means of production take 2

[gepr]

To contribute to my spam score, I'll try again to suss out what is meant by owning the means of production. Here it is again:

The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for humanity
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity

> William Randolph Hearst owned the means of production and was free to publish made up stories to sell papers and stoke the Spanish-American war. Today, everyone is free to be their own propagandist.

Is this a proper use of the concept of "ownership of the means of production"? I know I'm simple-minded. But while it's clear to me what it means to own, say, a screwdriver, it's not at all clear to me what it means to *own* the process/tools by which one produces propaganda. It reminds me of being "owned" (or "pwned") in some trashtalk context like before a boxing match or an argument on 4chan. It's a stretched, poetically licensed, sense of ownership and actually means domination or humiliation, not at all like owning a hammer or printing press.

But this concept of pwning does seem closer to the sense I was getting from both Marcus' and Steve's explanations, that seemed to target exploitation, asymmetric power, or some sort of inappropriate hoarding or market monopoly. If so, I would maintain my skepticism that using the words "ownership" and "production" is *conflating* things that could be better analyzed in another way. I just don't know what way that is.

But thanks to y'all for changing my mind. The phrase no longer irritates me now that I have a sense that those using it are simply trying to describe something they are ill-equipped to describe.


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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

Thanks for circling around on this one.   I had not forgotten the frayed
thread I left with you on this, but as you suggest, might be lacking the
tools/perspective to explain.  I take this to mean that your questions
are requiring me to think deeper/differently.

1) I *don't* think I am using the term "ownership" in the sense of "to
own someone" or "pwn", though I suspect others (this may be
generational) might.

2) I struggle with the distinction between a very simple, vernacular
sense of "ownership" of physical objects and perhaps (small regions) of
real property and a *larger* sense as we find it in modern culture,
particularly in the context of capitalism as it has emerged in the
industrial (and beyond) period.

3) "means of production", in my lexicon is derived from the social/labor
movements that arose in response to the capitalism as developed around
industrialization.  I believe it's frailty is derived from the question
of "a commons".   When capital "owns" the "means of production", it
means that through the leverage of it's technology it has an "unfair"
advantage in exploiting the commons.  In fact, one might note that a
commons only remains viable as a commons if it is NOT exploited.  

Your example of Hearst is well taken...  but framed by "the commons",
whether it is spectrum (FCC) or right-of-way (cable/phone/???
franchises) a key point is that when a single (or small-number of)
entity takes effective control of said commons, there is a risk which
suggests responsibilities which may or may not be accounted for.

- Steve


On 11/19/19 9:24 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:

> To contribute to my spam score, I'll try again to suss out what is
> meant by owning the means of production. Here it is again:
>
> The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for
> humanity
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity
>
>
>> William Randolph Hearst owned the means of production and was free to
>> publish made up stories to sell papers and stoke the Spanish-American
>> war. Today, everyone is free to be their own propagandist.
>
> Is this a proper use of the concept of "ownership of the means of
> production"? I know I'm simple-minded. But while it's clear to me what
> it means to own, say, a screwdriver, it's not at all clear to me what
> it means to *own* the process/tools by which one produces propaganda.
> It reminds me of being "owned" (or "pwned") in some trashtalk context
> like before a boxing match or an argument on 4chan. It's a stretched,
> poetically licensed, sense of ownership and actually means domination
> or humiliation, not at all like owning a hammer or printing press.
>
> But this concept of pwning does seem closer to the sense I was getting
> from both Marcus' and Steve's explanations, that seemed to target
> exploitation, asymmetric power, or some sort of inappropriate hoarding
> or market monopoly. If so, I would maintain my skepticism that using
> the words "ownership" and "production" is *conflating* things that
> could be better analyzed in another way. I just don't know what way
> that is.
>
> But thanks to y'all for changing my mind. The phrase no longer
> irritates me now that I have a sense that those using it are simply
> trying to describe something they are ill-equipped to describe.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I chose not to respond specifically to the link/point you offered in my
last response because I felt this was a (useful) tangent and wanted to
address it more directly. 

I do appreciate the analogy drawn between our physical ecosystem and
what the author calls the Information ecosystem and that this threat may
well be existential.   I also believe that such a collapse as is
suggested might be much more imminent than *other* existential threats. 
I'm tempted to distinguish this "information ecosystem" from de
Chardin/Vernadsky's "Noosphere".

It feels to be, by analogy, somewhat like the difference between talking
about the collapse of the biosphere *strictly* in terms of the
geochemical basis of it...  while CO2 Absorption/acidity of the ocean is
the *basis* for the collapse of pterapod/shellfish/coral/etc.
populations/health and average temperatures, humidity levels and weather
patterns are the direct result of our heightened greenhouse gas
emissions, it may well be the collapse of the flora and fauna that
collapse in response which defines the sharpest end of the consequences
(to humans?).  

I wonder if perhaps the real crisis of our unhealthy/collapsing
information ecology is not *just* in the way information is generated,
flows, etc.  but more acutely what might be doing to the individual and
collective "spirits" of humanity and a subsequent "collapse of
culture".   It feels as if some involved in what has been referred to as
"the culture wars" may well be trying to engineer (or trigger tipping
points) such a collapse. 

If we contemplate the
noosphere/anfosphere/anthrosphere/biosphere/geosphere as a complex
adaptive system, then it is not surprising that there have been (and
will continue to be) patterns of "punctuated equilibrium".   The
(imminent?) information ecosystem collapse described in this article may
well be in some sense inevitable but my own illusions around individual
(and by extension, collective) free will suggests that such a thing
might be avoidable.

This Guardian Article reads *almost* like an infomercial for their own
product, however.   My week in Austin included a visit with Mary's son
and D-in-Law.  He works for the Texas State legislature editing bills
but has degrees in journalism and education, both fields he seems to
believe he came to too late to be able to participate in righteously. 
His wife is an archivist for the Presbyterian University there (she is
not Presbyterian) and so has her *own* take on meaning, reality, and the
value of recording and archiving words both written and oral, formal and
informal for future reference.   She is less pessimistic, but both
(early 40s) share a strong cynicism about the state of
information/truth/coherent-culture.

- Steve

On 11/19/19 9:24 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:

> To contribute to my spam score, I'll try again to suss out what is
> meant by owning the means of production. Here it is again:
>
> The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for
> humanity
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity
>
>
>> William Randolph Hearst owned the means of production and was free to
>> publish made up stories to sell papers and stoke the Spanish-American
>> war. Today, everyone is free to be their own propagandist.
>
> Is this a proper use of the concept of "ownership of the means of
> production"? I know I'm simple-minded. But while it's clear to me what
> it means to own, say, a screwdriver, it's not at all clear to me what
> it means to *own* the process/tools by which one produces propaganda.
> It reminds me of being "owned" (or "pwned") in some trashtalk context
> like before a boxing match or an argument on 4chan. It's a stretched,
> poetically licensed, sense of ownership and actually means domination
> or humiliation, not at all like owning a hammer or printing press.
>
> But this concept of pwning does seem closer to the sense I was getting
> from both Marcus' and Steve's explanations, that seemed to target
> exploitation, asymmetric power, or some sort of inappropriate hoarding
> or market monopoly. If so, I would maintain my skepticism that using
> the words "ownership" and "production" is *conflating* things that
> could be better analyzed in another way. I just don't know what way
> that is.
>
> But thanks to y'all for changing my mind. The phrase no longer
> irritates me now that I have a sense that those using it are simply
> trying to describe something they are ill-equipped to describe.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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[gepr]

OK. Yes, I'm slightly familiar with the Marxist origins of the term. And yes, I'm wasting e-ink and your time talking about things, here, when I could go read a bunch of Marx and Marx commentary. But even in what little I've read, there remains a conflation along the same lines we've covered, here.

There's some sense that workers are abstracted away from the thing being made (or the returns/royalties/satisfaction with a job well done, whatever). So, the separation of production into "means" versus whatever other parts is, rhetorically, intended to convey that separation ... e.g. the assembly line worker makes a tiny bit of an automobile and, hence, loses any sense of contextual integration ... the worker's *identity* is orthogonal to car-making.

To me, this has absolutely nothing to do with ownership, money, or even production. It has more to do with one's understanding of groups, collective behavior, and unconsidered consequences ... a lack of ability to think about *extensions* of our selves. So, when a teenager throws fireworks out into a dry forest, that's the exact same thing as what you describe in (3) below ... our ill-described separation of "means of production" from other forms of property.

A nomad may not feel the need to *own* some parcel of land or the plants/animals within it in order to feel connected to that land. So why would a worker feel disconnected from the produce of the machine in which she's a cog?


On 11/19/19 11:05 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> Thanks for circling around on this one.   I had not forgotten the frayed
> thread I left with you on this, but as you suggest, might be lacking the
> tools/perspective to explain.  I take this to mean that your questions
> are requiring me to think deeper/differently.
>
> 1) I *don't* think I am using the term "ownership" in the sense of "to
> own someone" or "pwn", though I suspect others (this may be
> generational) might.
>
> 2) I struggle with the distinction between a very simple, vernacular
> sense of "ownership" of physical objects and perhaps (small regions) of
> real property and a *larger* sense as we find it in modern culture,
> particularly in the context of capitalism as it has emerged in the
> industrial (and beyond) period.
>
> 3) "means of production", in my lexicon is derived from the social/labor
> movements that arose in response to the capitalism as developed around
> industrialization.  I believe it's frailty is derived from the question
> of "a commons".   When capital "owns" the "means of production", it
> means that through the leverage of it's technology it has an "unfair"
> advantage in exploiting the commons.  In fact, one might note that a
> commons only remains viable as a commons if it is NOT exploited.  
>
> Your example of Hearst is well taken...  but framed by "the commons",
> whether it is spectrum (FCC) or right-of-way (cable/phone/???
> franchises) a key point is that when a single (or small-number of)
> entity takes effective control of said commons, there is a risk which
> suggests responsibilities which may or may not be accounted for.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I'm not sure we are converging, though I sense we are both trying to.

> OK. Yes, I'm slightly familiar with the Marxist origins of the term. And yes, I'm wasting e-ink and your time talking about things, here, when I could go read a bunch of Marx and Marx commentary. But even in what little I've read, there remains a conflation along the same lines we've covered, here.

