From: Andrew Brown (A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 12:15:21 EDT
And thanks to you too!
You can say humans are animals. Still, we must try to work out just what
exactly (if anything) distinguishes humans from other animals. And we
may then see that we can say that humans are not animals as well.
I get a whiff of you conflating progress in productivity of material
things progress in productivity of value (i.e. with capitalistic
development). We presumably would agree that we want to avoid starvation
and, more positively, engender a society of the freely creative
flourishing of everyone - this requires us to have mastery over our
natural environment. i.e. to be highly productive of material things. If
I had to I'd want to define 'intelligence' in terms of potential for
creativity, including productive creativity - though I might actually
prefer not to define it at all.
Best wishes,
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicola Taylor
Sent: 07 April 2005 16:48
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Why aren't non-labourers sources of value?
Hello again Andy,
can I dare to begin by saying that humans are animals...
somehow (through history?) we have become locked into productive
creativity. But, is this the be-all-and-end-all? Our intelligence has
developed in certain ways; the intelligence of whales may have developed
in different ways. Frankly, I envy the whale.
thanks for your very stimulating contribution
nicky
Andrew Brown <A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK> wrote:
Thanks Nicky,
As you will see in my reply to Jerry it is productive creativity
I have in mind, i.e. labour as such.
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicola
Taylor
Sent: 07 April 2005 16:15
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Why aren't non-labourers sources of value?
Hi Andy,
I understood that you were talking about "creativity" as a
uniquely human attribute and reason for privaleging human labour above
the labour of animals. I can't agree with you there.
However, on the crucial distinction between labour and labour
power - as the central argument of Marx's thesis - we may well agree.
cheers
Nicky
Andrew Brown <A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK> wrote:
Nicky,
I agree with all of what you say. Did I say otherwise?
Many thanks
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of
Nicola Taylor
Sent: 07 April 2005 14:51
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Why aren't non-labourers sources of
value?
Andy, Ian and comrades
as usual I find myself aligned with Jerry on this issue.
What is important in Marx is the fact that labourers sell their *labour
power* on markets. They do not sell themselves. Moreover, the *labour
power* paid for in the wage must be converted by capitalists into
*labour* - a process that is by no means assured.
Where people, animals and machines are *owned* the
capital-labour relation cannot exist, in the very real sense that the
sale of labour power does not take place; in relations of slavery, for
example, workers do not willing sell their labour but on the contrary
are traded body and soul against their will. The slave owner may, if he
choses, work his slave to death just as he may work a donkey to death.
(imo) Marx's key insight into the social relations of capital is that
workers trade their labour-power freely. i.e. the crucial distinction
is not between humans, land, donkeys etc but between living *labour* and
the *labour power* purchased for wages.
comradely
Nicky
Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM wrote:
> The difference between labour / labour-power
and machine
> input / machine-power (or animal activity /
animal-power) is that
> labour is productively creative whereas
machines are not, and
> animals are strictly limited in this regard
(the creative -- as
> opposed to innate -- production of tools by
animals is more
> or less rudimentary, where it occurs at all).
Andy,
I think this underestimates the level of
creativity that certain non-
human species are capable of. You, obviously,
have never
had an opportunity to observe a beluga whale in
the wild. The
military of several nations (including the US
and the former USSR)
has long realized this and has used cetaceans
for a number of
purposes, including sophisticated
('sonar'-equipped) security guards
at naval bases and for the placement of
explosives on underwater
targets. The (human chauvinist) position you
advance, though, does
seem to be consistent with Marx's position.
> Ian, if robots one day became able to
creatively produce
> to the extent of humans, then they would have
become labourers,
> with social relations of production, and
labour time would retain
> its relevance.
That wouldn't make the robots, or animals held
in captivity which
are required to perform, wage-workers. The
social relations of
production of *slavery* might, though, be
extended to analyze these
cases. After all, aren't the animals forcibly
held in zoos enslaved?
Presumably, the intelligent robots would also
have human 'overseers'
(programmers, maintainers) who could ensure
compliance. (NB: the
above is in reference to the question of 'who'
can be able to labour
and produce, not create value.]
In solidarity, Jerry
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_____
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