[FRIAM] means of production take 2

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Steve

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