I didn't mean to suggest that the Marxist (and related)
origins/popularization of the phrase gave it extra credibility, etc...
if anything, I have my own doubts about much of that rhetoric.   The key
for me is that I imagine that a transition occurred during that time
from two other views of personal property.   1) Those things which an
individual or a group can maintain physical control over (e.g. clothing,
tools, weapons in physical possession); 2) Real and material property
whose "ownership" was roughly hierarchical in the sense of feudalism.  
I believe that Capitalism follows the pattern of the latter more than
the former.

> There's some sense that workers are abstracted away from the thing being made (or the returns/royalties/satisfaction with a job well done, whatever). So, the separation of production into "means" versus whatever other parts is, rhetorically, intended to convey that separation ... e.g. the assembly line worker makes a tiny bit of an automobile and, hence, loses any sense of contextual integration ... the worker's *identity* is orthogonal to car-making.
I'm not sure the point you are making here, but I would say
industrialists (say car-makers) discovered/intuited that tying their
worker's identities to their product was valuable to them (the
industrialist)...  say for example, Henry Ford's idea that making the
Model A (T?) affordable to his own workers followed by a
multigenerational legacy of auto-workers identifying strongly with their
industry and the specific brands (I've been a Ford Man myself, though I
have also owned GM/Chrysler and myriad foreign models) they have a stake in.
> To me, this has absolutely nothing to do with ownership, money, or even production. It has more to do with one's understanding of groups, collective behavior, and unconsidered consequences ... a lack of ability to think about *extensions* of our selves. So, when a teenager throws fireworks out into a dry forest, that's the exact same thing as what you describe in (3) below ... our ill-described separation of "means of production" from other forms of property.
Your example of the teen/firecracker/forest doesn't seem to be *exactly*
the same, as what is afoot is a "means of destruction" unless said
teenager thought he was doing something good/productive but was merely
misguided?
> A nomad may not feel the need to *own* some parcel of land or the plants/animals within it in order to feel connected to that land. So why would a worker feel disconnected from the produce of the machine in which she's a cog?

I think this is an important sub thread and at the risk of digging a
deeper chasm between us will extemporize a bit.   There was a time when
I believed the common perspective that "sedentary" peoples were somehow
more "righteous" than "nomadic" peoples.   This was mainly characterized
by the nomads *raiding* the settlements and *stealing* the hard-won
(agriculture/craftsmanship) private property of the sedentary folks.  
What I *didn't* take into account was a model, for example, of the end
of the Pleistocene in say northern Africa where a huge Savannah was
giving away to what we now know of as the Sahara desert.   In such a
situation, what had been possibly a veritable "garden of Eden" for
humans with abundant game and wild plant-foods dotted with watering
holes, was becoming an unwelcoming wasteland punctuated by rich Oases
where the most persistent of watering holes remained.   The humans with
enough foresight or luck or aggressiveness settled there and built
various fortifications specifically to be able to repel other humans who
might want access to the resources around the Oasis. 

In my "just so" story here, there may have been ideas of territory which
were maintained by various pressures, but at best I believe, one
particular group/tribe might be able to control a slightly richer region
than others, but not to the exclusion of the other's well being.   There
simply *were* no unique resources that *must* be shared.   The watering
holes, being the most likely, and those shared either by timing
(even/odd days) or spatial (you approach from the north, we''l approach
from the south) or social (we are all cousin/clans here and we can have
mini-parties when we meet up at the watering hole, as long as we all
agree not to defecate into  it while we are there).

Once such a resource becomes more scarce, my just so story suggests that
there will emerge two classes of people... the "haves" and the "have
nots"... at least when it comes to water, and by extension when it comes
to cultivated crops (e.g. dates, figs, etc.).   Those who were more
inclined or able to live a nomadic lifestyle may well have had a very
symbiotic relationship when the resources were not overly scarce... a
wandering pastoral culture could more effectively build large healthy
herds of beasts adapted to the new environment (camels, sheep, goats)
which they could then trade those beasts/products (wool, meat, milk,
cheese) effectively and synergistically with those who could better
raise dates/figs/grains.   By the time we discover these two cultures in
dynamic tension, possibly violent tension, these qualities and possible
ideas about "ownership" have changed.   For example, the nomads might
feel resentment toward those who are in the position to "hoard" access
to the water they need for their flocks, the oasis-dwellers might
naturally feel fear of the nomads who are likely to fight to the death
for access to water periodically and who might use this same asymmetry
to demand better rates of exchange (camels for dates)...   likely
creating a positive feedback loop speciating their cultures even more.

"just so" here not because I think anything precisely like this ever
occurred as described but more to circumscribe how different contexts
could easily yield different "righteous" ideas of ownership which are in
strong contrast if not actual conflict.

- Steve

>
> On 11/19/19 11:05 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Thanks for circling around on this one.   I had not forgotten the frayed
>> thread I left with you on this, but as you suggest, might be lacking the
>> tools/perspective to explain.  I take this to mean that your questions
>> are requiring me to think deeper/differently.
>>
>> 1) I *don't* think I am using the term "ownership" in the sense of "to
>> own someone" or "pwn", though I suspect others (this may be
>> generational) might.
>>
>> 2) I struggle with the distinction between a very simple, vernacular
>> sense of "ownership" of physical objects and perhaps (small regions) of
>> real property and a *larger* sense as we find it in modern culture,
>> particularly in the context of capitalism as it has emerged in the
>> industrial (and beyond) period.
>>
>> 3) "means of production", in my lexicon is derived from the social/labor
>> movements that arose in response to the capitalism as developed around
>> industrialization.  I believe it's frailty is derived from the question
>> of "a commons".   When capital "owns" the "means of production", it
>> means that through the leverage of it's technology it has an "unfair"
>> advantage in exploiting the commons.  In fact, one might note that a
>> commons only remains viable as a commons if it is NOT exploited.  
>>
>> Your example of Hearst is well taken...  but framed by "the commons",
>> whether it is spectrum (FCC) or right-of-way (cable/phone/???
>> franchises) a key point is that when a single (or small-number of)
>> entity takes effective control of said commons, there is a risk which
>> suggests responsibilities which may or may not be accounted for.

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Tom Johnson]

Media Ecology is a 30-40+ year old concept/discipline.  High-profile researchers are 

• Neil Postman: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=neil+postman+media+ecology&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart  
  
• Walter Ong:  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.625.5142
• James Cary:   http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.625.5142
• Of course, to a slightly different vector and early to the game,  Marshall McLuhan:  https://www.google.com/search?=marshall+mcluhan&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS807US807&oq=marshal+mc&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5518j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8     

Tom

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 2:02 PM Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen -

I chose not to respond specifically to the link/point you offered in my
last response because I felt this was a (useful) tangent and wanted to
address it more directly. 

I do appreciate the analogy drawn between our physical ecosystem and
what the author calls the Information ecosystem and that this threat may
well be existential.   I also believe that such a collapse as is
suggested might be much more imminent than *other* existential threats. 
I'm tempted to distinguish this "information ecosystem" from de
Chardin/Vernadsky's "Noosphere".

It feels to be, by analogy, somewhat like the difference between talking
about the collapse of the biosphere *strictly* in terms of the
geochemical basis of it...  while CO2 Absorption/acidity of the ocean is
the *basis* for the collapse of pterapod/shellfish/coral/etc.
populations/health and average temperatures, humidity levels and weather
patterns are the direct result of our heightened greenhouse gas
emissions, it may well be the collapse of the flora and fauna that
collapse in response which defines the sharpest end of the consequences
(to humans?).  

I wonder if perhaps the real crisis of our unhealthy/collapsing
information ecology is not *just* in the way information is generated,
flows, etc.  but more acutely what might be doing to the individual and
collective "spirits" of humanity and a subsequent "collapse of
culture".   It feels as if some involved in what has been referred to as
"the culture wars" may well be trying to engineer (or trigger tipping
points) such a collapse. 

If we contemplate the
noosphere/anfosphere/anthrosphere/biosphere/geosphere as a complex
adaptive system, then it is not surprising that there have been (and
will continue to be) patterns of "punctuated equilibrium".   The
(imminent?) information ecosystem collapse described in this article may
well be in some sense inevitable but my own illusions around individual
(and by extension, collective) free will suggests that such a thing
might be avoidable.

This Guardian Article reads *almost* like an infomercial for their own
product, however.   My week in Austin included a visit with Mary's son
and D-in-Law.  He works for the Texas State legislature editing bills
but has degrees in journalism and education, both fields he seems to
believe he came to too late to be able to participate in righteously. 
His wife is an archivist for the Presbyterian University there (she is
not Presbyterian) and so has her *own* take on meaning, reality, and the
value of recording and archiving words both written and oral, formal and
informal for future reference.   She is less pessimistic, but both
(early 40s) share a strong cynicism about the state of
information/truth/coherent-culture.

- Steve

On 11/19/19 9:24 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:
> To contribute to my spam score, I'll try again to suss out what is
> meant by owning the means of production. Here it is again:
>
> The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for
> humanity
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity
>
>
>> William Randolph Hearst owned the means of production and was free to
>> publish made up stories to sell papers and stoke the Spanish-American
>> war. Today, everyone is free to be their own propagandist.
>
> Is this a proper use of the concept of "ownership of the means of
> production"? I know I'm simple-minded. But while it's clear to me what
> it means to own, say, a screwdriver, it's not at all clear to me what
> it means to *own* the process/tools by which one produces propaganda.
> It reminds me of being "owned" (or "pwned") in some trashtalk context
> like before a boxing match or an argument on 4chan. It's a stretched,
> poetically licensed, sense of ownership and actually means domination
> or humiliation, not at all like owning a hammer or printing press.
>
> But this concept of pwning does seem closer to the sense I was getting
> from both Marcus' and Steve's explanations, that seemed to target
> exploitation, asymmetric power, or some sort of inappropriate hoarding
> or market monopoly. If so, I would maintain my skepticism that using
> the words "ownership" and "production" is *conflating* things that
> could be better analyzed in another way. I just don't know what way
> that is.
>
> But thanks to y'all for changing my mind. The phrase no longer
> irritates me now that I have a sense that those using it are simply
> trying to describe something they are ill-equipped to describe.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove


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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[gepr]

I think we're converging. But I don't understand what it is about my language that you don't like. I believe I've described, albeit more abstractly, the same thing you're describing. But my attempts to repeat back to you what I think you're saying have apparently failed.

