[OPE-L:3247] Re: Re: Re: process & subjects

From: JERRY LEVY (jlevy@sescva.esc.edu)
Date: Wed May 17 2000 - 20:43:25 EDT


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Re Paul C's [OPE-L:3246]:

A couple of quick points:

a) Under laws of motion of the capitalist system, you indicate
   (among others):
   -- tendency of increasing rate of exploitation
   -- tendency of the rate of exploitation to fall
   Was this a typo? If so, what did you want to write? If not,
   then how can both tendencies exist at once?

b) Going back to the original literary use of the word, you
   write that a robot is nothing but a worker, a universal
   worker and suggest that it can be understood as abstract
   labour.

   Yet, I have a definition which suggests that a "robot"
   is a Czech word for slave:

      "Robot: Mechanical device that behaves like a man.
       Comes from the Czech word meaning slave. Was first
       used to mean mechanical man in a play by Karel
       Capek, a famous Czech playwright. The play is about
       a world that ends in disaster because robots which
       replace workers and soldiers are used for profit and
       not for the good of mankind" (UAW-CIO, _Automation:
       A Report to the UAW-CIO Economic and Collective
       Bargaining Conference held in Detroit, Michigan
       the 12th and 13th of November, 1954_, p. 37

    That doesn't sound like abstract labour to me. Have
   you read the book? Do you disagree with the claim that
   "robot" was originally a Czech word meaning slave?

In solidarity, Jerry



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