This thread is for the discussion of cybercommunism, the planning of the socialist economy by computerized means, including discussions of related topics and creators. Drama belongs in /isg/
ReadingTowards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell:
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer
Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina
Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine and The Human Use of Human Beings (1st edition) by Norbert Wiener
Economic cybernetics by Nikolay Veduta
People's Republic of Walmart by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford
Economics in kind, Total socialisation and A system of socialisation by Otto Neurath (Incommensurability, Ecology, and Planning: Neurath in the Socialist Calculation Debate by Thomas Uebel provides a summary)
Active writers/creatorsSorted by last name
>Paul Cockshotthttps://www.patreon.com/williamCockshott/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVBfIU1_zO-P_R9keEGdDHQ (
https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCVBfIU1_zO-P_R9keEGdDHQ)
https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/http://paulcockshott.co.uk/https://twitter.com/PaulCockshott (
https://nitter.pussthecat.org/PaulCockshott)
>Cibcom (Spanish)https://cibcom.org/https://twitter.com/cibcomorg (
https://nitter.pussthecat.org/cibcomorg)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCav9ad3TMuhiWV6yP5t2IpA (
https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCav9ad3TMuhiWV6yP5t2IpA)
>Tomas Härdinhttps://www.haerdin.se/tag/cybernetics.htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5fDgA_eHleDiTLC5qb5g8w (
https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UC5fDgA_eHleDiTLC5qb5g8w)
>Elena Vedutahttp://www.strategplan.com/en/about/veduta.phpVarious videos on YouTube but no channel of her own
>Dave Zachariahhttps://www.it.uu.se/katalog/davza513One video on Paul Cockshott's channel
Podcasts>General Intellect UnitPodcast of the Cybernetic Marxists
http://generalintellectunit.net/Previous threads in chronological orderhttps://archive.is/uNCEYhttps://web.archive.org/web/20201218152831/https://bunkerchan.xyz/leftypol/res/997358.htmlhttps://archive.ph/uyggphttps://archive.is/xBFYYhttps://archive.ph/Afx5ahttps://archive.is/kAPvRhttps://archive.is/0sAS2https://archive.is/jXivP>>2249957rate of exploitation tends to hover around 100% in most countries, meaning a wage rate of 50%. with a 40 hour work week that's 20 hours per week value added to the labour power itself. the UK work year this year is 253 work days:
https://uk-bankholidays.co.uk/working-days.htmlif we assume an average worker works between ages 20-65 then this works out to (65-20)*253*20/5 = 45,540 hours per worker
>>2250192the key is to do practice problems and only after you develop a "muscle memory" do you go back and ask "ok why does this work"
my problem for way too long is I always wanted to know "Why why why" before even getting the practice in.
>>2250229USA gross domestic income EOY 2023 = 28.1 trillion
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDINet National income EOY 2023 = 27.6 trillion
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MKTGNIUSA646NWDBUSA Workforce EOY 2023 = 157 million
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMSNet product per employee in EOY 2023 = $175,796.18
(Net national income/ USA workforce)
Average annual hours actually worked per worker EOY 2023 = 1713
FRED DISCONTINUED 2011 FUCK FUCK FUCKhttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEPI downloaded the CSV and projected the trend to arrive at 1713
Value per hour = $102.62
(Net product per employee/Average annual hours actually worked per worker)
Average hourly earnings EOY 2023 = $34.31
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003The average burger worker created a value of $102.62 per hour in 2023, while the US average hourly earnings in 2023 were at $34.31
>>2250290>Is there there seriously that much rent extraction?Yes, people think burgers are home-owning suburbanites but the truth is the vast majority of suburban households are rented out by a landlord. Like I live in the suburbs for 15 years now but I have never owned "my" house. I pay rent to a guy who himself also rents a townhouse. Sometimes even your landlord has a landlord.
Also a lot of commodities are rent based now. think software. you used to get an install disc. Now you rent software as a service for a subscription. Same with Netflix etc.
>>2250281>>2250290Probably the biggest thing missing from this is non-payment compensation which is 31.1% of total compensation. This comes out to $14.13 or $45.52 total compensation (though this average excludes some groups namely federal workers).
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_03132024.htm#ect_table1Another thing missing is (the employer part of) payroll (7.56% of wages or $2.34 on average) and corporate taxes (comparatively insignificant).
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751>>2250296Even these sorts of rent-extraction comes out of the paycheck.
It sort of blows my mind that all of this could be profit or rent paid by companies.
>>2250335Actually it just doesn't make sense.
Corporate profits are only about 3 trillion dollars.
>>2250407>1. How do you take power?mass spontaneous action by committees across the USA and potentially canada
>2. How do you keep power?revolutionary terror and the immediate
(though not instant) establishment of new systems
>3. How do you deal with laws not allowing you to nationalize shit? answered in number 2, we reject the old order in its totality
>>2250166>Like does 20 hours worth of wage have to buy me 20 hours worth of labour time in products?yes. and also public services and so on, which are funded from taxes the workers ultimately pay
the above only applies to countries with a "normal" level of development. in countries with lower levels of development workers might work 40 hours but only produce 4 hours' worth of value, out of which they get paid say 2 hours. hence also the lower value of labour power in those countries. contrary to what yellow Parenti says, the cause of the third world's poverty
is its underdevelopment
>>2250170Farjoun, Machover and Zachariah observes that the wage share tends to fall within a rather narrow band. see chapter 6 in pdfrel
oh and I accidentally said wage rate above when I meant wage share
>>2250385first world workers don't appropriate super-profits - they create them. super-profits are about which capitalist use the
most productive MoPs, not the least productive
>>2250408How will you deal with the military?
Revolutionary terror does not sound like something people want to hear. And remember, any successful revolution either needs the normies on their side or totally pacified so there is no resistance. Besides the axiom of having the military on your side.
>Nobody really knows.I guess that is the only true answer I am seeing
>uMkhonto WeSizWeNo idea who that is
>wait for China to nuke us and then take power afterwards.That's not how that works. Assuming anything survives nuclear war, I think building Fallout Communism would be the least of your problems.
I voted for the Libertarian Party because I care about principles. But trumpfags are starting to regret dumb shit the orange tard is doing. I am ashamed I supported him because I thought he was based and redpilled and I trusted the fucking plan. Turns out the plan was drafted by zoomer faggots after their circlejerk sessions. We are so fucking unprepared for tariffs it's just fucking embarassing. Even though I'm a libertarian, I am starting to realize we need fucking statehood. This country is a shitshow with all these feudal billionaires running around. So I am willing to support nationalization of companies because somebody has to coordinate these richfags at least somehow before the whole country ends up like a post-soviet russian feudal oligarchate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZBd9Bd6Fk >>2250432See
>>2250715Also, If it be my will, I would get rid of the richfags, particularly the "Shareholders" since these assholes do nothing but think they own the country. And we are not allowed to challenge their rule. Investocracy has to go, I never elected shareholders to rule my life. Fuck them. Luigi? You should have aimed higher.
>>2250720we have to move past stalin bucko.
A stalin woukd only be justified if there was a grand project like going to space.
>>2250723>ike going to space.Ayyy Lmao. You mean what Elon and Trump have both been shilling
>Beautiful rockets>Only you can do that?>Elon does wonders with those rocketsNot to mention that milf space ship with bezos silicone doll.
In other words, yes, let's do a space project to mine asteroids and give every american who wants platinum bullion.