Your comment about "means of destruction" is meaningful. A few posts back, I intended to rant about how, to me, the only pragmatic conception of "ownership" is captured by "the right to destroy it". The only things I can rightly and completely claim to own are the things I can also claim to destroy. So, for your previous example of submerging a turbine vs. damming a stream, if you are allowed to destroy the stream, then you own it. If not, then you don't own it. All the rigmarole about downstream access is irrelevant *except* if it's yours to exploit/destroy.

And in the context of your text below about both workers having some (illusory) stake in Ford just because they worked there and the scarcity of oases, asymmetric power, etc. are mostly about unconsidered consequences/extensions. You can phrase it in terms of asymmetry (haves vs have nots), if you want. But it strikes me more as the haves not thinking about the consequences of their actions and the have nots, not thinking about their potential remedies ... i.e. unconsidered extension.

The reason "right to destroy" is so useful as a determinant of ownership is because there's no hem-and-haw over what happens *afterwards* ... or can the rabble seize it ... because it's been destroyed.

On 11/19/19 1:43 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I'm not sure we are converging, though I sense we are both trying to.
>
>> OK. Yes, I'm slightly familiar with the Marxist origins of the term. And yes, I'm wasting e-ink and your time talking about things, here, when I could go read a bunch of Marx and Marx commentary. But even in what little I've read, there remains a conflation along the same lines we've covered, here.
>
> I didn't mean to suggest that the Marxist (and related)
> origins/popularization of the phrase gave it extra credibility, etc...
> if anything, I have my own doubts about much of that rhetoric.   The key
> for me is that I imagine that a transition occurred during that time
> from two other views of personal property.   1) Those things which an
> individual or a group can maintain physical control over (e.g. clothing,
> tools, weapons in physical possession); 2) Real and material property
> whose "ownership" was roughly hierarchical in the sense of feudalism.  
> I believe that Capitalism follows the pattern of the latter more than
> the former.
>
>> There's some sense that workers are abstracted away from the thing being made (or the returns/royalties/satisfaction with a job well done, whatever). So, the separation of production into "means" versus whatever other parts is, rhetorically, intended to convey that separation ... e.g. the assembly line worker makes a tiny bit of an automobile and, hence, loses any sense of contextual integration ... the worker's *identity* is orthogonal to car-making.
> I'm not sure the point you are making here, but I would say
> industrialists (say car-makers) discovered/intuited that tying their
> worker's identities to their product was valuable to them (the
> industrialist)...  say for example, Henry Ford's idea that making the
> Model A (T?) affordable to his own workers followed by a
> multigenerational legacy of auto-workers identifying strongly with their
> industry and the specific brands (I've been a Ford Man myself, though I
> have also owned GM/Chrysler and myriad foreign models) they have a stake in.
>> To me, this has absolutely nothing to do with ownership, money, or even production. It has more to do with one's understanding of groups, collective behavior, and unconsidered consequences ... a lack of ability to think about *extensions* of our selves. So, when a teenager throws fireworks out into a dry forest, that's the exact same thing as what you describe in (3) below ... our ill-described separation of "means of production" from other forms of property.
> Your example of the teen/firecracker/forest doesn't seem to be *exactly*
> the same, as what is afoot is a "means of destruction" unless said
> teenager thought he was doing something good/productive but was merely
> misguided?
>> A nomad may not feel the need to *own* some parcel of land or the plants/animals within it in order to feel connected to that land. So why would a worker feel disconnected from the produce of the machine in which she's a cog?
>
> I think this is an important sub thread and at the risk of digging a
> deeper chasm between us will extemporize a bit.   There was a time when
> I believed the common perspective that "sedentary" peoples were somehow
> more "righteous" than "nomadic" peoples.   This was mainly characterized
> by the nomads *raiding* the settlements and *stealing* the hard-won
> (agriculture/craftsmanship) private property of the sedentary folks.  
> What I *didn't* take into account was a model, for example, of the end
> of the Pleistocene in say northern Africa where a huge Savannah was
> giving away to what we now know of as the Sahara desert.   In such a
> situation, what had been possibly a veritable "garden of Eden" for
> humans with abundant game and wild plant-foods dotted with watering
> holes, was becoming an unwelcoming wasteland punctuated by rich Oases
> where the most persistent of watering holes remained.   The humans with
> enough foresight or luck or aggressiveness settled there and built
> various fortifications specifically to be able to repel other humans who
> might want access to the resources around the Oasis. 
>
> In my "just so" story here, there may have been ideas of territory which
> were maintained by various pressures, but at best I believe, one
> particular group/tribe might be able to control a slightly richer region
> than others, but not to the exclusion of the other's well being.   There
> simply *were* no unique resources that *must* be shared.   The watering
> holes, being the most likely, and those shared either by timing
> (even/odd days) or spatial (you approach from the north, we''l approach
> from the south) or social (we are all cousin/clans here and we can have
> mini-parties when we meet up at the watering hole, as long as we all
> agree not to defecate into  it while we are there).
>
> Once such a resource becomes more scarce, my just so story suggests that
> there will emerge two classes of people... the "haves" and the "have
> nots"... at least when it comes to water, and by extension when it comes
> to cultivated crops (e.g. dates, figs, etc.).   Those who were more
> inclined or able to live a nomadic lifestyle may well have had a very
> symbiotic relationship when the resources were not overly scarce... a
> wandering pastoral culture could more effectively build large healthy
> herds of beasts adapted to the new environment (camels, sheep, goats)
> which they could then trade those beasts/products (wool, meat, milk,
> cheese) effectively and synergistically with those who could better
> raise dates/figs/grains.   By the time we discover these two cultures in
> dynamic tension, possibly violent tension, these qualities and possible
> ideas about "ownership" have changed.   For example, the nomads might
> feel resentment toward those who are in the position to "hoard" access
> to the water they need for their flocks, the oasis-dwellers might
> naturally feel fear of the nomads who are likely to fight to the death
> for access to water periodically and who might use this same asymmetry
> to demand better rates of exchange (camels for dates)...   likely
> creating a positive feedback loop speciating their cultures even more.
>
> "just so" here not because I think anything precisely like this ever
> occurred as described but more to circumscribe how different contexts
> could easily yield different "righteous" ideas of ownership which are in
> strong contrast if not actual conflict.
>
> - Steve
>
>>
>> On 11/19/19 11:05 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> Thanks for circling around on this one.   I had not forgotten the frayed
>>> thread I left with you on this, but as you suggest, might be lacking the
>>> tools/perspective to explain.  I take this to mean that your questions
>>> are requiring me to think deeper/differently.
>>>
>>> 1) I *don't* think I am using the term "ownership" in the sense of "to
>>> own someone" or "pwn", though I suspect others (this may be
>>> generational) might.
>>>
>>> 2) I struggle with the distinction between a very simple, vernacular
>>> sense of "ownership" of physical objects and perhaps (small regions) of
>>> real property and a *larger* sense as we find it in modern culture,
>>> particularly in the context of capitalism as it has emerged in the
>>> industrial (and beyond) period.
>>>
>>> 3) "means of production", in my lexicon is derived from the social/labor
>>> movements that arose in response to the capitalism as developed around
>>> industrialization.  I believe it's frailty is derived from the question
>>> of "a commons".   When capital "owns" the "means of production", it
>>> means that through the leverage of it's technology it has an "unfair"
>>> advantage in exploiting the commons.  In fact, one might note that a
>>> commons only remains viable as a commons if it is NOT exploited.  
>>>
>>> Your example of Hearst is well taken...  but framed by "the commons",
>>> whether it is spectrum (FCC) or right-of-way (cable/phone/???
>>> franchises) a key point is that when a single (or small-number of)
>>> entity takes effective control of said commons, there is a risk which
>>> suggests responsibilities which may or may not be accounted for.
>
>
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>

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -
> I think we're converging. But I don't understand what it is about my language that you don't like.
I can't say I "don't like" what you have said, but rather that I believe
you are focused on different aspects of the conversation than I am, but
in the spirit of honestly trying to understand our differences in
perspective on something as seemingly innocuous as "ownership" I have
simultaneously tried to use what you feed back to me to refine the
points that are important to me while trying to do justice to what I
perceive is important to you.   I am seeking a higher-dimensional
understanding of the topic at hand which qualitatively exceeds my
current, and possibly undermines aspects of my current.
>  I believe I've described, albeit more abstractly, the same thing you're describing. But my attempts to repeat back to you what I think you're saying have apparently failed.
"I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not
sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant" is an
elaborate aphorism/truism/saying I've lived by most of my life.  It
seems to be somewhat asymmetric in that I feel others are more likely to
misunderstand what *I* have said, than vice-versa, but that may well
just be perspective.   After all, I don't know what I don't know.
> Your comment about "means of destruction" is meaningful. A few posts back, I intended to rant about how, to me, the only pragmatic conception of "ownership" is captured by "the right to destroy it". The only things I can rightly and completely claim to own are the things I can also claim to destroy. So, for your previous example of submerging a turbine vs. damming a stream, if you are allowed to destroy the stream, then you own it. If not, then you don't own it. All the rigmarole about downstream access is irrelevant *except* if it's yours to exploit/destroy.

I became familiar with this inverted or complementary sense of
"ownership" when tech gear started being made harder and harder to "open
the case" and warranties, etc. started to explicitly state that they
were voided IF/WHEN the ostensible "owner" might choose to "open the
case".   I've a friend who liked to use the phrase "run it through a
bandsaw" to describe the deliberate act of opening up a piece of tech so
as to A) Understand it; B) Possibly repair it; C) Possibly modify it's
funciton; D) Reverse Engineer. 

