[FRIAM] means of production take 3

[Nick Thompson]

All, 

Because I now have two computers that don't work, one newer than the other, I decided I didn't have bandwidth (or clockspeed) for a discussion of Marxism, when it broke out last week.  So forgive me if I am tilling old ground.  I have rethreaded to minimize harm to the ongoing conversation.  

My ears perked up at the discussion of "ownership".  Dogs seem to have (or enact) a concept of ownership.  What you have within a few inches of your mouth, you own.  Ownership, like territory, seems to involve some sort of mutual acknowledgement and agreement not to challenge a status quo.  

It seems that of late, the conversation of ownership has morphed into a discussion of "control".  What wealthier people seem to have is the ability, more than the rest of the world, to control their experience.  ( You can hear the my Apollonian creeping in, here, again.)  So, Dave might say, in rebuttal, notice how frequently people put their control of their circumstances at risk.  Think about Epstein, Madoff, even Trump, etc.,  for instance.  There seems to be yet another impulse to ==>demonstrate<== control by putting it at risk and then recapturing it --thrill seeking, I believe one of you called it.  This seems to be very primitive:  for instance, the idea of bonding introduced by John Bowlby back in the Dawn of Time, seems to have to do with control of access to Mom, which the toddler tests by going away and returning.  Hence, peek-a-boo. This seems to ring in a third concept, Power.  Power, let's say, is the potential to control.  So, when Trump says he could murder somebody on fifth avenue in broad daylight and not suffer any consequences, he is asserting power.   The people with the most power never have to exhibit it.   Trump would just put down his smoking gun and walk away, perhaps to the cheers of the crowd.  He wouldn't have to resist arrest.  Nobody would ever think to arrest him.  

There's a guy who visits the institute who wrote a book called Democracy in the Forest.  The basic idea is that an attractor in human affairs is for a single person have power over control a group of dominant individuals who in turn exert control over a much larger population.  Think Mafia.  This scheme is known as altruistic enforcement because from a Darwinian modeling point of view, it's hard to see why the dominant individuals -- the soldiers, if you will -- don't pool their resources and take down the Don.  I haven't been into the literature for years, but you can see something like this form of organization in baboons and in chimpanzees, at least sometimes.  

All very interesting.  Don't let me take you off your track 

Oh, and thanks for the vivid description of over-clocking.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2019 10:08 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] means of production take 2

Excellent! Thanks for that summary. I don't want to disagree with much of what you said, because what I'm trying to do is work out why some people can use the phrase "ownership of the means of production" with a straight face. 8^)

What you lay out below worked. I did *not* grok that the key difference you see is one of ingrained vs. contrived senses of ownership. I think we could have an interesting discussion down into that. But it's definitely not what I *thought* we were talking about. I'd like to tie the 2 topics together more explicitly than you do below.

To be clear, the 2 topics are: 1) what do people (e.g. you) mean when they use the phrase "means of production" and 2) ingrained vs. contrived senses of ownership. It's tempting to dive down into the mechanisms of something being ingrained vs. contrived. But I don't think that dive pulls much weight in relation to question (1). Whatever lurks at the depth of the distinction, maybe we can just allow that there is a distinction and stay "up here" for a minute? Perhaps you're suggesting that people who use the phrase "ownership of the means of production" are trying to make that distinction between an ingrained vs. a contrived ownership claim.

It would make sense to me to identify people who use that phrase as accusing others of conflating ingrained "rights" vs contrived "rights". E.g. if only socialists used the phrase as accusations that the "ownership of the means of production" is contrived and not ingrained (or "natural"). I.e. the "means of production" should be collectively shared, not privately owned. Whereas a capitalist might counter-claim that allowing for a more ingrained (or "intuitive"), expansive extent of ownership fosters things like innovation, and accuses socialists of defusing one's motivations (ingrained sense of ownership) into the collective. So each side is arguing about where to draw the line between ingrained vs. contrived.

Is *that* your sense of how people use the phrase(s)?

On 11/20/19 12:55 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 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.


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