From: Francisco Paulo Cipolla (cipolla@UFPR.BR)
Date: Mon Oct 04 2004 - 13:58:49 EDT
Hi Paul, would you consider privatizing public capital stock as a flow back into capitalism? Usually public capital stock grows out of a necessity of completing the social division of labor where private capital would not sink its money due to lower profitabilty or long turnover of capital. In any case public capital responds the logic of development of capitalism in this case. Would it not be weird to consider privatizing as a flow back into capitalism under these conditions? Paulo Paul Cockshott wrote: > What I was saying is that as a conceptual framework, > Markov transition theory seemed appropriate for thinking > of transitions between modes of productions. > > The idea that there exists probable rates of transition > can be held as a philosophical position without being > able to estimate these because the small sample size > we are working with precludes accurate estimates of > transition probabilities. > > The problem that historical materialism has is that > we have only a few samples of changes out of capitalism > to go on. It is probably still worth doing some empirical > research on this to see if any statistics can be derived > - for instance > > - How often do revolutionary conjunctures arrive > - What is the probability of such a conjuncture actually > causing a revolution > - Are there observable contingent factors which seem > to be correlated to such conjunctures > > I don't know if any Marxist has ever done a comprehensive > analysis of even these basic points. > > In addition one could look at whether there is a sufficient > number of examples of what one might call social democratic > transitions to make any generalisations about these. > To do this one would need some metric to estimate the > rate of progress of a social formation from capitalism to > socialism: > - one might use the percentage of social labour that > was not allocated by market means > - the percentage of the workforce publicly employed > - the percentage of output distributed according to need > rather than according to market incomes > - the percentage of the value of means of production in public > ownership > > If one had figures on these one could then derive figures for the > flow rates between modes of production for a sample of > developed capitalist countries. > > This would be how I would set about estimating the transition > probabilities, but the problem would be in attaching error bars > to the estimates. > > -----Original Message----- > From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Gerald A. Levy > Sent: 02 October 2004 22:14 > To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU > Subject: (OPE-L) Re: explaining transitions among modes of production > > Paul C, > > I thought that we could advance the discussion if you > could select a single social formation and show us how > you would calculate the transition arc and probability > for capitalism => socialism over a reasonably long time > period. Your responded by suggesting that this "goes > well beyond what historical materialism is currently capable > of." > > OK, then how would you calculate the probability of > China/Japan/Holland/North Italy (or any combination of 4 > or more international/intercontinental comparisons that > you choose) making the transition from capitalism to > socialism over the next 50 years? > > If I understood what you wrote previously (on Thursday) > such a calculation is possible and does not go beyond > what historical materialism is capable of. > > In solidarity, Jerry > > Excerpts from Paul's post on Thursday: > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > It is only when one starts looking > at international/intercontinental comparisons that one > can start thinking of it in stochastic terms - the probability > of China/Japan/Holland/North Italy undergoing a transition etc. > > So I think that if we are to progress the discussion we > should focus on particular transitions arcs on the graph - > and in view of their conjunctural relevance - I suggest we > focus on the arcs below: > > capitalism => socialism > socialism => capitalism > socialism => communism > communism => socialism > capitalism => communism > communism => capitalism > > I think that we can assign to all of these arcs some > non zero probability flux, but some are obviously more > probable than others, and we should have some theory > of what makes one arc more probable than another.
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