If you can't destroy something, then perhaps you can't *own* it by some
measure, but I think this might be problematic as a primary definition
of "ownership".   It feels to be more of a "trump card" in what is
otherwise a social convention.   If by being able to destroy something
(or it's utility in a certain mode?), you thereby deprive everyone else
of it's use, then in some convoluted sense you "own" it more than anyone
else?   I think murder-suicides are often armatured around this kind of
logic.

"possession is 90% of the law" (whatever that really means) suggests
that "might makes right" in the sense that physical possession of an
object implies a significant amount of "ownership".  

>
> And in the context of your text below about both workers having some (illusory) stake in Ford just because they worked there and the scarcity of oases, asymmetric power, etc. are mostly about unconsidered consequences/extensions. You can phrase it in terms of asymmetry (haves vs have nots), if you want. But it strikes me more as the haves not thinking about the consequences of their actions and the have nots, not thinking about their potential remedies ... i.e. unconsidered extension.
>
> The reason "right to destroy" is so useful as a determinant of ownership is because there's no hem-and-haw over what happens *afterwards* ... or can the rabble seize it ... because it's been destroyed.

I'm not sure if you are distinguishing "right to destroy" from "ability
to destroy".   This leads us back to the language you referenced earlier
of "owning someone".   Mutual Assured Destruction implied *that* kind of
ownership.   The handful of nation-states with enough nuclear capability
to destroy *any* other in *some sense* owned all of the others, but this
feels like a fairly perverse sense of "ownership".

Perhaps I can concede that the only model of "ownership" of something
that does NOT depend on social convention is the ability to deprive
others of the use of same by others.   The ability to destroy the
utility of that object is an extreme form of depriving its use by
others.   This also opens my curiosity about whether the limit to the
ability to destroy something limits the ability to "own" it in your
model, in the sense that while I can burn my house and garden down and
"salt the earth" to make growing anything possible (for some time), the
earth itself cannot really be destroyed (though I suppose I could dig a
deep hole and remove the earth).   Does this imply a limit to how much I
*own* this home/property?   I would contend that my "ownership" depends
a lot more on the social/legal convention of those around me (including
the bank and the tax collector) than it does on my ability (or not) to
destroy it.

My maunderings about ownership tend to be focused on trying to
understand which aspects are unequivocal and which are not.  The notion
of destructionability as ownership is perhaps the most unequivocal.  
Simply denying access to others (holding tight, placing inside of a safe
bolted to the bedrock, building a castle around, etc.) and therefore
"use" would be slightly more equivocal, with depending on the
generosity/agreement of others yet more with "force of law" somewhere in
between?

My interest is mostly based in trying to understand what
"post-Capitalism" might look like, especially from the inside.

- Steve

>
> On 11/19/19 1:43 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Glen -
>>
>> I'm not sure we are converging, though I sense we are both trying to.
>>
>>> OK. Yes, I'm slightly familiar with the Marxist origins of the term. And yes, I'm wasting e-ink and your time talking about things, here, when I could go read a bunch of Marx and Marx commentary. But even in what little I've read, there remains a conflation along the same lines we've covered, here.
>> I didn't mean to suggest that the Marxist (and related)
>> origins/popularization of the phrase gave it extra credibility, etc...
>> if anything, I have my own doubts about much of that rhetoric.   The key
>> for me is that I imagine that a transition occurred during that time
>> from two other views of personal property.   1) Those things which an
>> individual or a group can maintain physical control over (e.g. clothing,
>> tools, weapons in physical possession); 2) Real and material property
>> whose "ownership" was roughly hierarchical in the sense of feudalism.  
>> I believe that Capitalism follows the pattern of the latter more than
>> the former.
>>
>>> There's some sense that workers are abstracted away from the thing being made (or the returns/royalties/satisfaction with a job well done, whatever). So, the separation of production into "means" versus whatever other parts is, rhetorically, intended to convey that separation ... e.g. the assembly line worker makes a tiny bit of an automobile and, hence, loses any sense of contextual integration ... the worker's *identity* is orthogonal to car-making.
>> I'm not sure the point you are making here, but I would say
>> industrialists (say car-makers) discovered/intuited that tying their
>> worker's identities to their product was valuable to them (the
>> industrialist)...  say for example, Henry Ford's idea that making the
>> Model A (T?) affordable to his own workers followed by a
>> multigenerational legacy of auto-workers identifying strongly with their
>> industry and the specific brands (I've been a Ford Man myself, though I
>> have also owned GM/Chrysler and myriad foreign models) they have a stake in.
>>> To me, this has absolutely nothing to do with ownership, money, or even production. It has more to do with one's understanding of groups, collective behavior, and unconsidered consequences ... a lack of ability to think about *extensions* of our selves. So, when a teenager throws fireworks out into a dry forest, that's the exact same thing as what you describe in (3) below ... our ill-described separation of "means of production" from other forms of property.
>> Your example of the teen/firecracker/forest doesn't seem to be *exactly*
>> the same, as what is afoot is a "means of destruction" unless said
>> teenager thought he was doing something good/productive but was merely
>> misguided?
>>> A nomad may not feel the need to *own* some parcel of land or the plants/animals within it in order to feel connected to that land. So why would a worker feel disconnected from the produce of the machine in which she's a cog?
>> I think this is an important sub thread and at the risk of digging a
>> deeper chasm between us will extemporize a bit.   There was a time when
>> I believed the common perspective that "sedentary" peoples were somehow
>> more "righteous" than "nomadic" peoples.   This was mainly characterized
>> by the nomads *raiding* the settlements and *stealing* the hard-won
>> (agriculture/craftsmanship) private property of the sedentary folks.  
>> What I *didn't* take into account was a model, for example, of the end
>> of the Pleistocene in say northern Africa where a huge Savannah was
>> giving away to what we now know of as the Sahara desert.   In such a
>> situation, what had been possibly a veritable "garden of Eden" for
>> humans with abundant game and wild plant-foods dotted with watering
>> holes, was becoming an unwelcoming wasteland punctuated by rich Oases
>> where the most persistent of watering holes remained.   The humans with
>> enough foresight or luck or aggressiveness settled there and built
>> various fortifications specifically to be able to repel other humans who
>> might want access to the resources around the Oasis. 
>>
>> In my "just so" story here, there may have been ideas of territory which
>> were maintained by various pressures, but at best I believe, one
>> particular group/tribe might be able to control a slightly richer region
>> than others, but not to the exclusion of the other's well being.   There
>> simply *were* no unique resources that *must* be shared.   The watering
>> holes, being the most likely, and those shared either by timing
>> (even/odd days) or spatial (you approach from the north, we''l approach
>> from the south) or social (we are all cousin/clans here and we can have
>> mini-parties when we meet up at the watering hole, as long as we all
>> agree not to defecate into  it while we are there).
>>
>> Once such a resource becomes more scarce, my just so story suggests that
>> there will emerge two classes of people... the "haves" and the "have
>> nots"... at least when it comes to water, and by extension when it comes
>> to cultivated crops (e.g. dates, figs, etc.).   Those who were more
>> inclined or able to live a nomadic lifestyle may well have had a very
>> symbiotic relationship when the resources were not overly scarce... a
>> wandering pastoral culture could more effectively build large healthy
>> herds of beasts adapted to the new environment (camels, sheep, goats)
>> which they could then trade those beasts/products (wool, meat, milk,
>> cheese) effectively and synergistically with those who could better
>> raise dates/figs/grains.   By the time we discover these two cultures in
>> dynamic tension, possibly violent tension, these qualities and possible
>> ideas about "ownership" have changed.   For example, the nomads might
>> feel resentment toward those who are in the position to "hoard" access
>> to the water they need for their flocks, the oasis-dwellers might
>> naturally feel fear of the nomads who are likely to fight to the death
>> for access to water periodically and who might use this same asymmetry
>> to demand better rates of exchange (camels for dates)...   likely
>> creating a positive feedback loop speciating their cultures even more.
>>
>> "just so" here not because I think anything precisely like this ever
>> occurred as described but more to circumscribe how different contexts
>> could easily yield different "righteous" ideas of ownership which are in
>> strong contrast if not actual conflict.
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>> On 11/19/19 11:05 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>>> Thanks for circling around on this one.   I had not forgotten the frayed
>>>> thread I left with you on this, but as you suggest, might be lacking the
>>>> tools/perspective to explain.  I take this to mean that your questions
>>>> are requiring me to think deeper/differently.
>>>>
>>>> 1) I *don't* think I am using the term "ownership" in the sense of "to
>>>> own someone" or "pwn", though I suspect others (this may be
>>>> generational) might.
>>>>
>>>> 2) I struggle with the distinction between a very simple, vernacular
>>>> sense of "ownership" of physical objects and perhaps (small regions) of
>>>> real property and a *larger* sense as we find it in modern culture,
>>>> particularly in the context of capitalism as it has emerged in the
>>>> industrial (and beyond) period.
>>>>
>>>> 3) "means of production", in my lexicon is derived from the social/labor
>>>> movements that arose in response to the capitalism as developed around
>>>> industrialization.  I believe it's frailty is derived from the question
>>>> of "a commons".   When capital "owns" the "means of production", it
>>>> means that through the leverage of it's technology it has an "unfair"
>>>> advantage in exploiting the commons.  In fact, one might note that a
>>>> commons only remains viable as a commons if it is NOT exploited.  
>>>>
>>>> Your example of Hearst is well taken...  but framed by "the commons",
>>>> whether it is spectrum (FCC) or right-of-way (cable/phone/???
>>>> franchises) a key point is that when a single (or small-number of)
>>>> entity takes effective control of said commons, there is a risk which
>>>> suggests responsibilities which may or may not be accounted for.
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[gepr]

Yes, I am most definitely concentrating on the *right* to destroy (my *claim* over something), not merely the ability to destroy something that others may have claim/right to/over. So, your text below is largely unrelated to my sense of "right to destroy". The mere *ability* to deprive another is NOT what I'm talking about.

Suicide is an important case. If anyone can lay an unarguable claim to *anything*, surely it must be their own body. Hence, suicide should always be legal. But but but but, consider my case, where I've lived with Renee' for so long and have even "survived" cancer, if I think about my extended self ... the full extension of "me" into the world, if I kill myself, I will be doing damage not only to her psyche, but to her ability to pay the mortgage, her ability to retain some friendships, go with me on business trips, etc. Add to that, the idea that my society facilitated my education, my skill set, etc. So, I have a duty to participate and "give back". So suicide is dereliction of duty as well.