(it won't do shit but hey the people would support it)
>>2250725im just saying the politburo tolerated stalin because of the conditions of rural russia and trying to fend off the us etc…
Worst case scenario the us would get a castro ir whoever was in charge of east germany.
>>2250739Well look on the flip side the best case scenario is cybernetic democracy.
Cockshott goes on technical detail about determining how much democracy which is i think is overkill.
how about just voting on the budget.
>>2250552>yes. and also public services and so on, which are funded from taxes the workers ultimately payBut why? What is the relation? Also since pretty much every developed country imports significant portion of goods from less developed ones, then in practice the equivalence does not hold, right?
Just for the record, I am not arguing for this or that stance. I just want to understand the mechanism behind it.
>>2250852>But why?Marx goes into this in vol 3
>Also since pretty much every developed country imports significant portion of goods from less developed ones, then in practice the equivalence does not hold, right?import is exchange, which is value preserving. Marx explicitly rejects the notion that value can be created in exchange
>>2250874well thats a problem how do you quantify labor such as research and development.
ironically communism is more conductive towards research and development than capitalism.
There is former bioweapons scidntists selling toys on the street in russia last time i checked rt news.
>>2250552>first world workers don't appropriate super-profitsright that is what i said.
>super-profits are about which capitalist use the most productive MoPs, not the least productiveits both. relative surplus value comes from the difference, and in cases in monopoly it is appropriated from the lower productive. its value transfer not value creation, and most of it is not used to pay wages but inflate ownership bonuses, since they are doing the appropriation and distributing the surplus.
>>2251012that's just land rent. anyway for all this stuff you have to get into the details of it. but so far few people putting forward theories of supposed unequal exchange do that. and when they do it turns out they confuse concrete labour with social labour, such as Hickel
>>2251086based pdf anon
>>2251092>that's just land rent.idk if tech patents are land but okay. its still a source of value transfer from the third to the first.
>but so far few people putting forward theories of supposed unequal exchange do that. they do though. unequal exchange is just the name they give to systemic uneven development exacerbated and reproduced by imperialism. the disagreement isn't even about it happening even cockshott admits it he just doesn't want them to call it unequal exchange because Marx says exchange is equal. but unequal exchange isn't about individual transactions being for unequal value.
>>2251104>its still a source of value transfer from the third to the firstnot if there's no value to transfer in the first place. compelling evidence that the RoE is very different in these countries must be presented. so far there is none
Capital tends to not invest in MoPs when labour power is cheap. the result of that is a high RoP in underdeveloped countries, even if the RoE is the same (say 100%). the mass of exploitation is lower
>unequal exchange is just the name they give to systemic uneven development exacerbated and reproduced by imperialismpick a better name. the notion that the underdeveloped parts of the world are somehow "cheated" is highly counterproductive. people like Hakim endlessly quoting Parenti is part of the problem. Hickel also
>>2251123myes. but the issue isn't that the Europe-North America axis is imperialist. it's that it's not imperialist
enough. it only invests so much in say African MoPs. just enough to extract what it deems sufficient without hurting the RoP
>>2251143Utterly wrong. You are imperialist. Mass of profit is incentivised by capitalist over maintaining rate of profit. More constant capital means monopolies exploit neocolonized more because the mass of profit rises, nevermind the general rate. Imperialist workers produce far less value than neocolonized ones.
In their drive for higher profits the capitalists invest their capital in backward countries, where working hands are cheaper and the organic composition of capital is lower than in countries with highly-developed industry and they begin to exploit the peoples of these countries intensively. This leads to a sharpening of the contradictions between the developed capitalist countries and the backward ones, between metropolitan countries and colonies.
Prime source of maximum profits for the monopolies is the enslavement and plundering of economically backward and dependent countries by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist States. The systematic robbery of the colonies and other backward countries and the transformation of a number of independent countries into dependent countries, constitute an integral feature of monopoly capitalism. Imperialism cannot live and develop without an uninterrupted flow of tribute from the foreign lands which it plunders.
The fall in the rate of profit is held up because of the non-equivalent exchange which exists in the sphere of foreign trade, when the entrepreneurs of advanced capitalist countries, through selling their commodities in neocolonial countries, obtain super-profit.
The monopolies draw vast revenues above all from their capital investments in the colonial and dependent countries. These revenues are the fruit of the most ruthless, and inhuman exploitation of the working masses of the colonial world. The monopolies gain through non-equivalent exchange, i.e., selling their commodities in colonial and dependent countries at prices considerably in excess of their value, and buying the commodities produced in these countries at extremely low prices which do not cover their value. In addition, the monopolies draw from the colonies high profits on the transport, insurance and banking operations which they carry out.
>>2251209>Mass of profit is incentivised by capitalist over maintaining rate of profitthis entirely depends on material conditions. capitalists will deploy throngs of low-value labour power when possible, rather than investing
>More constant capital means monopolies exploit neocolonized more because the mass of profit rises, nevermind the general ratebut we know Porky prefers to invest where labour is more expensive, because investment means saving on labour
>Imperialist workers produce far less value than neocolonized onessource? this is certainly not the case in the steel industry, as Cockshott has demonstrated
>The fall in the rate of profit is held up because of the non-equivalent exchange which exists in the sphere of foreign trade, when the entrepreneurs of advanced capitalist countries, through selling their commodities in neocolonial countries, obtain super-profit.which commodities exactly? this can happen whenever rent is in effect, such as with patents. in these cases porkies with said patents steal from other porkies
>ruthless, and inhuman exploitationthis doesn't mean said exploitation is particularly exploitative. that is, that a large surplus is produced. in fact exploitation and improved working conditions tend to go hand in hand
>buying the commodities produced in these countries at extremely low pricesagain, which commodities? because this is very difficult to do with "mature" commodities like wheat, steel and so on
>>2251063>SandlebenNot a very bright guy. There are no new insights over what's in TANS and it's actually a regression (despite him having read it). And he is against price changes away from labor time to deal with shortages, without having any alternative. He just hopes buffers are enough.
>>2251067>Benjamin PetersMakes Sandleben look like Einstein. Have you actually read that crap? Reviewed in this thread:
https://archive.is/HBHxH The relevant comments are
No.1478734
No.1478821
No.1486926
Also, this thread is for future socialism, so imperialism is off-topic. You can make another thread for that.
>>2251228>capitalists will deploy throngs of low-value labour power when possible, rather than investing>Porky prefers to invest where labour is more expensiveUtterly wrong. Why constant capital move to third-world? Because more constant capital in neocolony raises the mass of profits exploited from the third-world.
>as Cockshott has demonstratedCockshott is imperialism apologist who demonstrates nothing but lies. Cockshott is not a marxist.
>which commodities exactly?All commodities the monopolists import from neocolonies.
>exploitation and improved working conditions tend to go hand in handUtter nonsense. The lowering of the average rate of profit caused by introduction of increased constant capital is counteracted by economy in constant capital effected by the capitalist at the expense of the health and lives of his workers. In order to enlarge their profits employers compel their workers to do their work in workshops which are too small and without adequate ventilation, and they economise on the devices which are needed for safety. In consequence of this uyghardliness on the part of the capitalists, the workers’ health is undermined, an enormous number of accidents happen, and the death rate rises among the working population.
>>2251252>this thread is for future socialism, so imperialism is off-topic.the people's republic of walmart??? If you fail to grasp the material laws of imperialism how can you pretend to grasp the material laws of
future socialism?
