the authoritarian age? Authoritarianism bears an eerie resemblance to feudalism. Perhaps historical dialectics are circular. Will the next age be village communes?

wojtek

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on June 16, 2016

https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/remain-and-renegotiate-how-to-stop-the-brexit-bandwagon-fae8dda7e97e#.1rpgvixa6

Any thoughts?

Spikymike

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on June 16, 2016

wojtek, This linked item might be better on one of the other EU referendum discussion threads as it has only a thin connection to this one on the 'Paul Mason is a Social Democrat' point. As it stand this looks like a beefed up version of what Corbyn and other nominally pro-EU labour lefties are saying. It's more campaign presentation than substance as these reforms (even if not all bad) are taken together just 'pie in the sky' as far as as being a practical proposition. They certainly don't represent any way of dealing with the underlying causes of the present economic crisis of the system that is global rather than something resolvable within the confines of UK politics.

wojtek

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on June 16, 2016

Sorry spikymike :) the main eu referendum thread was locked.

Spikymike

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on January 12, 2017

Haven't seen anything from Paul Mason worth a read recently but this book is still worthy of discussion. I see that Manchester spgb are hosting a discussion of it on the 28th January 2017 which might be an opportunity to have another look at this. For anyone going along I'd recommend the earlier part of this discussion thread and reading the three texts linked in Posts 11, 27 and 28 above.
That spgb meeting is advertised here: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/paul-mason-and-postcapitalism-manchester-2pm

Craftwork

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on January 13, 2017

Spikymike

Haven't seen anything from Paul Mason worth a read recently but this book is still worthy of discussion. I see that Manchester spgb are hosting a discussion of it on the 28th January 2017 which might be an opportunity to have another look at this. For anyone going along I'd recommend the earlier part of this discussion thread and reading the three texts linked in Posts 11, 27 and 28 above.
That spgb meeting is advertised here: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/paul-mason-and-postcapitalism-manchester-2pm

I'd recommend RL's article on Paul Mason's Postcapitalism in NLR - https://newleftreview.org/II/100/rob-lucas-the-free-machine

Spikymike

6 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on April 10, 2017

Yes the NLR article was very useful. Don't know how I forgot about this much earlier very short comment already in the library: http://libcom.org/library/artificial-scarcity-world-overproduction-escape-isnt Sander ahead of the game again it seems.
And despite it's possibly misleading title the first part of this blog is very relevant to this discussion as well providing some much needed balance to some of the current extremes of interpretation amongst radicals:
http://libcom.org/blog/soldering-report-working-3d-printer-manufacturing-plant-london-24032017

Rommon

6 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Rommon on April 11, 2017

Just want to put in my 2 cents.

Capitalism now is really mostly just a system of Capitalists competing over rents, rents paid for by a less and less profitable productive economy and a shrinking monetized demand, working People have less and less disposable Income. Nower days if you want to be profitable you either get into marketing, i.e. renting out attention, or you get into something like property or Finance. Most of the New Technology industries coming out, are really brought into Capitalism through marketing rents, advertisements; I don't see that lasting.

much of what is called the "sharing economy" is again, just a system of rent seeking, only making the working class provide their own Capital.

If Capitalism continues I basically see it going to less and less People fighting over amassing wealth through rent seeking, and a growing portion of the population left either excluded from the economy, or fighting to get the crumbs.

I'm all for these New non-market Projects, I think non-market thinking, and non market relationships are the key to get out of Capitalism ... but I think the big questions need to be addressed, Food, clothing, shelter, Healthcare and so on ... So much of Capitalism nowerdays is based on property, and the growing squeeze on workers to pay more in rents, forcing them to become self-entreprenoirs, i.e. sell themselves to the rent seekers NOT only as workers but ALSO as entreprenoirs or tiny Capitalists,

I don't know the answer, but I am funny supporting of anything that builds communities outside the market.

wojtek

5 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on November 1, 2018

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/jeremy-corbyns-ideas-have-become-mainstream-even-george-osborne-is-quoting-marx/amp/
I don't understand what the korea reference is specifically about. I don't think he is promoting the very long hours spent in education and work...

Mike Harman

5 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mike Harman on November 1, 2018

I imagine the Korea reference is directly related to this plan:

Paul Mason

Is this strategy designed to allow the populations of the developed world to capture more of the growth projected over the next 5-15 years, if necessary at the cost of China, India and Brazil having to find new ways to break out of the middle income trap? Would it, in other words, flatten out and reverse the trends captured in Branko Milanovic’s famous “elephant graph” over the next two decades?

For me the answer is yes. This is a programme to save democracy, democratic institutions and values in the developed world by reversing the 30-year policy of enriching the bottom 60% and the top 1% of the world’s population.

It is a programme to deliver growth and prosperity in Wigan, Newport and Kirkcaldy – if necessary at the price of not delivering them to Shenzhen, Bombay and Dubai.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/kind-capitalism-possible-left-build/

wojtek

5 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on November 1, 2018

As long as Corbyn doesn't give state money to pop music and strangle any semblance of a domestic metal scene.