Those extensions of my body into her life (and others' lives), muddies my *right* to my own body ... There's a strong argument that I do not own my body.

It's these *extensions* that I think are being implied by the division of production into modes, means, and relations. And, what's worse, is that even though I've inferred this from you (and Marcus), you won't recognize it when I repeat it back to you. 8^)

On 11/19/19 8:02 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> I'm not sure if you are distinguishing "right to destroy" from "ability
> to destroy".   This leads us back to the language you referenced earlier
> of "owning someone".   Mutual Assured Destruction implied *that* kind of
> ownership.   The handful of nation-states with enough nuclear capability
> to destroy *any* other in *some sense* owned all of the others, but this
> feels like a fairly perverse sense of "ownership".
>
> Perhaps I can concede that the only model of "ownership" of something
> that does NOT depend on social convention is the ability to deprive
> others of the use of same by others.   The ability to destroy the
> utility of that object is an extreme form of depriving its use by
> others.   This also opens my curiosity about whether the limit to the
> ability to destroy something limits the ability to "own" it in your
> model, in the sense that while I can burn my house and garden down and
> "salt the earth" to make growing anything possible (for some time), the
> earth itself cannot really be destroyed (though I suppose I could dig a
> deep hole and remove the earth).   Does this imply a limit to how much I
> *own* this home/property?   I would contend that my "ownership" depends
> a lot more on the social/legal convention of those around me (including
> the bank and the tax collector) than it does on my ability (or not) to
> destroy it.
>
> My maunderings about ownership tend to be focused on trying to
> understand which aspects are unequivocal and which are not.  The notion
> of destructionability as ownership is perhaps the most unequivocal.
> Simply denying access to others (holding tight, placing inside of a safe
> bolted to the bedrock, building a castle around, etc.) and therefore
> "use" would be slightly more equivocal, with depending on the
> generosity/agreement of others yet more with "force of law" somewhere in
> between?
>
> My interest is mostly based in trying to understand what
> "post-Capitalism" might look like, especially from the inside.

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[gepr]

I suppose what I'm faced with is that if you don't recognize your own argument (albeit abstracted) in what I'm saying, I have to return to the drawing board and come up with a new inference that differs significantly from my old one.

So, here goes. The main thread you seem to have pressed is about hoarding, the commons, aggressive appropriation, stewardship, deprivation of others (those "downstream" and within-group), etc. Marcus' contribution was brief and seemed to be about truncating others' agency ("human capital"). My previous attempt focuses, perhaps wrongly, on viewing all *things* as processes. It implicitly assumes that some "thing" like a hammer has extent just like a non-thing like a human or a piece of intellectual property has extent. The difference between these types of things is a matter of *degree*, not kind, particular the larger or smaller extent of that "thing". (I am, as always, biased by BC Smith's idea of "pre-emptive registration" of an ontology.)

Disambiguating types of productive objects (labor vs. tools, etc.) attempts, I think, to be purely ontological. It asserts a fundamental difference between things like hammers and humans, things and means. My ignorance prevents me from knowing how those philosophers finagle that distinction. But I don't think I need that sophistry for the common usage like in that article on the disintegration of the information ecology.

How about if we said that there are some things that have a stronger boundary around them than others? E.g. a hammer is clearly part of the means of production because it has a pretty hard boundary around it. That boundary is defined through implied use (it fits the human hand quite well) and re-use (it works for everything from murder to cracking flint to hammering nails). The human, by contrast with the hammer, has a very fuzzy boundary around it. It's difficult to call a human a "tool" because every task the human engages becomes a dynamic process, the task changes to fit the human and the human changes to fit the task. Humans are waay more contextually defined than hammers. So, ontologically, a human is easily distinguishable from a hammer because of this contextuality. Therein lies the root of our "types of thing" we need to distinguish types of productive things.

If I think this way, then your talk of hoarding, stewardship, deprivation of others' become ways to *cut* the spectrum of things. A hammer is easy to assign to someone or some region because it has a hard boundary. A human is not so easy to assign because they have fuzzy boundaries. (So, calling a human a "capital good" that can be owned is problematic.) Similarly, something like a herd of goats or a stream that supports farmers and fish downstream is also difficult to crisply assign to another thing or region. When we consider collections of these things, it gets slightly more difficult, but not too bad. Any collection of hammers can be divided up to atomic units (doable because of their hard boundaries). Herds of goats are harder, but till doable as long as you allow for mating, nurturing, milk production, etc. Humans and streams are more difficult to divide.

How am I doing so far? Is this better or worse?


On 11/20/19 8:11 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:

> It's these *extensions* that I think are being implied by the division of production into modes, means, and relations. And, what's worse, is that even though I've inferred this from you (and Marcus), you won't recognize it when I repeat it back to you. 8^)
>
> On 11/19/19 8:02 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> I'm not sure if you are distinguishing "right to destroy" from "ability
>> to destroy".   This leads us back to the language you referenced earlier
>> of "owning someone".   Mutual Assured Destruction implied *that* kind of
>> ownership.   The handful of nation-states with enough nuclear capability
>> to destroy *any* other in *some sense* owned all of the others, but this
>> feels like a fairly perverse sense of "ownership".
>>
>> Perhaps I can concede that the only model of "ownership" of something
>> that does NOT depend on social convention is the ability to deprive
>> others of the use of same by others.   The ability to destroy the
>> utility of that object is an extreme form of depriving its use by
>> others.   This also opens my curiosity about whether the limit to the
>> ability to destroy something limits the ability to "own" it in your
>> model, in the sense that while I can burn my house and garden down and
>> "salt the earth" to make growing anything possible (for some time), the
>> earth itself cannot really be destroyed (though I suppose I could dig a
>> deep hole and remove the earth).   Does this imply a limit to how much I
>> *own* this home/property?   I would contend that my "ownership" depends
>> a lot more on the social/legal convention of those around me (including
>> the bank and the tax collector) than it does on my ability (or not) to
>> destroy it.
>>
>> My maunderings about ownership tend to be focused on trying to
>> understand which aspects are unequivocal and which are not.  The notion
>> of destructionability as ownership is perhaps the most unequivocal.
>> Simply denying access to others (holding tight, placing inside of a safe
>> bolted to the bedrock, building a castle around, etc.) and therefore
>> "use" would be slightly more equivocal, with depending on the
>> generosity/agreement of others yet more with "force of law" somewhere in
>> between?
>>
>> My interest is mostly based in trying to understand what
>> "post-Capitalism" might look like, especially from the inside.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

My temptation is always to respond point-by-point (with larding) but
since I think we have been "all over the place" on this thread I will
try to focus on what I think you have focused on here.

1) I think of the most expansive model of "ownership" to be about the
"exclusive right/ability to use something".

2) I have focused somewhat on the intrinsic (or not) nature of that
exclusivity.

3) I have focused on the impact on others of that exclusivity.

4) I agree with the general arc you suggest about process vs object, in
particular that an object's affordances are what define it in this case.

5) i agree that softness/fuzziness vs hardness of object boundaries make
them harder/easier to "own".

6) I think we agree that _ownership_ in some way is based on a (semi)
consensual agreement... or "rights" as I think you describe it. 

7) I agree that the "right to destroy" is some kind of *test* or *edge
case* of ownership... it may even be some kind of dual, but I am
unwilling to agree to using "the right to destroy" as the most useful
working definition of ownership.

8) I *don't* agree that the key difference between a hammer (tool) and a
human (labor) is their dynamic process or soft boundaries.   I DO
believe that strong Capitalism does not consider there to be any
difference.    Extreme forms of Communism seem to make the same
conflation, I believe that Socialism in all it's normal (not abberant)
forms begins with holding this difference paramount.

What I have (mostly) been trying to delineate (3) is that the key
difference between a deeply ingrained sense of "ownership" and a
somewhat more contrived one built on top of elaborate human institutions
(all of the "archies" plus Capitalism) where it becomes possible to
claim ownership in a way that may otherwise be considered hoarding. 

A predator or scavenger may try to "own" the carcass of an animal too
large for it to consume on it's own, and in fact it may use it's
threatening ferocity to "own" that carcass up to a point.   We commonly
see video footage of a mighty lion keeping a pack of jackals or hyenas
away from its recent kill, but it appears that *eventually* the lion is
sated (as are other members of it's pride if it shares) and others move
in to either try to assert their own ownership (exclusivity) of the
carcass or simply try to "own" parts of the carcass by carrying it off
or simply wolfing as much down as possible.  

Perhaps an arena where we can make productive progress is to discuss
where "the right to destroy" (or maintain exclusive use) comes from?   I
think we agree it is in some way "by consent", though the "Might makes
right" camp might believe that consent through intimidation is not an
oxymoron.