>>2251253>Why constant capital move to third-world? Because more constant capital in neocolony raises the mass of profits exploited from the third-worldit would help immensely if you named just a single example
>Cockshott is imperialism apologist who demonstrates nothing but liesare you suggesting Indian steelworkers are equally as productive as US ones? if so do you have any numbers to back that up?
>All commodities the monopolists import from neocolonies.which ones? we could take just one: wheat. are wheat farmers in say the Sahel region just as productive as those in the EU? if so, then why is Burkina Faso investing in MoPs for wheat production? surely they shouldn't need to, were their wheat MoPs up to snuff. see
https://sahellibertynews.com/2025/03/07/burkina-faso-prioritizes-wheat-production-in-push-for-food-self-sufficiency/ and
https://sahellibertynews.com/2025/02/10/burkina-fasos-wheat-revolution-a-vision-becoming-reality/. the latter is quite interesting as it talks of BF bringing marginal land into use
>The lowering of the average rate of profit caused by introduction of increased constant capital is counteracted by economy in constant capital effected by the capitalist at the expense of the health and lives of his workersthis is not the case in mining, nor in agriculture, nor in manufacture. the more expensive the MoPs the less the cost of improvements in working conditions surrounding said MoPs. dumper trucks and tractors have AC just to name one example. the more valuable the labour power the more sense is makes to invest in safety equipment
>>2251283>Has anyone discussed Just In Time logistics as it pertains to economic planning?The guys from the Alpha-2-Omega podcast are working on a book about that:
https://theclasslesssocietyinmotion.com/>It's a tool that just wasn't available in the past due to limitations caused by information transfer latency and speed of production.Eh I think it is more of a cultural thing. JIT took inspiration from what supermarkets had already been doing for some time. it is technically feasible once you have some quick communication lines. Computer networks are best, but phone or telegraph would be enough for the basics. (I recently read somewhere that a hundred years ago it was common in Berlin to have post delivered like ten or eleven times a day, so people in big cities could shoot postcards at each other almost like Twitter messages.)
>>2251301idk what that anon is on about but what im talking about is just a result of competition. exchange can actually be unequal, and marx talks about this all the time when he talks about individual prices diverging from value, since value is a social average. so some capitalists might sell their goods 1-5% more than what they are worth and some might sell them 1-5% less then they are worth. marx's point about equal exchange is that this "selling dear" as he calls it is not the
source of surplus value, not that he says it never happens. if the current social average for a thing is X and a capitalist introduces tech that lowers the social average, they can continue to sell at or just below that X because all their competitors have not implemented the tech. so what is the source of additional surplus value that they appropriate? it comes from workers in the firms that are still working at the old average, because the competitive advantage and economies of scale involved in more tech allow them to outproduce and capture more market share, even while reducing value per unit, their individual profit rises with the volume produced, despite no more or even less value overall being created.
this is the exact same dynamic as international unequal exchange, except the commodity in question here is labor power. on top of the productivity and monopoly differences there is also a systemic de-pricing of the labor-power of third world workers below the global SNLT for their level of productivity. but it is not first world workers that are appropriating this value, it is first world bourgeoisie, and they are certainly not redistributing it to benefit first world proles, at least for the most part, maybe highly compensated silicon valley would be an exception, but even then and even back in the 60s and 70s when there was more welfare it was funded off crumbs while the big borgs took rest of the pie for themselves. again the point is that you cannot "make" or create more profit in the total economy by unequal exchange, because total labor = total value and profit is surplus value, but you absolutely can appropriate more value as an individual from your competitors by increasing productivity or by lobbying your government to bomb power plants or oil wells in a competing country to lower their productivity.
>>2251521What does any of this have to do with
algorithms for socialism. You care enough to write this much but you somehow can't be arsed to just start another thread.
>>2251591its a response to
>>2250229if you dont want it then tell cockshott to stop pissing and moaning about semantics, or police the people posting his ramblings
>>2251301>are you suggesting Indian steelworkers are equally as productive as US ones? if so do you have any numbers to back that up?Indian steelworkers are far more productive than American ones. Picrel 1 demonstrates this in vulgar bourgeois metrics cockshit would use. Jindal Steel's Odisha complex alone produces more tonnage than the 4 total rusted steel mills in ameriKKKa.
>it would help immensely if you named just a single exampleAll operations monopoly capital has set up in third-world. Read modern marxist theory of imperialism.
>are wheat farmers in say the Sahel region just as productive as those in the EU?African agricultural proletarian is far more productive than the EU kulak who rake in subsidy and burn their product.
>if so, then why is Burkina Faso investing in MoPs for wheat production?To break neocolonial dependency on massive subsidized French grain dumping.
>this is not the case in mining, nor in agriculture, nor in manufacture.Utterly wrong. Capitalist everywhere sacrifice safety for maximizing surplus-value. You lie like capitalist workplace propaganda brochure. Proletarian subject to capitalist mining, agriculture, and manufacturing is forced to endure deadly conditions, grueling hours, and toxic exposures. I see proletarians bring own fans to factory. I worked at factory and had to dump toxic powders. They were too cheap to give us cheap masks. Every factory I've been, I sweating to death 12 hours long with no air conditioning. You are wrong. This is ameriKKKa btw.
The children and young people who are employed in transporting coal and iron-stone all complain of being overtired. Even in the most recklessly conducted industrial establishments there is no such universal and exaggerated overwork. The whole report proves this, with a number of examples on every page. It is constantly happening that children throw themselves down on the stone hearth or the floor as soon as they reach home, fall asleep at once without being able to take a bite of food, and have to be washed and put to bed while asleep; it even happens that they lie down on the way home, and are found by their parents late at night asleep on the road. It seems to be a universal practice among these children to spend Sunday in bed to recover in some degree from the overexertion of the week. Church and school are visited by but few, and even of these the teachers complain of their great sleepiness and the want of all eagerness to learn. The same thing is true of the elder girls and women. They are overworked in the most brutal manner. This weariness, which is almost always carried to a most painful pitch, cannot fail to affect the constitution. The first result of such overexertion is the diversion of vitality to the one-sided development of the muscles, so that those especially of the arms, legs, and back, of the shoulders and chest, which are chiefly called into activity in pushing and pulling, attain an uncommonly vigorous development, while all the rest of the body suffers and is atrophied from want of nourishment. More than all else the stature suffers, being stunted and retarded; nearly all miners are short, except those of Leicestershire and Warwickshire, who work under exceptionally favourable conditions. Further, among boys as well as girls, puberty is retarded, among the former often until the eighteenth year; indeed, a nineteen years old boy appeared before Commissioner Symons, showing no evidence beyond that of the teeth, that he was more than eleven or twelve years old. This prolongation of the period of childhood is at bottom nothing more than a sign of checked development, which does not fail to bear fruit in later years. Distortions of the legs, knees bent inwards and feet bent outwards, deformities of the spinal column and other malformations, appear the more readily in constitutions thus weakened, in consequence of the almost universally constrained position during work; and they are so frequent that in Yorkshire and Lancashire, as in Northumberland and Durham, the assertion is made by many witnesses, not only by physicians, that a miner may be recognised by his shape among a hundred other persons. The women seem to suffer especially from this work, and are seldom, if ever, as straight as other women. There is testimony here, too, to the fact that deformities of the pelvis and consequent difficult, even fatal, child-bearing arise from the work of women in the mines. But