[FRIAM] means of production take 2

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

My temptation is always to respond point-by-point (with larding) but
since I think we have been "all over the place" on this thread I will
try to focus on what I think you have focused on here.

1) I think of the most expansive model of "ownership" to be about the
"exclusive right/ability to use something".

2) I have focused somewhat on the intrinsic (or not) nature of that
exclusivity.

3) I have focused on the impact on others of that exclusivity.

4) I agree with the general arc you suggest about process vs object, in
particular that an object's affordances are what define it in this case.

5) i agree that softness/fuzziness vs hardness of object boundaries make
them harder/easier to "own".

6) I think we agree that _ownership_ in some way is based on a (semi)
consensual agreement... or "rights" as I think you describe it. 

7) I agree that the "right to destroy" is some kind of *test* or *edge
case* of ownership... it may even be some kind of dual, but I am
unwilling to agree to using "the right to destroy" as the most useful
working definition of ownership.

8) I *don't* agree that the key difference between a hammer (tool) and a
human (labor) is their dynamic process or soft boundaries.   I DO
believe that strong Capitalism does not consider there to be any
difference.    Extreme forms of Communism seem to make the same
conflation, I believe that Socialism in all it's normal (not abberant)
forms begins with holding this difference paramount.

What I have (mostly) been trying to delineate (3) is that the key
difference between a deeply ingrained sense of "ownership" and a
somewhat more contrived one built on top of elaborate human institutions
(all of the "archies" plus Capitalism) where it becomes possible to
claim ownership in a way that may otherwise be considered hoarding. 

A predator or scavenger may try to "own" the carcass of an animal too
large for it to consume on it's own, and in fact it may use it's
threatening ferocity to "own" that carcass up to a point.   We commonly
see video footage of a mighty lion keeping a pack of jackals or hyenas
away from its recent kill, but it appears that *eventually* the lion is
sated (as are other members of it's pride if it shares) and others move
in to either try to assert their own ownership (exclusivity) of the
carcass or simply try to "own" parts of the carcass by carrying it off
or simply wolfing as much down as possible.  

Perhaps an arena where we can make productive progress is to discuss
where "the right to destroy" (or maintain exclusive use) comes from?   I
think we agree it is in some way "by consent", though the "Might makes
right" camp might believe that consent through intimidation is not an
oxymoron.

- Steve

On 11/20/19 10:34 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> I suppose what I'm faced with is that if you don't recognize your own argument (albeit abstracted) in what I'm saying, I have to return to the drawing board and come up with a new inference that differs significantly from my old one.
>
> So, here goes. The main thread you seem to have pressed is about hoarding, the commons, aggressive appropriation, stewardship, deprivation of others (those "downstream" and within-group), etc. Marcus' contribution was brief and seemed to be about truncating others' agency ("human capital"). My previous attempt focuses, perhaps wrongly, on viewing all *things* as processes. It implicitly assumes that some "thing" like a hammer has extent just like a non-thing like a human or a piece of intellectual property has extent. The difference between these types of things is a matter of *degree*, not kind, particular the larger or smaller extent of that "thing". (I am, as always, biased by BC Smith's idea of "pre-emptive registration" of an ontology.)
>
> Disambiguating types of productive objects (labor vs. tools, etc.) attempts, I think, to be purely ontological. It asserts a fundamental difference between things like hammers and humans, things and means. My ignorance prevents me from knowing how those philosophers finagle that distinction. But I don't think I need that sophistry for the common usage like in that article on the disintegration of the information ecology.
>
> How about if we said that there are some things that have a stronger boundary around them than others? E.g. a hammer is clearly part of the means of production because it has a pretty hard boundary around it. That boundary is defined through implied use (it fits the human hand quite well) and re-use (it works for everything from murder to cracking flint to hammering nails). The human, by contrast with the hammer, has a very fuzzy boundary around it. It's difficult to call a human a "tool" because every task the human engages becomes a dynamic process, the task changes to fit the human and the human changes to fit the task. Humans are waay more contextually defined than hammers. So, ontologically, a human is easily distinguishable from a hammer because of this contextuality. Therein lies the root of our "types of thing" we need to distinguish types of productive things.
>
> If I think this way, then your talk of hoarding, stewardship, deprivation of others' become ways to *cut* the spectrum of things. A hammer is easy to assign to someone or some region because it has a hard boundary. A human is not so easy to assign because they have fuzzy boundaries. (So, calling a human a "capital good" that can be owned is problematic.) Similarly, something like a herd of goats or a stream that supports farmers and fish downstream is also difficult to crisply assign to another thing or region. When we consider collections of these things, it gets slightly more difficult, but not too bad. Any collection of hammers can be divided up to atomic units (doable because of their hard boundaries). Herds of goats are harder, but till doable as long as you allow for mating, nurturing, milk production, etc. Humans and streams are more difficult to divide.
>
> How am I doing so far? Is this better or worse?
>
>
> On 11/20/19 8:11 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:
>> It's these *extensions* that I think are being implied by the division of production into modes, means, and relations. And, what's worse, is that even though I've inferred this from you (and Marcus), you won't recognize it when I repeat it back to you. 8^)
>>
>> On 11/19/19 8:02 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> I'm not sure if you are distinguishing "right to destroy" from "ability
>>> to destroy".   This leads us back to the language you referenced earlier
>>> of "owning someone".   Mutual Assured Destruction implied *that* kind of
>>> ownership.   The handful of nation-states with enough nuclear capability
>>> to destroy *any* other in *some sense* owned all of the others, but this
>>> feels like a fairly perverse sense of "ownership".
>>>
>>> Perhaps I can concede that the only model of "ownership" of something
>>> that does NOT depend on social convention is the ability to deprive
>>> others of the use of same by others.   The ability to destroy the
>>> utility of that object is an extreme form of depriving its use by
>>> others.   This also opens my curiosity about whether the limit to the
>>> ability to destroy something limits the ability to "own" it in your
>>> model, in the sense that while I can burn my house and garden down and
>>> "salt the earth" to make growing anything possible (for some time), the
>>> earth itself cannot really be destroyed (though I suppose I could dig a
>>> deep hole and remove the earth).   Does this imply a limit to how much I
>>> *own* this home/property?   I would contend that my "ownership" depends
>>> a lot more on the social/legal convention of those around me (including
>>> the bank and the tax collector) than it does on my ability (or not) to
>>> destroy it.
>>>
>>> My maunderings about ownership tend to be focused on trying to
>>> understand which aspects are unequivocal and which are not.  The notion
>>> of destructionability as ownership is perhaps the most unequivocal.
>>> Simply denying access to others (holding tight, placing inside of a safe
>>> bolted to the bedrock, building a castle around, etc.) and therefore
>>> "use" would be slightly more equivocal, with depending on the
>>> generosity/agreement of others yet more with "force of law" somewhere in
>>> between?
>>>
>>> My interest is mostly based in trying to understand what
>>> "post-Capitalism" might look like, especially from the inside.