- Steve

On 11/20/19 10:34 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> I suppose what I'm faced with is that if you don't recognize your own argument (albeit abstracted) in what I'm saying, I have to return to the drawing board and come up with a new inference that differs significantly from my old one.
>
> So, here goes. The main thread you seem to have pressed is about hoarding, the commons, aggressive appropriation, stewardship, deprivation of others (those "downstream" and within-group), etc. Marcus' contribution was brief and seemed to be about truncating others' agency ("human capital"). My previous attempt focuses, perhaps wrongly, on viewing all *things* as processes. It implicitly assumes that some "thing" like a hammer has extent just like a non-thing like a human or a piece of intellectual property has extent. The difference between these types of things is a matter of *degree*, not kind, particular the larger or smaller extent of that "thing". (I am, as always, biased by BC Smith's idea of "pre-emptive registration" of an ontology.)
>
> Disambiguating types of productive objects (labor vs. tools, etc.) attempts, I think, to be purely ontological. It asserts a fundamental difference between things like hammers and humans, things and means. My ignorance prevents me from knowing how those philosophers finagle that distinction. But I don't think I need that sophistry for the common usage like in that article on the disintegration of the information ecology.
>
> How about if we said that there are some things that have a stronger boundary around them than others? E.g. a hammer is clearly part of the means of production because it has a pretty hard boundary around it. That boundary is defined through implied use (it fits the human hand quite well) and re-use (it works for everything from murder to cracking flint to hammering nails). The human, by contrast with the hammer, has a very fuzzy boundary around it. It's difficult to call a human a "tool" because every task the human engages becomes a dynamic process, the task changes to fit the human and the human changes to fit the task. Humans are waay more contextually defined than hammers. So, ontologically, a human is easily distinguishable from a hammer because of this contextuality. Therein lies the root of our "types of thing" we need to distinguish types of productive things.
>
> If I think this way, then your talk of hoarding, stewardship, deprivation of others' become ways to *cut* the spectrum of things. A hammer is easy to assign to someone or some region because it has a hard boundary. A human is not so easy to assign because they have fuzzy boundaries. (So, calling a human a "capital good" that can be owned is problematic.) Similarly, something like a herd of goats or a stream that supports farmers and fish downstream is also difficult to crisply assign to another thing or region. When we consider collections of these things, it gets slightly more difficult, but not too bad. Any collection of hammers can be divided up to atomic units (doable because of their hard boundaries). Herds of goats are harder, but till doable as long as you allow for mating, nurturing, milk production, etc. Humans and streams are more difficult to divide.
>
> How am I doing so far? Is this better or worse?
>
>
> On 11/20/19 8:11 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:
>> It's these *extensions* that I think are being implied by the division of production into modes, means, and relations. And, what's worse, is that even though I've inferred this from you (and Marcus), you won't recognize it when I repeat it back to you. 8^)
>>
>> On 11/19/19 8:02 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> I'm not sure if you are distinguishing "right to destroy" from "ability
>>> to destroy".   This leads us back to the language you referenced earlier
>>> of "owning someone".   Mutual Assured Destruction implied *that* kind of
>>> ownership.   The handful of nation-states with enough nuclear capability
>>> to destroy *any* other in *some sense* owned all of the others, but this
>>> feels like a fairly perverse sense of "ownership".
>>>
>>> Perhaps I can concede that the only model of "ownership" of something
>>> that does NOT depend on social convention is the ability to deprive
>>> others of the use of same by others.   The ability to destroy the
>>> utility of that object is an extreme form of depriving its use by
>>> others.   This also opens my curiosity about whether the limit to the
>>> ability to destroy something limits the ability to "own" it in your
>>> model, in the sense that while I can burn my house and garden down and
>>> "salt the earth" to make growing anything possible (for some time), the
>>> earth itself cannot really be destroyed (though I suppose I could dig a
>>> deep hole and remove the earth).   Does this imply a limit to how much I
>>> *own* this home/property?   I would contend that my "ownership" depends
>>> a lot more on the social/legal convention of those around me (including
>>> the bank and the tax collector) than it does on my ability (or not) to
>>> destroy it.
>>>
>>> My maunderings about ownership tend to be focused on trying to
>>> understand which aspects are unequivocal and which are not.  The notion
>>> of destructionability as ownership is perhaps the most unequivocal.
>>> Simply denying access to others (holding tight, placing inside of a safe
>>> bolted to the bedrock, building a castle around, etc.) and therefore
>>> "use" would be slightly more equivocal, with depending on the
>>> generosity/agreement of others yet more with "force of law" somewhere in
>>> between?
>>>
>>> My interest is mostly based in trying to understand what
>>> "post-Capitalism" might look like, especially from the inside.

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[gepr]

Excellent! Thanks for that summary. I don't want to disagree with much of what you said, because what I'm trying to do is work out why some people can use the phrase "ownership of the means of production" with a straight face. 8^)

What you lay out below worked. I did *not* grok that the key difference you see is one of ingrained vs. contrived senses of ownership. I think we could have an interesting discussion down into that. But it's definitely not what I *thought* we were talking about. I'd like to tie the 2 topics together more explicitly than you do below.

To be clear, the 2 topics are: 1) what do people (e.g. you) mean when they use the phrase "means of production" and 2) ingrained vs. contrived senses of ownership. It's tempting to dive down into the mechanisms of something being ingrained vs. contrived. But I don't think that dive pulls much weight in relation to question (1). Whatever lurks at the depth of the distinction, maybe we can just allow that there is a distinction and stay "up here" for a minute? Perhaps you're suggesting that people who use the phrase "ownership of the means of production" are trying to make that distinction between an ingrained vs. a contrived ownership claim.

It would make sense to me to identify people who use that phrase as accusing others of conflating ingrained "rights" vs contrived "rights". E.g. if only socialists used the phrase as accusations that the "ownership of the means of production" is contrived and not ingrained (or "natural"). I.e. the "means of production" should be collectively shared, not privately owned. Whereas a capitalist might counter-claim that allowing for a more ingrained (or "intuitive"), expansive extent of ownership fosters things like innovation, and accuses socialists of defusing one's motivations (ingrained sense of ownership) into the collective. So each side is arguing about where to draw the line between ingrained vs. contrived.

Is *that* your sense of how people use the phrase(s)?

On 11/20/19 12:55 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> My temptation is always to respond point-by-point (with larding) but
> since I think we have been "all over the place" on this thread I will
> try to focus on what I think you have focused on here.
>
> 1) I think of the most expansive model of "ownership" to be about the
> "exclusive right/ability to use something".
>
> 2) I have focused somewhat on the intrinsic (or not) nature of that
> exclusivity.
>
> 3) I have focused on the impact on others of that exclusivity.
>
> 4) I agree with the general arc you suggest about process vs object, in
> particular that an object's affordances are what define it in this case.
>
> 5) i agree that softness/fuzziness vs hardness of object boundaries make
> them harder/easier to "own".
>
> 6) I think we agree that _ownership_ in some way is based on a (semi)
> consensual agreement... or "rights" as I think you describe it.
>
> 7) I agree that the "right to destroy" is some kind of *test* or *edge
> case* of ownership... it may even be some kind of dual, but I am
> unwilling to agree to using "the right to destroy" as the most useful
> working definition of ownership.
>
> 8) I *don't* agree that the key difference between a hammer (tool) and a
> human (labor) is their dynamic process or soft boundaries.   I DO
> believe that strong Capitalism does not consider there to be any
> difference.    Extreme forms of Communism seem to make the same
> conflation, I believe that Socialism in all it's normal (not abberant)
> forms begins with holding this difference paramount.
>
> What I have (mostly) been trying to delineate (3) is that the key
> difference between a deeply ingrained sense of "ownership" and a
> somewhat more contrived one built on top of elaborate human institutions
> (all of the "archies" plus Capitalism) where it becomes possible to
> claim ownership in a way that may otherwise be considered hoarding.
>
> A predator or scavenger may try to "own" the carcass of an animal too
> large for it to consume on it's own, and in fact it may use it's
> threatening ferocity to "own" that carcass up to a point.   We commonly
> see video footage of a mighty lion keeping a pack of jackals or hyenas
> away from its recent kill, but it appears that *eventually* the lion is
> sated (as are other members of it's pride if it shares) and others move
> in to either try to assert their own ownership (exclusivity) of the
> carcass or simply try to "own" parts of the carcass by carrying it off
> or simply wolfing as much down as possible.
>
> Perhaps an arena where we can make productive progress is to discuss
> where "the right to destroy" (or maintain exclusive use) comes from?   I
> think we agree it is in some way "by consent", though the "Might makes
> right" camp might believe that consent through intimidation is not an
> oxymoron.

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

After lettin ghtis sit a while and engaging in Dave's take3 subthread, I
am more ready to respond.

> what I'm trying to do is work out why some people can use the phrase
> "ownership of the means of production" with a straight face. 8^)
I saw that in your original response but didn't recognize that to be the
core of your questions, though I think I do see it now.  Part of that is
that I also find the phrase something of an oxymoron in the world I
*choose to live in* but sadly a near truism in the culture of hypermanic
capitalism that we *DO*??? (or many choose to) live in.

> What you lay out below worked. I did *not* grok that the key
> difference you see is one of ingrained vs. contrived senses of
> ownership. I think we could have an interesting discussion down into
> that. But it's definitely not what I *thought* we were talking about.
> I'd like to tie the 2 topics together more explicitly than you do below.
>
> To be clear, the 2 topics are: 1) what do people (e.g. you) mean when
> they use the phrase "means of production" and 2) ingrained vs.
> contrived senses of ownership. It's tempting to dive down into the
> mechanisms of something being ingrained vs. contrived. But I don't
> think that dive pulls much weight in relation to question (1).
> Whatever lurks at the depth of the distinction, maybe we can just
> allow that there is a distinction and stay "up here" for a minute?
> Perhaps you're suggesting that people who use the phrase "ownership of
> the means of production" are trying to make that distinction between
> an ingrained vs. a contrived ownership claim.

I would say that not only are they trying to make that *distinction* but
are in fact trying to impose what I am calling "contrived" to be
"ingrained" and perhaps dismissing "ingrained" almost entirely, or
treating it somewhat as a quaint anachronism.   The real estate agents,
title companies, tax agents, bankers, foreclosure agents, and Sheriffs
who create and exercise the ambiguity of ownership of one's own "home"
are an example.   The myth of home ownership (in this context) as part
of the American (first world?) one's own home, crossed with the myth of
"a man's house is his castle" and juxtaposed with "home is where the
heart is" all jangle hard against one another if taken seriously.  I
feel that I "own" the silver amalgam fittings and gold crowns in my
mouth nearly as "intrinsically" as I do the teeth they are attached to. 
If I were in a Nazi death camp, I suppose those who operated it might
not care much about that distinction.   They own my teeth (in your sense
of "ability to destroy") as surely as the gold and silver married to
them.  What I *might* still own is my sense of dignity (I happen to have
just re-read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - set in a
Stalinist Gulag, but still pretty daunting).

..

<deleted protracted tangential argument on the contrast in arguments
around "right to bear arms" and "freedom of choice">

...

