On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 1:01 AM, mp
<mp@aktivix.org> wrote:
On 25/11/11 12:04, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> martin,
>
> would you agree that there is a difference between profit making (i.e. an
> accidental or regular surplus in money after an exchange, which enables you
> to continue to operate in a money system) and a system based on profit
> maximisation (i.e.capitalism), i.e. between a mere market and capitalism
> ... this is a classic distinction made by marx (m-c-m vs c-m-c), polanyi,
> braudel, de landa, and even by anarchist anthropoligists like david graeber
> ...
Yes, this is a typical general/particular or type/token distinction.
No, it is a difference between two different systems, non-capitalist market systems vs capitalist market systems
So,
when we speak of big pharma (AIDS drugs was the example), then we speak
of a very particular kind of profit. What you outline above as the
latter, while the former is a much more general kind of "profit".
While in the latter (capitalist) kind of profit making the problem is
very obvious and OWS and Tea Partiers and many mainstream commentators,
notably even conservative journalists and so on, can now agree on the
problem associated with extremeties of that system and the way in which
it is fused with the political system to become power over people, -- in
the former, however, more general idea of "profit", and in the absence
of maximisation, we would still have to consider the social relations
(all production is social) that make up the framework for that moment of
profit. Questions such as wage labour/slavery, the quality of the
product (here I a thinking environment and life span, for instance) and
the livelihoods of all the people involved would have to be addressed.
There is probabl no sensible and simple good/bad, right/wrong conclusion
that follows from a comparison of the general with the particular. False
exercise of the mind.
No, a very interesting and useful exercise, I'm with the cited authors on this.
> pre-capitalist markets were always subsumed to broader economic and social
> goals (i.e. fixed price in Indian villages, 'just price', also pretty much
> fixed, in medieval europe, etc ...)
I wouldn't want to paint with such broad a brush. Even if I had a great
overview of what you call pre-capitalist markets, which I don't, I don't
think I would like to lump them together. It is too much us/now vs.
them/then to my mind, i.e Eurocentric. I see much more of continuity
between ages, which is eradicated in the minds of Marxists - indeed
Hegel, the forefather of the science of capital (i.e. Marx's work), and
Marx himself desired such a qualitative shift away from superstition and
whatever else the despised about the unenlightened past.
Along other threads of inquiry (such as, say, the scientifc method, the
history of programmable machines, patriarchy) things look different. I
am not a great fan of the the meta/master narrative of so clear
universal shifts and see much overlapping stuff going on.
So really, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that both Hindu society, and medieval society, did not allow free pricing, and seeing a commonality of purpose in this is inevitably euro-centric? I don't buy this for a second. I find it generally more interesting to focus on the argumentation and facts, rather than disqualify the person making them and focusing on their wrong epistemology.
> it seems to me that cartels/etc .. are a inevitable feature of capitalism,
> but are they a necessary feature of market systems in general, especially
> when the market dynamics are subsumed?
They are really just super-guilds, aren't they? What's new? People do
business with like people. These are human dynamics that are given a
particular framework in capitalism, indeed one might say that capitalism
is an outcome of such formations, much more so than the other way round.
could be ... but I don't think so, I think there are structural reasons leading capital-based systems to such a specific form of accumulation
> perhaps any class-based allocation system is marred by power law and
> concentration dynamics, since it was also certainly the case in feudal
> systems, where it is the land that was being concentrated,
.. and the imagination always was by the church and through laws.
I think they are more structural reasons why class societies are driven to accumulation. But if you read Norbert Elias, that dynamic of feudal land accumulation is explained very well. If anything, the Church was a counterforce to it, and it accumulated land through gifting, and attempted to pacify the warlord class through 'expansion through marriage' rather than permanent warfare (see the book, The first european revolution)
> to me it seems logically that any competitive allocation system, where some
> players can win, immediately favours the winner, since they already obtain
> more resources in the second round
Well, this depends on what "win" entails.
> without counter-measures, are these not inevitable?
depending on what "win" means, yes.
Winning is different in each system, what is comparable is that a particular type of resource-that-creates-a-particular-form-of-power is accumulated
> my understanding is that tribal societies had such active countermeasures?
what tribal societies? when? where? Again, a very broad brush, but more
importantly, I think, incommensurability is at play here: it is very
difficult to compare paradigms: which part of system X makes it
different to system Y with regard to abstract concept P, where -
crucially! - P is derived from a particular set of observations within
system X?
it is really difficult to even use language without using any generalisation; rather than arguing against inevitable use of generalisation and comparison, it is usually more productive to explain why a particular form of comparison and generalisation is mistaken. I suspect that a person unable to reason in broad brushes, may be hospitalized in our societies. if you can't go from a particular dog, to the genus dog, that makes for a very hard life. just a wild guess, but I suspect your own thesis is full of abstractions, comparisons, and broad brushes. to go back to the issue that was discussed, the argument was informed by someone relating Society against the State of Pierre Clastres, who claimed that 'different' tribal societies (I hope that way of formulating passes the epistemological test), seemed to have very active measures and practices to avoid the emergence of permanent inequalities, hence classes, hence the state (or the otherway around, preventing privileged armed men, the proto-state, to create a permanent class society).
martin