From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Nov 28 2006 - 08:35:01 EST
> Your rhetorical question implies that production can take place > without human beings. If this is what you mean, this a science > fiction. __________________________ Hi Dogan: On a macro level, production without human beings is science fiction; on the micro level, it is not. Already, in the early 1980s, there were flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) where robots and automated machinery produced robots. Indeed, these systems can be constructed in such a way that they are self-diagnostic. Since that time there have been significant advances in robotic vision, tactile ability, adaptive control, etc. systems -- and I haven't even mentioned yet the early generations of 'intelligent robots'. It is true that the "factory of the future" -- *universally applied* -- remains science fiction. But, I think it is possible to *envision* a system without human labor directly in the production process. The question shouldn't be whether production in general is possible without human labor; the question would be whether such a system could be characterized as capitalist. I would say, no -- since wage labor is an essential aspect of capitalism. Without wage-labor there can be production (as there was in pre-capitalist modes of production) but not capitalism. In solidarity, Jerry
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