Re: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor and communal living

Alejandro Agafonow wrote:
>
> That’s true Paul C., there is not contradiction here. But do emerge
> some misunderstandings due to my bias toward the commercial stage of
> inventions, and your bias toward the technical stage of inventions.
>
>
>
> Concerning social welfare, focusing on the commercial stage of
> inventions is important. Just consider the amount of time that
> nowadays we can save in domestic work. This domestic revolution is not
> as titanic as the change of a mode of production, but if a new mode of
> production is going to neglect this side of welfare, maybe at the end
> the change is not so appealing.
>
>
>
> A. Agafonow
I agree with that point. I think that one classical argument for
communal living rather than the nuclear family is that
it enables innovations in the organisation of domestic labour which
could improve overall productivity.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *De:* Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
> *Para:* Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
> *Enviado:* lunes, 3 de noviembre, 2008 10:20:13
> *Asunto:* RE: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
> ALexandro, whatever the issues relating to institutional design for
> socialism, the basic
> point I was making is the inventions are largely made by salaried
> engineers not by
> independent capitalists. Your example does not contradict this.
>
> Paul Cockshott
> Dept of Computing Science
> University of Glasgow
> +44 141 330 1629
> www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu
> <mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu> on behalf of Alejandro Agafonow
> Sent: Mon 11/3/2008 9:09 AM
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> Subject: Re: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
> Paul C.: "You can only produce many inventions relevant to modern
> technology as part of a collective
> work team. You can only produce improvements to the fuel injection
> systems of jet engines
> as part of a team already working on jet engines. The design of a
> modern gas turbine engine
> is a vast undertaking involving hundreds of people."
>
> Team work doesn't go against rivalry and catallactic competition.
>
> It is true that many inventions have been produced within the monopoly
> of military complexes, like in USA for example. But even in this case
> intervene contractors that has to compete to gain projects or, when
> the cronyism of Republicans biases the adjudication of projects, huge
> profits that go to the contractors' pockets.
>
> I remember the movie The Aviator. Many of the advancements in modern
> aviation were achieved in military complexes, but private contractors
> intervened competing among them. For example, Transcontinental &
> Western Air (TWA) owned by Howard Hughes had to compete with Pan
> American Airlines (Panam) owned by Juan Trippe, developing airplanes
> able to travel transatlantic distances at huge heights to avoid
> turbulences, making the trip comfortable for commercial passengers.
>
> I'm not trying to deny that other inventions have been achieved
> outside rivalry, just for the sake of the humanity. And these
> altruistic inventors are almost always part of the equation within
> capitalist firms.
>
> My worry is about the institutional design that triggers inventions
> most efficiently and fastest in its "commercial" stage. Our goal as
> socialists is to replicate rivalry avoiding the harms of profits
> privately owned.
>
> Regards,A. Agafonow
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> De: Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk <mailto:wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>>
> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> <ope@lists.csuchico.edu <mailto:ope@lists.csuchico.edu>>
> Enviado: domingo, 2 de noviembre, 2008 22:12:03
> Asunto: RE: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
>
> Paul Cockshott
> Dept of Computing Science
> University of Glasgow
> +44 141 330 1629
> www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu
> <mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu> on behalf of Alejandro Agafonow
> Sent: Sun 11/2/2008 9:52 AM
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> Subject: Re: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
> Why these salaried workers don't produce these inventions by their own?
>
> The lack of capital is not enough, since it is possible to borrow this
> capital.
>
> I think the answer comes from more subtle phenomena coming from the
> degree of risk averse of entrepreneurs. A low degree of risk averse is
> needed to embark on risky projects.
>
> We can't neglect this soft side of the problem if we want a socialist
> institutional design able to reach the rate of technological change of
> capitalism.
>
> Regards, A. Agafonow
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> De: Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk <mailto:wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>>
> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> <ope@lists.csuchico.edu <mailto:ope@lists.csuchico.edu>>
> Enviado: domingo, 2 de noviembre, 2008 10:12:20
> Asunto: RE: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
> I am basing my claim on the fact that most engineers are employed
> as salaried workers.
> I would content that only a small proportion are members of the
> capitalist class -- people whose
> income derives primarily from property not the sale of their labour.
>
> Consider two key innovations, the two prime movers of our age, diesel
> power and
> gas turbines. Whilst the original inventors, Diesel and Whittle were
> not wage
> labourers, the great development of these technologies since then, which
> has made them the prime movers of our age has occured under capitalist
> relations
> with the improvements being made by salaried engineers of firms like
> Rolls Royce,
> Pratt and Whitney, MAN, Wartsila etc. The progressive improvement in fuel
> efficiency of these two prime movers has been the precondition for the
> modern productive transprot network or super tankers, giant
> containerships,
> turbofan jets etc. All this has been done not by the owners of Rolls
> Royce or
> MAN, but by the engineers these companies employ.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu
> <mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu> on behalf of GERALD LEVY
> Sent: Sat 11/1/2008 9:17 PM
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> Subject: RE: [OPE] Invention, Inventors, and the Productivity of Labor
>
>
> > Who invents new and more productive technologies?> In large part it
> is done by wage labourers.
>
> Hi Paul C:
>
> I don't know about that.
>
> To begin with, we were talking about the productivity of labor.
> For an invention to affect productivity, there must be *innovation*
> (practical application of an invention). Invention - while generally a
> necessary precondition for technological change - is *not a sufficient
> condition for increasing the productivity of labor*.
>
> Who the inventors are is not so straight forward. For instance,
> one source says that
>
> "Inventors are only those individuals who had 'inventive' input
> to the process, not those who merely carried out the direction
> and/or ideas of others. Therefore, colleague(s), technician(s),
> or student(s) who have been involved in or carried out the
> research may not necessarily be inventors (Colorado State
> University [CSU]Ventures)
>
> In any event, inventions are created by individual inventors and
> within small businesses, private and public universities, public
> institutions, and large corporations. In relation to the latter,
> no doubt there are wage-workers in R&D departments, but who
> are the inventors and what role did the wage-workers play in
> the 'inventive' process?
>
> Are you basing your claim that wage-workers "in large part"
> are the ones who invent new productive technologies on any
> particular empirical study or studies? If so, which one(s)?
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Received on Mon Nov 3 05:01:22 2008