From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sun Dec 22 2002 - 10:53:59 EST
A short paper --
"The Shape of History: Historical
Materialism, Electronics and Value"
published online by the Institute for the Study of the
Science of Society:
http://www.scienceofsociety.org/inbox/res4.html
(This appears to be a condensed version of a paper entitled
"The End of Value" by Jim Davis which was
presented at the 2000 'Rethinking Marxism' conference in
Amherst, Mass.: http://scienceofsociety.org/discuss/eov.html ).
The last section in the above article called "Value in the age
of robots" has several paragraphs on *the "many ways"
that value is destroyed*.
Some of the many ways, it is asserted, include:
* the use-value of labor-power is destroyed.
* electronics-based production leads to a situation
"where fewer people have the money to buy
commodities". I.e. commodity values aren't realized.
* "when a new product made by robots appears
alongside the same product made with labor, the
value in the old products is driven down to the level
of the robot-made product -- its value is destroyed".
* "As new labor-less forms of production become more
widespread, the social infrastructure that was built
to sustain industrial production is also destroyed as
social investment is pulled out of the communities of
former workers".
-- Do others agree that the instances cited are cases where
value has been 'destroyed'?
-- Are the authors confused, e.g. are they confusing a change
in the distribution of value with the destruction of value?
-- Are the above assertions supported or contradicted by the
empirical evidence?
-- What are the legitimate senses in which we can refer to the
destruction of value?
A *conclusion* of the article is:
"With the spread of electronics-based production, social
organization on the basis of value -- the participation of human
beings in production -- begins to disintegrate. Electronics lay
the basis for the destruction of the value system".
This vision of the future is visualized in the "Before electronics/
After electronics" graphic at the "Science of Society" (not to be
confused with the _Science & Society_) website:
http://www.scienceofsociety.org/inbox/unit6.before.after.html
-- Do you agree or disagree with this conclusion? Why?
In solidarity, Jerry
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