Will be ready shortly, ask either about books or secondarily about videos.
Preference given to books in reverse order, so Defending Materialism, How the World Works, Economic Planning in time of Climate Crisis, Computation and its Limits, Towards a New Socialism etc
Mr Cockshott. I have attached video where you adopted the bourgeoisie's vulgar understanding of production. Your video defies Communist State published proletarian political economic textbook which explains how bourgeois "services" produce no value.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch15.htm>Furthermore, part of the national income is transferred, by way of payments for, what are called services, to the non-productive branches (e.g., for use of municipal services, medical aid, places of entertainment, etc.). As already pointed out, no social product is created in these branches, nor, consequently, any national income; but the capitalists who exploit the workers employed in these branches receive part of the national income created in the branches of material production. From this income the capitalists who own businesses in the non-productive branches pay the wages of their workers, meet the material outlay which they have to find (for premises, equipment, heating, etc.) and take their profit.Given the Communist State's text's definitive analysis that these sectors produce NO national income, isn't your position just vulgar bourgeois economics dressed as Marxism?
How can the bourgeoisie's consumptive industries produce surplus-value if all created value is consumed in process of production? In resturanting, the wage-worker barista makes the coffee, but what newly created value remains after the coffee is consumed? No value remains—because none was created, these industries are not unproductive, but destructive of value.
Hello Dr. Cock,
A long time ago, you engaged in a polemic with Mike Macnair over the arguments of his book (
Revolutionary Strategy) and yours (
Towards a New Socialism). I remember that the debate ended without your being able to reply to two of Macnair's articles, which I'll list below:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/824/representation-not-referendums/https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/831/transition-and-abundance/I'll admit that I'm coming in late here and don't have time to dig up any of Macnair's specific points I'd like to see you reply to, but do you have anything to say about these articles? They are noteworthy as (to my knowledge) the only serious, extensive critique of your
Towards a New Socialism.
dr. cockshott,
do you consider your atomic materialism "physicalist", or "abstract"? to clarify, do you consider "atoms" tangible, physical objects, or only abstract (mathematical, or non-empirical) entities? and if the former, do you then submit to the kantian "gap" between the phenomenal and noumenal? you have said previously that nature is not "logical", so i presume that to you, the material world is unknowable "in-itself", such as sabine hossenfelder has said (mathematics is invented, not "discovered", and so on). only a short answer will suffice. thank you very much for your time.
Mr. Cockshott,
my question is,
in a 2010 interview/conversations with Francis Spufford, author of "Red Plenty", you claimed Marx's line from the Gothakritik, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is often highly decontextualized, and needs to be understood in context of a labor voucher system, but also is merely a repetition of previous socialist slogans (ex: Louis Blanc, Etienne Cabet, the Enrages during the French Revolution) of the 19th century and shouldn't be taken as a literal proscription? Care to expand on that?
here is the link, in case you have forgotten:
https://archive.org/details/debatecockshottspuffordDr. Cock, do you how do you account for planned obsolescence, lack of innovation, and low quality products as a fundamentally integral part of engineering and software's profit? It makes sense that the bourgeoisie make (more?) profit in hiring illegal or low-wage labor than to build robots for menial work, but how does this jive with software. For example, Boeing hiring Indians to write software at $15 an hour, Google worsening their search algorithms so the user spends more time on the page (this one makes sense as they are an advertising company, but why wouldn't they just charge the user directly for more money than they would get in ads for decent search), the lack of innovation in phones (we still don't have 3D screens of the type released by Nintendo fifteen years ago on mobile phones yet for example, VR was pushed out of mil-tech by hobbyists), or just how phones and computers are more powerful but slower than they used to be doing the same thing? Just monopolization, PMC middle manager rentierism, or deliberate retardation of technology for psychological manipulation of users that goes beyond immediate value extraction to function as an ideological apparatus of exploitative society? I understand that you don't believe that capitalists collude, as the market (?) is too chaotic, but what about within software platforms specifically? Even decommodified software like Linux has its system D controversy. Thanks.
Very honored to speak with you, Professor Cockshott.
Could you please make a blogpost or video on what you think about Maoism
as a contemporary international communist movement, developing since your youth? In particular I'm very curious about what your assessment is about:
1. western European 'Mao spontaneity' for example Gauche Proletarienne, COBI(?)
2. the controversial history of PCP-SL in Peru and CPN (Maoist) in Nepal
3. the reconstituted MLM movements of CPI (Maoist) in India and CPP in the Philippines, who, after reorganizing following the critical analysis of various mistakes made by their Peruvian and Nepalese contemporaries, have seemed to develop MLM onward beyond the 2000s and have shown to be able to maintain protracted people's wars in both countries to this day. They also publish advanced theoretical works. Have you read On the Maoist Party by Ajith of CPI (Maoist) for example?
Does Marxism-Leninism-Maoism make sense as a "rupture" with Marxism-Leninism, integrating a refocused importance on mass line, criticism-self-criticism, continuous / cultural revolution even under socialism, recognition of the ability of a new bourgeoisie to reemerge within the party, the critique of the monolithic party, etc.?
And would you consider yourself a (heterodox) Maoist still (in reference to COBI)?
>>599211*
DOCTOR my apologies.
>>599218>>599219 Oh right.
Professor Cockshott would you please let me do some minor editing work on your videos and send them back to you for upload? I ask for nothing in return and you already have my email address ( we conversed on Skype briefly once)
Dear Mr. Cockshott,
I've been intrigued with your writings for a while, and I am very interested with navigating putting your theories into practice.
On your "new socialism", which has come to be known as cybercommunism, I wish to understand how such a society would come about. My theory is that it would have to come about through existing means produced under capitalism, as a sort of "social network". Social networking has provided a means of making connections, and this website is certainly no exception. However, I believe that it would need to be transactional, with each member contributing to its development. We would need to build on what has come before in order to create a digital platform for a socialist movement. What is your take on this idea?
Secondly, I am also interested in cybercommunism as a means of nation-building. In our digital age, the internet has provided various ways of contributing to causes (i.e. crowdfunding). I believe that this could be an effective strategy for developing nations, autonomous zones seeking independence from their parent nation, or nations that have yet to exist. Though this largely exists in the form of taxes, could we see a crowdfunded nation come to fruition through your proposed digital society?
Lastly, I have recently come across a more right-wing influenced idea of a network-based society, known more commonly as the "network state". The idea is a decentralized economy based on cryptocurrency in which people can create based their ideas without interference from a state. One such movement is called "Praxis", who seek to build their own nation with the premise of "saving Western civilization", building a new "great city" and eventually creating a new space race. I'm curious where cybercommunism and cybercapitalism differ? Beyond planned economy vs laissez-faire, both seem dependent on the need for mutual aid.
Thanks for your time!
>>2276381
>Dr. Cockshott, Is it possible to do labor time calculation with non-physical commodities, like software which is sold as a subscription service? Clearly necessary labor goes into creating it, maintaining it, and updating it, but since it is not sold as a commodity unit, like a hard disc, but is given as a subscribed service, a complication emerges.
You have to distinguish the actual process of production from the commercial model that it is operated under. Software, like books, audio etc requires considerable labour to initially produce, but can be distributed easily. So the issue is how society supports those workers doing the initial work of creating something which can later be copied. Its final cost to the consumer should be no more than the cost of copying.
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