> It would make sense to me to identify people who use that phrase as
> accusing others of conflating ingrained "rights" vs contrived
> "rights". E.g. if only socialists used the phrase as accusations that
> the "ownership of the means of production" is contrived and not
> ingrained (or "natural"). I.e. the "means of production" should be
> collectively shared, not privately owned. Whereas a capitalist might
> counter-claim that allowing for a more ingrained (or "intuitive"),
> expansive extent of ownership fosters things like innovation, and
> accuses socialists of defusing one's motivations (ingrained sense of
> ownership) into the collective. So each side is arguing about where to
> draw the line between ingrained vs. contrived.
>
> Is *that* your sense of how people use the phrase(s)?

I think that is very close, if not spot on, and provides the foundation
for the stronger sense in which I was trying to delineate different
modes of ownership".  

Elaborating what I think is implied in what you said here:

Using the language of Socialist/Capitalist (in their stronger senses), I
agree that the former might believe that by virtue of the fact that some
specific "means of production" are tapping in an imbalanced way into
some kind of "commons", that to allow private/individual (vs
communal/collective) control over that "means of production" gives the
owner unequal access to the shared resource in "the commons".   By
extension, this "means of production" might should become part of the
commons in their mind. 

A Capitalist may want to deny the very idea of "a commons" and believe
that all unowned resources are available for appropriation (esp. by
them).   For the longest time, bodies of water, grazing land, forests,
veins of minerals were pretty much treated that way.  Possession was
100% of "the law".  Ownership of some conserved "means of production" is
an even better lever with which to appropriate... if you dam the river
and put in a water mill, if you set up a sawmill operation big enough to
clear a mountainside, or bring in big enough drills/pumps to empty an
aquifer or a oil deposit, then even if you  don't claim to own the
water-head, the forest, the aquifer, you have established the ability to
appropriate it (somewhat) to the exclusion of others. 

In the struggle between labor/capital in the industrial age - Labor, as
you point out is to Capital, just another commodity to be virtually
"owned", "traded", and even "destroyed" in some sense.  Labor becomes
part of the "means of production".   Labor Unions flip that around (to
some extent) by collectivizing Labor into a presumed CoOp (though many
Union members or students of criminal activity around Labor Unions might
argue that is also an illusion), the individuals making up the Labor
have their own labor potential returned to themselves (though now
collectivized).  "Right to Work" laws speak in the language of
returning/leaving those rights in the individual but it appears this is
almost exclusively a storyline and misdirection by Capital to undermine
Unions to maintain their ability to exploit the labor of Labor at-will. 
This battle, I would claim, has squeezed out everything but the thinnest
of illusions than an individual might "own" their own labor (potential).  

I continue to fail to match you in conciseness and honor your
forbearance in tracing out some of my more convoluted responses and
distilling some aspect of their essence for continued remastication.

- Steve

>
> On 11/20/19 12:55 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> My temptation is always to respond point-by-point (with larding) but
>> since I think we have been "all over the place" on this thread I will
>> try to focus on what I think you have focused on here.
>>
>> 1) I think of the most expansive model of "ownership" to be about the
>> "exclusive right/ability to use something".
>>
>> 2) I have focused somewhat on the intrinsic (or not) nature of that
>> exclusivity.
>>
>> 3) I have focused on the impact on others of that exclusivity.
>>
>> 4) I agree with the general arc you suggest about process vs object, in
>> particular that an object's affordances are what define it in this case.
>>
>> 5) i agree that softness/fuzziness vs hardness of object boundaries make
>> them harder/easier to "own".
>>
>> 6) I think we agree that _ownership_ in some way is based on a (semi)
>> consensual agreement... or "rights" as I think you describe it.
>>
>> 7) I agree that the "right to destroy" is some kind of *test* or *edge
>> case* of ownership... it may even be some kind of dual, but I am
>> unwilling to agree to using "the right to destroy" as the most useful
>> working definition of ownership.
>>
>> 8) I *don't* agree that the key difference between a hammer (tool) and a
>> human (labor) is their dynamic process or soft boundaries.   I DO
>> believe that strong Capitalism does not consider there to be any
>> difference.    Extreme forms of Communism seem to make the same
>> conflation, I believe that Socialism in all it's normal (not abberant)
>> forms begins with holding this difference paramount.
>>
>> What I have (mostly) been trying to delineate (3) is that the key
>> difference between a deeply ingrained sense of "ownership" and a
>> somewhat more contrived one built on top of elaborate human institutions
>> (all of the "archies" plus Capitalism) where it becomes possible to
>> claim ownership in a way that may otherwise be considered hoarding.
>>
>> A predator or scavenger may try to "own" the carcass of an animal too
>> large for it to consume on it's own, and in fact it may use it's
>> threatening ferocity to "own" that carcass up to a point.   We commonly
>> see video footage of a mighty lion keeping a pack of jackals or hyenas
>> away from its recent kill, but it appears that *eventually* the lion is
>> sated (as are other members of it's pride if it shares) and others move
>> in to either try to assert their own ownership (exclusivity) of the
>> carcass or simply try to "own" parts of the carcass by carrying it off
>> or simply wolfing as much down as possible.
>>
>> Perhaps an arena where we can make productive progress is to discuss
>> where "the right to destroy" (or maintain exclusive use) comes from?   I
>> think we agree it is in some way "by consent", though the "Might makes
>> right" camp might believe that consent through intimidation is not an
>> oxymoron.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>

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[gepr]

OK. So, moving on from the basic idea that "means of production" is used as a hook for this fundamental issue of ingrained vs. contrived claims, you've refined that into this *game theoretic* language about asymmetric access to pools of resources. I guess it does smack True that the people I've heard use the phrase "means of production" tend to have some sort of chip on their shoulder ... some beef they want to express ... like they've lost the game and are using the phrase morally or ethically to express the asymmetry.

But it's not clear to me that this way of thinking is useful, at least not to me. I appreciate you're laying it out. But it's not necessary for leveraging a dialog with people who use the phrase. I.e. what I need is simply some grounding so that I don't just laugh off or miss some important point they might be making. And the core distinction you've made (ingrained vs. contrived) is solid, which is not to say I agree or disagree, only that it helps me be better at listening. In fact, going any further, might inhibit me from listening to the phrase-user with empathy. I might preemptively assume I know what they mean before asking them. So, I don't want to charge into the gaming the commons extent, at least not in this conversation.

Thanks very much!

On 11/25/19 2:16 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

>
> Glen -
>
> After lettin ghtis sit a while and engaging in Dave's take3 subthread, I
> am more ready to respond.
>
>> what I'm trying to do is work out why some people can use the phrase
>> "ownership of the means of production" with a straight face. 8^)
> I saw that in your original response but didn't recognize that to be the
> core of your questions, though I think I do see it now.  Part of that is
> that I also find the phrase something of an oxymoron in the world I
> *choose to live in* but sadly a near truism in the culture of hypermanic
> capitalism that we *DO*??? (or many choose to) live in.
>> What you lay out below worked. I did *not* grok that the key
>> difference you see is one of ingrained vs. contrived senses of
>> ownership. I think we could have an interesting discussion down into
>> that. But it's definitely not what I *thought* we were talking about.
>> I'd like to tie the 2 topics together more explicitly than you do below.
>>
>> To be clear, the 2 topics are: 1) what do people (e.g. you) mean when
>> they use the phrase "means of production" and 2) ingrained vs.
>> contrived senses of ownership. It's tempting to dive down into the
>> mechanisms of something being ingrained vs. contrived. But I don't
>> think that dive pulls much weight in relation to question (1).
>> Whatever lurks at the depth of the distinction, maybe we can just
>> allow that there is a distinction and stay "up here" for a minute?
>> Perhaps you're suggesting that people who use the phrase "ownership of
>> the means of production" are trying to make that distinction between
>> an ingrained vs. a contrived ownership claim.
>
> I would say that not only are they trying to make that *distinction* but
> are in fact trying to impose what I am calling "contrived" to be
> "ingrained" and perhaps dismissing "ingrained" almost entirely, or
> treating it somewhat as a quaint anachronism.   The real estate agents,
> title companies, tax agents, bankers, foreclosure agents, and Sheriffs
> who create and exercise the ambiguity of ownership of one's own "home"
> are an example.   The myth of home ownership (in this context) as part
> of the American (first world?) one's own home, crossed with the myth of
> "a man's house is his castle" and juxtaposed with "home is where the
> heart is" all jangle hard against one another if taken seriously.  I
> feel that I "own" the silver amalgam fittings and gold crowns in my
> mouth nearly as "intrinsically" as I do the teeth they are attached to. 
> If I were in a Nazi death camp, I suppose those who operated it might
> not care much about that distinction.   They own my teeth (in your sense
> of "ability to destroy") as surely as the gold and silver married to
> them.  What I *might* still own is my sense of dignity (I happen to have
> just re-read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - set in a
> Stalinist Gulag, but still pretty daunting).
>
> ..
>
> <deleted protracted tangential argument on the contrast in arguments
> around "right to bear arms" and "freedom of choice">
>
> ...
>
>> It would make sense to me to identify people who use that phrase as
>> accusing others of conflating ingrained "rights" vs contrived
>> "rights". E.g. if only socialists used the phrase as accusations that
>> the "ownership of the means of production" is contrived and not
>> ingrained (or "natural"). I.e. the "means of production" should be
>> collectively shared, not privately owned. Whereas a capitalist might
>> counter-claim that allowing for a more ingrained (or "intuitive"),
>> expansive extent of ownership fosters things like innovation, and
>> accuses socialists of defusing one's motivations (ingrained sense of
>> ownership) into the collective. So each side is arguing about where to
>> draw the line between ingrained vs. contrived.
>>
>> Is *that* your sense of how people use the phrase(s)?
>
> I think that is very close, if not spot on, and provides the foundation
> for the stronger sense in which I was trying to delineate different
> modes of ownership".  
>
> Elaborating what I think is implied in what you said here:
>
> Using the language of Socialist/Capitalist (in their stronger senses), I
> agree that the former might believe that by virtue of the fact that some
> specific "means of production" are tapping in an imbalanced way into
> some kind of "commons", that to allow private/individual (vs
> communal/collective) control over that "means of production" gives the
> owner unequal access to the shared resource in "the commons".   By
> extension, this "means of production" might should become part of the
> commons in their mind. 
>
> A Capitalist may want to deny the very idea of "a commons" and believe
> that all unowned resources are available for appropriation (esp. by
> them).   For the longest time, bodies of water, grazing land, forests,
> veins of minerals were pretty much treated that way.  Possession was
> 100% of "the law".  Ownership of some conserved "means of production" is
> an even better lever with which to appropriate... if you dam the river
> and put in a water mill, if you set up a sawmill operation big enough to
> clear a mountainside, or bring in big enough drills/pumps to empty an
> aquifer or a oil deposit, then even if you  don't claim to own the
> water-head, the forest, the aquifer, you have established the ability to
> appropriate it (somewhat) to the exclusion of others. 
>
> In the struggle between labor/capital in the industrial age - Labor, as
> you point out is to Capital, just another commodity to be virtually
> "owned", "traded", and even "destroyed" in some sense.  Labor becomes
> part of the "means of production".   Labor Unions flip that around (to
> some extent) by collectivizing Labor into a presumed CoOp (though many
> Union members or students of criminal activity around Labor Unions might
> argue that is also an illusion), the individuals making up the Labor
> have their own labor potential returned to themselves (though now
> collectivized).  "Right to Work" laws speak in the language of
> returning/leaving those rights in the individual but it appears this is
> almost exclusively a storyline and misdirection by Capital to undermine
> Unions to maintain their ability to exploit the labor of Labor at-will. 
> This battle, I would claim, has squeezed out everything but the thinnest
> of illusions than an individual might "own" their own labor (potential).  
>
> I continue to fail to match you in conciseness and honor your
> forbearance in tracing out some of my more convoluted responses and
> distilling some aspect of their essence for continued remastication.
>