apart from these local deformities, the coal-miners suffer from a number of special affections easily explained by the nature of the work. Diseases of the digestive organs are first in order; want of appetite, pains in the stomach, nausea, and vomiting, are most frequent, with violent thirst, which can be quenched only with the dirty, lukewarm water of the mine; the digestion is checked and all the other affections are thus invited. Diseases of the heart, especially hypertrophy, inflammation of the heart and pericardium, contraction of the auriculo-ventricular communications and the entrance of the aorta are also mentioned repeatedly as diseases of the miners, and are readily explained by overwork; and the same is true of the almost universal rupture which is a direct consequence of protracted overexertion. In part from the same cause and in part from the bad, dust-filled atmosphere mixed with carbonic acid and hydrocarbon gas, which might so readily be avoided, there arise numerous painful and dangerous affections of the lungs, especially asthma, which in some districts appears in the fortieth, in others in the thirtieth year in most of the miners, and makes them unfit for work in a short time. Among those employed in wet workings the oppression in the chest naturally appears much earlier; in some districts of Scotland between the twentieth and thirtieth years, during which time the affected lungs are especially susceptible to inflammations and diseases of a feverish nature. The peculiar disease of workers of this sort is "black spittle", which arises from the saturation of the whole lung with coal particles, and manifests itself in general debility, headache, oppression of the chest, and thick, black mucous expectoration. In some districts this disease appears in a mild form; in others, on the contrary, it is wholly incurable, especially in Scotland. Here, besides the symptoms just mentioned, which appear in an intensified form, short, wheezing breathing, rapid pulse (exceeding 100 per minute), and abrupt coughing, with increasing leanness and debility, speedily make the patient unfit for work. Every case of this disease ends fatally. Dr. Mackellar, in Pencaitland, East Lothian, testified that in all the coal-mines which are properly ventilated this disease is unknown, while it frequently happens that miners who go from well- to ill-ventilated mines are seized by it. The profit-greed of mine owners which prevents the use of ventilators is therefore responsible for the fact, that this working-men's disease exists at all. Rheumatism, too, is, with the exception of the Warwick and Leicestershire workers, a universal disease of the coal-miners, and arises especially from the frequently damp working-places. The consequence of all these diseases is that, in all districts without exception, the coal-miners age early and become unfit for work soon after the fortieth year, though this is different in different places. A coal-miner who can follow his calling after the 45th or 50th year is a very great rarity indeed. It is universally recognised that such workers enter upon old age at forty. This applies to those who loosen the coal from the bed; the loaders, who have constantly to lift heavy blocks of coal into the tubs, age with the twenty-eighth or thirtieth year, so that it is proverbial in the coal-mining districts that the loaders are old before they are young. That this premature old age is followed by the early death of the colliers is a matter of course, and a man who reaches sixty is a great exception among them. Even in South Staffordshire, where the mines are comparatively wholesome, few men reach their fifty-first year. Along with this early superannuation of the workers we naturally find, just as in the case of the mills, frequent lack of employment of the elder men, who are often supported by very young children. If we sum up briefly the results of the work in coal-mines, we find, as Dr. Southwood Smith, one of the commissioners, does, that through prolonged childhood on the one hand and premature age on the other, that period of life in which the human being is in full possession of his powers, the period of manhood, is greatly shortened, while the length of life in general is below the average. This, too, on the debit side of the bourgeoisie's reckoning!
All this deals only with the average of the English coal-mines. But there are many in which the state of things is much worse, those, namely, in which thin seams of coal are worked. The coal would be too expensive if a part of the adjacent sand and clay were removed; so the mine owners permit only the seams to be worked; whereby the passages which elsewhere are four or five feet high and more are here kept so low that to stand upright in them is not to be thought of. The working-man lies on his side and loosens the coal with his pick; resting upon his elbow as a pivot, whence follow inflammations of the joint, and in cases where he is forced to kneel, of the knee also. The women and children who have to transport the coal crawl upon their hands and knees, fastened to the tub by a harness and chain (which frequently passes between the legs), while a man behind pushes with hands and head. The pushing with the head engenders local irritations, painful swellings, and ulcers. In many cases, too, the shafts are wet, so that these workers have to crawl through dirty or salt water several inches deep, being thus exposed to a special irritation of the skin. It can be readily imagined how greatly the diseases already peculiar to the miners are fostered by this especially frightful, slavish toil.
But these are not all the evils which descend upon the head of the coal-miner. In the whole British Empire there is no occupation in which a man may meet his end in so many diverse ways as in this one. The coal-mine is the scene of a multitude of the most terrifying calamities, and these come directly from the selfishness of the bourgeoisie. The hydrocarbon gas which develops so freely in these mines, forms, when combined with atmospheric air, an explosive which takes fire upon coming into contact with a flame, and kills every one within its reach. Such explosions take place, in one mine or another, nearly every day; on September 28th, 1844, one killed 96 men in Haswell Colliery, Durham. The carbonic acid gas, which also develops in great quantities, accumulates in the deeper parts of the mine, frequently reaching the height of a man, and suffocates every one who gets into it. The doors which separate the sections of the mines are meant to prevent the propagation of explosions and the movement of the gases; but since they are entrusted to small children, who often fall asleep or neglect them, this means of prevention is illusory. A proper ventilation of the mines by means of fresh air-shafts could almost entirely remove the injurious effects of both these gases. But for this purpose the bourgeoisie has no money to spare, preferring to command the working-men to use the Davy lamp, which is wholly useless because of its dull light, and is, therefore, usually replaced by a candle. If an explosion occurs, the recklessness of the miner is blamed, though the bourgeois might have made the explosion well-nigh impossible by supplying good ventilation. Further, every few days the roof of a working falls in, and buries or mangles the workers employed in it. It is the interest of the bourgeois to have the seams worked out as completely as possible, and hence the accidents of this sort. Then, too, the ropes by which the men descend into the mines are often rotten, and break, so that the unfortunates fall, and are crushed. All these accidents, and I have no room for special cases, carry off yearly, according to the Mining Journal, some fourteen hundred human beings. The Manchester Guardian reports at least two or three accidents every week for Lancashire alone. In nearly all mining districts the people composing the coroner's juries are, in almost all cases, dependent upon the mine owners, and where this is not the case, immemorial custom insures that the verdict shall be: "Accidental Death". Besides, the jury takes very little interest in the state of the mine, because it does not understand anything about the matter. But the Children's Employment Commission does not hesitate to make the mine owners directly responsible for the greater number of these cases.
>the more expensive the MoPs the less the cost of improvements in working conditions surrounding said MoPs.You meant to say that the higher the cost of constant capital (MoPs), the greater the pressure to reduce variable capital (wages/conditions) to maintain profitability.
>dumper trucks and tractors have AC just to name one example.Operating truck or tractor is pennies in comparison to manufacturing plant, but even then ameriKKKan UPS worker only got air conditioning 2 years ago. proletarian never get air conditioners until they force capitalist to install them.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/14/1182147381/ups-workers-facing-extreme-heat-win-a-deal-to-get-air-conditioning-in-new-trucks>the more valuable the labour power the more sense is makes to invest in safety equipmentUtterly wrong. The value of labor power and its productivity are inversely proportional. The more expensive labor power is, the less productive it is and therefore the less sense it makes for the capitalist to further sacrifice profit on air conditioner or even a paper mask to sustain it.
>>2251521>this is the exact same dynamic as international unequal exchange, except the commodity in question here is labor powerthe value of labour power isn't the same everywhere. while we can speak of a global value (SNLT) of labour power, particular labour power is only to be found in particular geographical areas. wherever labour power is cheaper, capitalists could potentially extract ground rent. what remains to be shown, which I have not seen anyone do, is that this potential ground rent is actually extracted. capital seems far more interested in skimping on MoPs when labour power is cheap, rather than making full use of that labour power. in other words, the labour power is simply squandered
>>2251837all this shows is that the RoP in the Indian steel industry is higher than in the US, which is entirely the point. Porky doesn't invest in MoPs when labour is cheap. Indian communists, should they come into power, should invest in more productive MoPs rather than thinking they can somehow cheat the market
>Jindal Steel's Odisha complex alone produces more tonnage than the 4 total rusted steel mills in ameriKKKaagain this is not the issue at hand. of course backwards economies can outproduce more advanced ones by throwing more labour power at the problem. what is the value production rate per worker?
>This is ameriKKKa btwthe USA is certainly backwards in many of its industries. more advanced mining operations do not send people into the mines - they send all kinds of drones. such mechanization removes the need for ventilation. also you've quoted Engels without indicating so
>The value of labor power and its productivity are inversely proportionalthis flies in the face of the evidence
>>2252310Why not just have smaller firms in a planned economy?
You could even spin them up in bulk like with the Israeli Innovation Authority.
>>2252364>>2252460Then why didn't soviets do it?
China still is a capitalist economy where prices dictate production.
After reading cockshott, I see how for it to be "true communism" everything has to be nationalized. I am opposed to this for many reasons but cockshott argues that anything short of this would lead to restoration of capitalist relations. Given how every communist country in existence today is either sliding towards capitalism or is already there (or abandoned communism) I have difficulty contradicting cockshott and thus the bitter conclusion that communism has to be very totalitarian.
And if china is communist right now, what were the 20th century communist countries then or even maoist china?
>>2251777here is a jsfiddle:
https://jsfiddle.net/34f10sew/1/According to chatgpt as primitive as this model(doesn't forecast demand with big data, lacks ai, or sentiment analysis etc…) is the soviet union did not even plan this way.
>>2252891You guys keep ignoring what im posting but its not irrelevant. There are instances where the lvt should be used as opposed to regular economics in the absense of price signals. Specially if its a public enterprise. For example healthcare.
As silly as it may sound you're better off breaking down surgical procedures into steps and then doing labor time accounting as opposed to regular economics.
there was someone here who wanted to learn linear algebra? : here's the textbook i used as an undergrad:
https://hefferon.net/linearalgebra/theres also a a solutions manual so you can check your work (or at least some of it)
I have another question, how does a planned economy facilitate development and improvement of consumer products? General development of technology and labour saving techniques are baked in so to speak, but the application for consumers seems to be disincentivised by system designed around minimalising labour expenditures.
>>2253179Thanks.
>>2260259>how does a planned economy facilitate development and improvement of consumer products?Same problem as I had about custom products. Given how a socialist economy is geared towards mass production, you cannot just approach a factory and request a custom order. They will say they are at capacity and have no spare for you. This is the inherent problem of central planning. The planning is done not to maximize profit which implies pandering to consumers, but the fulfillment of a plan from up top. If the central planner office decides on a design of a toaster for example, only the central planner office can change the design. Practically, the manufacturers designed products themselves, but that begs the question: which arrangement is more communisty? Where the central planning office does all the decision-making or where the local manufacturer decides what to produce? And in the latter, what does the planning office do?
As a libertarian I can't help but notice two trajectories within western leftism. The most common one is just to seize power for power's own sake and rule as a social democrat under communist aesthetics. Which is what we have right now but in neoliberal-neocon aesthetics. The other trajectory in the minority is brain-storming how a socialist economy is to be ran and they are getting nowhere because they are trying to square the circle. They look at People's Republic of Walmart and think that central planning works, but in reality, that book just shows how profit-seeking is still in command. The central planning the socialists are espousing is disconnected from consumers and lives in the realm of fantasy where all economic decisions are made on fictional indicators. Even when a correct plan is drawn up, it's because the indicators just happened to be correct, not because of consumers' desires being satisfied. Central planning as a tool can only be implemented if there is a market at play. You cannot plan on indicators or else the economy stops being real. But if you plan based on consumer satisfaction, you inevitably return back to market dominance in economic allocation. So socialist countries either end up poor and broken, or they restore capitalist relations somewhat. It's really scary how capitalism is just unavoidable at this point.
I would be happy if someone actually engages with my argument of consumer choice and how it could be addressed in a socialist economy and not bullshit like this.
>>2252903 >>2260403Experience of Soviet Block states does tell much about the kind of planning this thread is concerned with. You are imagining a top-down hierarchical structure where planners make decisions and enterprises execute them. The whole point of of "cyber" in cybersocialism is that the economy is supposed to be designed as a self-regulating system, where higher order organs are constantly fed feedback from lower ones, and the "plan" is in constant state of adjustment.
To speak specifically on the question of custom products, I dont see it as the same problem as the issue I asked about. One concerns a feedback from customer to enterprises, the other initiative from enterprises in the absence of customer feedback.
You say customisation requires profit motive, but that isnt really what we actually observe in the economy, is it? Personalised products exist in the margins, vast majority of goods are designed with maximum mass appeal in mind. A capitalist enterprise aims to sell as much as possible as cheaply as possible.
On the other hand imagine if accounting was done in labour. For example you have a t-shirt manufacturer that has 1000 hours of labour available to allocate into producing t-shirts. Importantly, they are not trying to make a profit, there is no decision making between whether you get better return on investment if you produce 500 identical cheap shirts, or 100 expensive ones, because consumer goods are not longer an investment. They are produced purely to fill the demand. The points is to break even, to unload all the t-shirts within reasonable time-frame at the total cost of 1000 labour hours. If you want a custom product, and are willing to pay a higher price to cover higher manufacturing cost, for the manufacturer your 10 labour-money for a shirt that they expended 10 labour-hours to produce is just as good as 10 labour-money put together by 5 people for 5 shirts that together also costed manufacturer 10 labour-hours to produce. You might say this is just like capitalist market, but the only function it retains is allocation of goods based on consumer willingness to pay. But nobody makes any money from it. If you at your job work for 100 hours/month, than your monthly paycheck will entitle you to 100 hours (minus taxes) of other people's labour in form of consumer products. It all evens out.
>>2260403> If the central planner office decides on a design of a toaster for example, only the central planner office can change the design.central planners could declare toasters are needed after a vote/survey indicating such and local producers could then make the design, or even several
>>2260403>They will say they are at capacity and have no spare for you.why do you imagine production operated in such a lean way? even russia has idle factories now in case of war, why should communists not use them to make things people want or need?
Hey lambda nerds, are there any concepts that you think:
1) would actually be worth communicating to a mass audience
2) could be made into an engaging interactive tutorial, like an
explorable explanation:
https://explorabl.es/math/https://explorabl.es/economics/>>2260259Juries voting on proposals, some of which become prototypes, then juries checking the prototypes and voting on what to mass-produce.
>>2260403>If the central planner office decides on a design of a toaster for example, only the central planner office can change the design.There are proportional voting methods, some of which do not rely on party lists. These list-free methods can also be used for voting on designs.
I like SPAV, Sequential Proportional Approval Voting (also called Sequential Thiele): Each voter approves as many candidates as they feel like. The candidate approved on the most ballots is the first winner. Then we reduce the weight of the marks on the ballots approving him, so from now on a mark on a ballot approving the first winner only counts for half as much as a mark on a ballot not approving the first winner. We then select the second winner. After this, we again fiddle with the weight of marks. In general, the count proceeds in rounds with each round electing one more candidate, and during a round the weight of a mark on a ballot is 1 / (1 + number of already elected candidates approved on that ballot).
It's kinda like an auction in that merely approving a candidate that does not win is like raising your hand for a bid without winning, and likewise costs nothing here.
>>2262415>>2262416i really hated these two videos
its a needless overcomplication of marx
>>2264340Where do I start with Cockshott? His videos, I mean.
What is his basic blueprint for establishing socialism in the modern world once the revolution is complete, does he agree with the state capitalism transitionary stage or is his cybernetic views something that can skip past that entirely
>>2264340>input-output is useless for actual planning. Why?
>Stalin rightfully dismissed it as "a game of numbers"Did Stalin plan the entire Soviet economy by himself or did he actually have a team of people who knew more math than him working on the matter? Does his opinion really hold more weight than the people doing linear algebra for him just because he is a famous revolutionary hero?
>>2264403Zachariah and Hagberg talk about it here:
https://github.com/lokehagberg/rhp - see rhp_intro.pdf
you should probably read up on linear programming, so you understand how it can be applied in general
input-output is only useful for statistics. for example, to work out the amount of embodied labour in all products
>>2264211Could you be more specific:
1. Where does Cockshott say that?
2. Do the cells in the row for a thing show what's an input into the thing or what the thing is an input for?
3. What's the measure for quantities in the cells, is it labor time or what?
4. Why assume the table to have the same number of rows and columns? (Please don't say because we need that for having a diagonal.)
Iron Rice Bowl 2.0: Security and Flexibility for Everybody's Basic Consumption Needs
Imagine you are the God Emperor of an island and you arrange things in a way so that everybody has enough money to buy a certain bundle of goods and the bundle is available in as many units as there are people. Does it follow that everybody who wants that bundle can obtain it? No. Having enough money for something is not enough, it also has to be available. Just because there are as many units as people does not mean it is available, since some people might buy more than one unit. In conclusion, markets suck because, even when there is no technical obstacle to serving everyone, they cannot guarantee anything. In contrast, assignment by administration can guarantee that whenever there are at least as many units of something as people, every person can get one unit.
But consider this: Do bureaucrats know you well? How often have you been disappointed by gifts from your family? Wouldn't you have preferred the equivalent amount of money quite often (or even half of that)? And does a bureaucrat know you better than your own mother knows you? So can assignment of consumer items by administration really work well, even with the best bureaucrats in the world?
Look at what technology we have today. Let's do this online: We assign to everyone a care package of basic things like rice etc. This package may come in variations taking into account some information like sex and age or just the same package for everyone. People can individually choose to reject this or that part of their package and get money for that (or consumption points or whatever). So we don't have to know who is vegetarian and who is not. People can be certain to get their package, or whatever subset of it they care about, even with runaway inflation. And even with very low prices for some things in a tight supply situation, for those things that are also part of the package there is no worry then about arriving at a store with emptied shelves. So people who are skeptical of market mechanisms should like this.
People who are fond of market mechanisms should like to hear the following: The very same items in the packages can also be offered in normal stores, for prices equal to what one receives for rejecting the item. So there is no headache from juggling two distinct price systems or from worrying that the care packages could distort supply-demand information from prices and quantities moving.
>>2269640that is a very bad take
- Jesus says that you either serve God or money (mammon)
- you render unto caesar that which is caesar's, and that which is God unto God (showing how caesar is contrary to God).
- Jesus whips the money changers
- 666 in revelation refers to "nero kaisar"
- the beast in revelation is rome (7 heads/hills)
the new testament is anti-rome (the new babylon)
>>2262412Summary of a part I found interesting in this interview: He thinks early 19th century Germany had a bias against atomism due to its absolutist political culture, and that people like Marx were forced to use a German idealist mode of expression or mode of presentation, to appear unlike the "crude" British and French materialists, hence all the Hegelian language in Marx, but at the same time, Marx's academic origins were in studying the Greek materialists of antiquity, Lucretius, Democritus, Archimedes, etc. Cockshott contends that Marx was a mechanical materialist and not a dialectical materialist. He contends that this is revealed through his more Newtonian language (Capitalist laws of motion) and how he uses the idea of laws of conservation from physics and applies it to economic exchange in order to prove that profit does not arrive in exchange, but in exploitation, and similarly his separation of labor from labor-power is similar to the separation of work done from horsepower in mechanics. He cites Marx attending physics lectures and living in England for most of his life as proof that Marx's exposition in Capital is thoroughly of a mechanical materialist and not dialectical materialist character, and that the debates in the 1920s Soviet union mistakenly attributed Dietzgen to Marx leading to dialectical materialism becoming a state doctrine in the USSR by mistake.
>>2269734yes, exactly. statue of liberty is literally lucifer. founding fathers were freemasons.
<novus ordo seclorumnew world order.
>>2269895explain to me in your own words how you can use IO to choose the proper mix of solar vs wind vs coal power
>>2269905he's not a member of any ML party, despite CPBG(ML) seeming like a decent fit
including the anti-trans shit >>2264442Yes, as I see it the input-output view partially augments and partially replaces supply-and-demand analysis.
>>2269806I have seen squareness called convenient, but never seen anybody ever define input-output tables as always being square. You can certainly draw a non-square one. Besides, if you look at the subset of things that are direct or indirect inputs into themselves, the resulting
pseudo input-output table* is square, so analysis that requires square data tables can be put to work on that.
*I'm saying "pseudo input-output table" because a thing A that is an input into itself can require some other thing B as an input which is not an input into itself, so thing A does appear in the table and thing B does not, and so the table does not show a workable complete recipe for making thing A. (Though of course we always have simplifications in our data, so there can be disagreement about what a proper complete recipe is.)
>>2269644>jésus was le communisteahistorical projection. Christianity teaches personal salvation through faith and works, it teaches fear and trembling of the master by the slave, it teaches the kingdom of heaven (monarchy of the absolute idea), and it teaches the surrender of personal property at the feet of the apostles. This can be construed as a sort of proto-communism but it is so thoroughly anti-materialist in its outlook, that it has no expectations of any future sublation of the material conditions of class society, except through the divine act of world destruction, and the final judgement of all human souls who have ever lived. Jesus's opposition to the moneylenders in the temple was not on the basis of them being money lenders alone, but on the basis of them profaning a holy place with their base profession.
>Jesus says that you either serve God or money (mammon)In Marx's analysis of capital, it is the miser who loves money, but the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad. Capital is self expanding value that is gotten not by hoarding money, but by casting it into circulation. The capitalist's true source of wealth is private ownership over the material conditions of production, which is to say the work place and the means of production therein, not in the hoarding of money for money's sake. Capitalism as a mode of production did not even exist yet in Jesus's time, through the early forms of capital (merchant's capital and usurer's capital) certainly did.
>>2271649there's a difference between computing statistics, for which IO is perfectly fine, and planning, for which IO is useless. see the electricity mix question in
>>2269963there are specific procedures for aggregating data to make a square matrix that economists use. therein also lies the problem: aggregation
>>2271650>ahistorical projection. Christianity teaches personal salvation through faith and worksever read the bible? we are saved by being part of the church, or spiritual israel. this is the collective body of believers; called "the bride of Christ"
engels also explicitly compares early christians to communists:
<The history of early Christianity has notable points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/also, salvation comes by faith alone (sola fide). remember the thief on the cross? Jesus also says that those who boast about good works are wicked.
>it teaches the kingdom of heaven (monarchy of the absolute idea)if we read the book of revelation, we see that heaven is actually a pure communion of the church, without an idolatrous shrine to God, since he is the fellowship between its members:
<"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. [rev 21:22]for as it is said:
<"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them [matt 18:20]"this shows how as Christ says,
<"neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. [luke 17:21]"this shows how the church is heaven on earth, and is preserved forever in the fellowship of believers.
>it teaches the surrender of personal property at the feet of the apostles.this vow of poverty was only the original price, which later becomes the "tithe" (tenth) - a theme in the bible.
>Jesus's opposition to the moneylenders in the temple was not on the basis of them being money lenders alonedid you know that Jesus calls money (mammon) the devil?
<"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [matt 6:24]"this compares to his later statement,
<"Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him. [mark 12:17]"see here then that money opposes God directly. caesar here is identified with the devil, which makes sense due to gematria for 666 also. engels also concurs that the bible is directly referencing rome as the beast and caesar as antichrist:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/book-revelations.htmwe see that revelation also ties "the mark of the beast" to commerce, showing again, how money opposes the will of God. think also of how the rich young ruler denies Jesus, wherefrom, Christ declares:
<"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. [matt 19:24]and on this theme, let us not forget michael hudson's fabulous work on debt, where he sees how Jesus was not just a theological, but political figure, seeking the forgiveness of debts (as per the jubilee). Jesus forgives sin (debt), opposes the rich, and casts out business from the house of worship. this is the communist Christ and his inescapable judgement:
<"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. [galatians 3:28]"(supplement: Jesus' criticism of the family)
<"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. [luke 14:26]"<"At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. [matt 18:1-6]"<"But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! [matt 12:48-49]" >>2272514 (me)
The first half is complaining about how Sraffa and Morishima dealt with joint production (I agree with the author that negative labor value in joint production of things that are all useful isn't a sensible concept), the part with his solution starts with:
<6. Obtaining Positive Values in a Realistic Model of Joint Production<In this section, we will show that labor values can be calculated in a coherent way in the case of joint production, rigorously defined.
<The difficulties that we have encountered so far have shown clearly enough that for economists joint production is a true problem and at the same time a tricky phenomenon, which raises a number of question-marks about the best way to deal with it, in particular from a mathematical point of view. Statisticians are generally considered as more familiar with mathematics than many economists, and it should therefore be no surprise that the light at the end of the tunnel of joint production has come from them. Indeed, as early as 1968, they proposed two different methods for transferring secondary outputs and associated inputs by combining the use and supply matrices mathematically in order to build symmetric (and therefore invertible) input–output matrices. A quick presentation of these methods and of the reason for selecting that which appears to be the most appropriate for the resolution of our problem, will allow us to propose a corresponding representation of a joint production system. This will in turn provide a background for a mathematical determination of labor values in such a system. >>2273324Cockshottist Engineering
Anything else is a waste of time and LGBT-conspiracy anyway
>>2272514they're useful for statistics, yes. he doesn't talk about planning
>>2273324most kinds of higher education will be useful should there ever be a socialist revolution. we know historically that Porky will brain drain young socialist nations, so having well educated comrades is important
>>2273324computer science and/or applied math, plus philosophy as a double major would probably be good.
CS + Philosophy = a thinker-builder hybrid. You get the power to build systems and ask the deep questions about what should be built.
close second substitute applied mathematics, or physics, or engineering, though engineering has such a heavy courseload it might be difficult to add a second major.
Could someone please give me a moron version of explanation of the section in TNS about harmony and neural net and reshuffling production to minimalise shortages? Like how do you get the function of:
Let u = (output − goal)/goal.
If u < 0 then harmony =−u^2 ,
otherwise harmony = √u.
How do you assign "harmony" score to a specific commodity? If you have two commodities between which resources are shared and there is not enough for either, how do determine the ratio at which they should be produced if the harmony curve is always −u^2 for both?
I get why we try to avoid negative harmony (shortages), but why would you ever want positive? Doesnt that inherently mean we are wasting resources on stuff nobody needs? And how can any industry have positive harmony if all surplus resources are allocated to common pool?
>In computer experimentation, one often finds with the algorithm in this form that there are unused resources left over and that the overall level of output is lower than it
could be. Intuitively we can understand this as being due to the very strong tendency of the algorithm to settle in the region of whatever mean harmony it starts out with.
What does this line mean? Why does it settle in that region?
>As with the conventional input–output analysis discussed above, one important point is not to represent the input–utput table as an array, but to take advantage of the fact that it is a very sparse matrix and represent it using linked lists
Wait, we were using linked lists before? Why? How do they work? Like do we make a list of industries within the same supply chain, do calculations with it, and then what? How do we link them to other lists?
Fucking hell, I hate being stupid. Why didnt I study STEM instead of wasting time on social science despite being autistic and never having a shot of finding a job there.
>>2273896dope
>>2274085the harmony method is just a shitty interior point solver for LP
>I get why we try to avoid negative harmony (shortages), but why would you ever want positive?a surplus is less bad than a shortage. we can plan for a little extra
as a treat>Wait, we were using linked lists before?there are many ways to store sparse matrices. see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_matrix#Storage >>2273324don't listen to the other guy telling you to major in CS, it's oversaturated and the tech industry is cooked. Minor it w/ something more relevant as your major.
If I was doing uni again I'd either do a math major with a focus on statistics with a MINOR in CS to prep myself to be a statistician/"data scientist" (meme job but good monies); or I'd do electrical engineering because that's always in demand and the coursework filters brainlets which is good for less competition. (also would do the minor in cs here)
>>2274554All right, I will give the book a try.
Could you do me a favour and ask this question in Cockshott AMA, I dont know how to formulate it without sounding stupid.
>>2272502>ever read the bible? yes
>we are savedspooky
>spiritual israelahahahahahahhahaha
>>2274684you have the read the bible? what do you think the messages are?
>>2274685>you can interpret the bible to mean anything you wantyou can mis-interpret it a million ways, but it only has one correct interpretation.
>>2274784anything without God is doomed
>>2269905I think he is realistic, critical but generally supportive. His own words:
>although Marxism-Leninism may have serious weaknesses when it comes to how to organise a socialist society, it still stands head and shoulders above any alternative on how to conduct political class struggle for socialismAs for his democratic model, since it deals with abolishing parties and elections I suppose it would be a break with vanguardism. I think he sees it as dated, fitting for tsarist Russia and WW1 but not for the 21st century. He rejects democratic centralism in TANS. I know Cockshott has proposed a single, all-European socialist party but he hasn't written much about the role of the party under said model or if it even would exist.
>>2273324I did bachelors in teaching and masters in cybernetics.
I'm a data monkey now
tho >>2276441Ok, but there is a difference between wage theft which is legal under capitalism (surplus value) and wage theft which is not. It turns out the kind which is not is also rampant, and it is interesting to note, because marx's analysis is focused on surplus value, not on these other, additional forms of wage theft. The point is that the worker is
even more screwed over by capitalism than marx says.
>>2276584>marx's analysis is focused on surplus value, not on these other, additional forms of wage theftthey're also surplus value extraction. but I see what you mean. sometimes Porky thinks certain kinds of exploitation is too much
>The point is that the worker is even more screwed over by capitalism than marx saysI'm relatively sure Marx brings up in Capital similar examples of capitalists trying to pay their workers even less than their nominal wage
Could someone archive the W P Cockshott AMA thread and post the link here?
Link to the thread:
>>2276372Archived the Paul Cockshott AMA
https://archive.is/53xswThe link should be working in a few minutes
>none of the shitposts were answeredNot surprising
I was going to ask him, which touhou character would you hang out with or lead cyber-Communism, if he did.
>>2276517look what you did mods, he was all confused like a lost black child out in the open.
>>2281242>hiring at the level of individual enterprisesNo.
>workers competing for the more prestigious jobs,Yes.
>and those who cant find anything good forced to work the shit ones?Yes. Though I'd like to have limits on shit work conditions:
a) classified so bad that we plan around this, so this is not needed for the plan and nobody is forced to do these
b) classified bad so only justified for core use-value goals if all other means are exhausted
Giving absolute guarantees is hard to impossible, but giving relative protection is easy. Like this: If you are in a relatively more protected group, you are not drafted for something until drafting opportunities from less protected groups are used up. For example, a guarantee to
never force vegetarians to work anywhere in the chain from slaughtering to serving meat is much harder to plan for than just giving a relative guarantee, meaning we look for meat eaters first to fill these positions. We can also give relatively stronger drafting protection to people who have spent more time in draft mode.
>>2281417>Like for example if there is a shortage of doctors, do you raise their pay to do overtimeYes. First move is to offer more overtime at all without higher hourly pay and see how well that works. There can also be a work-time account that allows for more free time taken later if one works longer now. But this cannot solve all tight situations, so hourly pay probably has to go up a bit. (By the way Cockshott was asked once on Twitter how to solve this and answered
Die Mauer 😬)
We can have a regulation for forcing people to do some amount of hours when society is really in a tight situation, but this should be for activating part-timers to do more and not extend the normal work day for people already in full employment. Forcing people makes production very predictable. But how can ordinary people be the masters of their own lives if they are constantly forced to do this or that? The solution is to force a lot of people while keeping low the amount of weekly forced hours per person. And let's throw weak relative guarantees at everything. They make life more bearable and are trivial to implement.
>>2281242a central system for job postings would be useful. saying much more than that would be infantile
>>2281417train more physicians
>>2283296>material balancesactually operationalized
>input-outputjuggling with figures
incidentally, Bazarov and Groman were criticized by Lenin for being Machists
>>2284884i asked chat gpt to explain her quote and it said (short version)
>That's a great quote—it's funny because it's almost true. At face value, machine code is the lowest-level, actual instructions that a CPU executes. So how could it be a "suggestion"? The answer lies in CPU microarchitecture—the internal implementation of how a processor executes instructions. Modern CPUs don't necessarily execute machine instructions in the exact order they're written. They reorder instructions to improve performance (e.g. avoid waiting on slow memory), execute multiple instructions at once using superscalar execution units, and run ahead on instructions that aren't waiting on the results of others. So even though your machine code says "do A, then B," the CPU might internally do B first if it's more efficient. When the CPU reads a machine instruction, it decodes it into smaller internal operations (micro-ops or µops). So, machine code is a high-level abstraction for what actually happens under the hood. CPUs often guess (speculate) what instructions will be needed next and execute them before knowing for sure. If the guess is wrong, the CPU throws away the results. This means instructions might be "executed" before they even should be, from a program logic standpoint. Machine code targets the ISA (e.g., x86, ARM). The CPU implements that ISA, but how it does that is up to its microarchitecture. Two CPUs (say, Intel and AMD) can execute the same machine code but handle it differently under the hood. As you go deeper into CPU performance optimization, you realize that tiny details (like instruction alignment, cache hits, or branch prediction) have huge performance impact. Some "equivalent" machine code sequences run wildly differently depending on hardware. So even though you're giving the CPU specific instructions, you're really influencing behavior indirectly. Hence: "machine code is just a polite suggestion." >>2284991see again
>>2269963just try to work a similar problem and you should see the issue. this isn't to say MBP is good
>>2284881CISC machines like x86 don't actually execute the instructions given to them directly. a modern x86 CPU is actually RISC inside, and there's a translation layer inbetween. Ken Shirrif has examples of this on his blog where he looks at how the microcode for various instructions worked at the silicon layer for some older Intel CPUs
>>2284682Look at the pdf you posted. Does it contain an actual comparison of input-output analysis and material balances? Does it even describe any of the two? I can ctrl-f Bazarov and get a paragraph, half of which is empty waffle.
Are you a serious person or is your knowledge of economics and math limited to
slogans.
>>2289062Depends on how detailed your matrices are. Cockshott's basic toy programs have steel as an input, but the idea is that ALL products are a cell in the matrix, so for a certain type of bread you would have a certain type of machine as input, which would have a certain types of components (steel housing for example) as an input, which itself would have a certain type of steel (e.g. 304 stainless steel) as an input, which itself would have certain types of machines and material as its inputs, and so on and so forth. Under capitalism, these inputs are 'trade-secrets' though so we only get a rough idea about the reality of production. The big idea is that labor is the single common denominator.
My understanding is that deterioration is 'baked in' to the input based on the expected lifetime of machinery. For example if a machine is expected to bake a billion loaves of bread before it craps out, then the input for that loaf of bread is one-billionth of that machine. Often though, most of the components in the machine are fine, it's just one part that gets broken and needs to be replaced. Labor and parts to maintain the machine (a reality for using machines) is an input as part of the production of bread, but a different variable from 'normal' operation, as to collect data for future production of machines. Keep in mind all these inputs are estimates. They can and will fluctuate over time, giving better data to inform planned production.
>>2289539Really Cockshott doesn't go far enough tbh because he doesn't consider non-labor
time as a variable in production. For example it takes the dough to make bread about an hour or an hour and a half to rise. I'd be interested in how this could be applied to his econophysics, especially with markets as indicators for the production of consumer goods.
>>2289062Depends. An input-output matrix shows the direct relations in horizontal and vertical lines and for indirect inputs and indirect outputs your eyeballs have to ping-pong around in the matrix. The matrix is always about a time interval. You can abstract away some inputs. Just like when you are working with a recipe in a kitchen, the recipe doesn't state the tools. If you are thinking short term
and considering only a modest increase in output, you can use the matrix and these simplifications are unlikely to cause much of a problem. More intensive use of unaccounted resources is not much of an issue if the intensity increases only a bit. But with planning for longer and longer terms, invisible givens have to be turned into visible givens, and some tools have to be treated as ingredients (and tools for making tools). Also, even for the short term it is true that if you plan for a massive increase, you have to do something about your tools (and tools for making tools).
>>2289539>My understanding is that deterioration is 'baked in' to the input based on the expected lifetime of machinery. For example if a machine is expected to bake a billion loaves of bread before it craps out, then the input for that loaf of bread is one-billionth of that machine.Yes.
>>2289711>Really Cockshott doesn't go far enough tbh because he doesn't consider non-labor time as a variable in production.I'm pretty sure he does, but his toy models I know of do not. The standard example of the classical economists is wine. Time dependencies in production are displayed with modified Gantt charts and the like, showing how long something is supposed to take with bars. The bars of processes that have to happen one after another link up and form longer paths, the longest of these is called the
Critical Path. Since this sort of analysis is not only common in business, but also in computer science, he must know about it.
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