Re: means of production take 2

Posted by gepr on Nov 19, 2019; 9:02pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/means-of-production-take-2-tp7593858p7593867.html

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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