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

Ok... I think I can let it all sit... and second your instinct *against*
the use of the noun-phrase "means of production"...  I am very
sympathetic to your reading of the use of the phrase as indicating "they
have lost the game".  It feels to me as if it *does* admit to *wanting*
to play the game of Capital/Labor, just not wanting to accept the
stacking of the deck that comes with it.

I only adopted it into my normal discourse because it does seem so
prevalent among those I otherwise tend to by sympathetic with.    While
I did hold a "day job" at a National Laboratory for the bulk of my
career, I was never of the mindset of employees and jobs and Capital and
Labor.   While I might have resented many policies and practices of UC
(the prime contractor) and DOE (prime funder) and myriad petty internal
politics, I never felt the strong sense that I was "owed" anything, or
that it was anybody else's responsibility to keep *my job* alive and
well... if I didn't like how things worked, I could always leave!   Of
course, like many/most of us here, my education and professional
embedding gave me that option, I understand that many in more typical
"company towns" don't have that option, and the deal is different for them.

I did finally , but only after a pretty good long run.   I should have
left a few years earlier (when Bechtel took over) at least on principle,
but it took a little more incentive and time for me to shake off my
"golden shackles".   My long explanation of "means of production", and
the basis of it's validity/etc.  is somewhat ideosyncratic to me
personally... what I've described is how *I* have tried to come to terms
with it... not quite how I perceive it to be used in the larger (or any
specific) culture, nor do I suggest it be *your* way of coming to terms
with it.  

That said, by all means, listen and avoid premature binding as always!

I'm reading Dave's paper on "Patterns of Humanity" and while I have a
few beefs with it, he lays out a pretty interesting way of thinking
about the intrinsic problems of our extant socioeconomic modes.   I'll
probably be referencing some of that work in SubThread3... 

- Steve


On 11/26/19 11:44 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> OK. So, moving on from the basic idea that "means of production" is used as a hook for this fundamental issue of ingrained vs. contrived claims, you've refined that into this *game theoretic* language about asymmetric access to pools of resources. I guess it does smack True that the people I've heard use the phrase "means of production" tend to have some sort of chip on their shoulder ... some beef they want to express ... like they've lost the game and are using the phrase morally or ethically to express the asymmetry.
>
> But it's not clear to me that this way of thinking is useful, at least not to me. I appreciate you're laying it out. But it's not necessary for leveraging a dialog with people who use the phrase. I.e. what I need is simply some grounding so that I don't just laugh off or miss some important point they might be making. And the core distinction you've made (ingrained vs. contrived) is solid, which is not to say I agree or disagree, only that it helps me be better at listening. In fact, going any further, might inhibit me from listening to the phrase-user with empathy. I might preemptively assume I know what they mean before asking them. So, I don't want to charge into the gaming the commons extent, at least not in this conversation.
>
> Thanks very much!
>
> On 11/25/19 2:16 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Glen -
>>
>> After lettin ghtis sit a while and engaging in Dave's take3 subthread, I
>> am more ready to respond.
>>
>>> what I'm trying to do is work out why some people can use the phrase
>>> "ownership of the means of production" with a straight face. 8^)
>> I saw that in your original response but didn't recognize that to be the
>> core of your questions, though I think I do see it now.  Part of that is
>> that I also find the phrase something of an oxymoron in the world I
>> *choose to live in* but sadly a near truism in the culture of hypermanic
>> capitalism that we *DO*??? (or many choose to) live in.
>>> What you lay out below worked. I did *not* grok that the key
>>> difference you see is one of ingrained vs. contrived senses of
>>> ownership. I think we could have an interesting discussion down into
>>> that. But it's definitely not what I *thought* we were talking about.
>>> I'd like to tie the 2 topics together more explicitly than you do below.
>>>
>>> To be clear, the 2 topics are: 1) what do people (e.g. you) mean when
>>> they use the phrase "means of production" and 2) ingrained vs.
>>> contrived senses of ownership. It's tempting to dive down into the
>>> mechanisms of something being ingrained vs. contrived. But I don't
>>> think that dive pulls much weight in relation to question (1).
>>> Whatever lurks at the depth of the distinction, maybe we can just
>>> allow that there is a distinction and stay "up here" for a minute?
>>> Perhaps you're suggesting that people who use the phrase "ownership of
>>> the means of production" are trying to make that distinction between
>>> an ingrained vs. a contrived ownership claim.
>> I would say that not only are they trying to make that *distinction* but
>> are in fact trying to impose what I am calling "contrived" to be
>> "ingrained" and perhaps dismissing "ingrained" almost entirely, or
>> treating it somewhat as a quaint anachronism.   The real estate agents,
>> title companies, tax agents, bankers, foreclosure agents, and Sheriffs
>> who create and exercise the ambiguity of ownership of one's own "home"
>> are an example.   The myth of home ownership (in this context) as part
>> of the American (first world?) one's own home, crossed with the myth of
>> "a man's house is his castle" and juxtaposed with "home is where the
>> heart is" all jangle hard against one another if taken seriously.  I
>> feel that I "own" the silver amalgam fittings and gold crowns in my
>> mouth nearly as "intrinsically" as I do the teeth they are attached to. 
>> If I were in a Nazi death camp, I suppose those who operated it might
>> not care much about that distinction.   They own my teeth (in your sense
>> of "ability to destroy") as surely as the gold and silver married to
>> them.  What I *might* still own is my sense of dignity (I happen to have
>> just re-read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - set in a
>> Stalinist Gulag, but still pretty daunting).
>>
>> ..
>>
>> <deleted protracted tangential argument on the contrast in arguments
>> around "right to bear arms" and "freedom of choice">
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> It would make sense to me to identify people who use that phrase as
>>> accusing others of conflating ingrained "rights" vs contrived
>>> "rights". E.g. if only socialists used the phrase as accusations that
>>> the "ownership of the means of production" is contrived and not
>>> ingrained (or "natural"). I.e. the "means of production" should be
>>> collectively shared, not privately owned. Whereas a capitalist might
>>> counter-claim that allowing for a more ingrained (or "intuitive"),
>>> expansive extent of ownership fosters things like innovation, and
>>> accuses socialists of defusing one's motivations (ingrained sense of
>>> ownership) into the collective. So each side is arguing about where to
>>> draw the line between ingrained vs. contrived.
>>>
>>> Is *that* your sense of how people use the phrase(s)?
>> I think that is very close, if not spot on, and provides the foundation
>> for the stronger sense in which I was trying to delineate different
>> modes of ownership".  
>>
>> Elaborating what I think is implied in what you said here:
>>
>> Using the language of Socialist/Capitalist (in their stronger senses), I
>> agree that the former might believe that by virtue of the fact that some
>> specific "means of production" are tapping in an imbalanced way into
>> some kind of "commons", that to allow private/individual (vs
>> communal/collective) control over that "means of production" gives the
>> owner unequal access to the shared resource in "the commons".   By
>> extension, this "means of production" might should become part of the
>> commons in their mind. 
>>
>> A Capitalist may want to deny the very idea of "a commons" and believe
>> that all unowned resources are available for appropriation (esp. by
>> them).   For the longest time, bodies of water, grazing land, forests,
>> veins of minerals were pretty much treated that way.  Possession was
>> 100% of "the law".  Ownership of some conserved "means of production" is
>> an even better lever with which to appropriate... if you dam the river
>> and put in a water mill, if you set up a sawmill operation big enough to
>> clear a mountainside, or bring in big enough drills/pumps to empty an
>> aquifer or a oil deposit, then even if you  don't claim to own the
>> water-head, the forest, the aquifer, you have established the ability to
>> appropriate it (somewhat) to the exclusion of others. 
>>
>> In the struggle between labor/capital in the industrial age - Labor, as
>> you point out is to Capital, just another commodity to be virtually
>> "owned", "traded", and even "destroyed" in some sense.  Labor becomes
>> part of the "means of production".   Labor Unions flip that around (to
>> some extent) by collectivizing Labor into a presumed CoOp (though many
>> Union members or students of criminal activity around Labor Unions might
>> argue that is also an illusion), the individuals making up the Labor
>> have their own labor potential returned to themselves (though now
>> collectivized).  "Right to Work" laws speak in the language of
>> returning/leaving those rights in the individual but it appears this is
>> almost exclusively a storyline and misdirection by Capital to undermine
>> Unions to maintain their ability to exploit the labor of Labor at-will. 
>> This battle, I would claim, has squeezed out everything but the thinnest
>> of illusions than an individual might "own" their own labor (potential).  
>>
>> I continue to fail to match you in conciseness and honor your
>> forbearance in tracing out some of my more convoluted responses and
>> distilling some aspect of their essence for continued remastication.
>>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove