[FRIAM] means of production take 2

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

After lettin ghtis sit a while and engaging in Dave's take3 subthread, I
am more ready to respond.

> 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^)
I saw that in your original response but didn't recognize that to be the
core of your questions, though I think I do see it now.  Part of that is
that I also find the phrase something of an oxymoron in the world I
*choose to live in* but sadly a near truism in the culture of hypermanic
capitalism that we *DO*??? (or many choose to) live in.
> 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.

I would say that not only are they trying to make that *distinction* but
are in fact trying to impose what I am calling "contrived" to be
"ingrained" and perhaps dismissing "ingrained" almost entirely, or
treating it somewhat as a quaint anachronism.   The real estate agents,
title companies, tax agents, bankers, foreclosure agents, and Sheriffs
who create and exercise the ambiguity of ownership of one's own "home"
are an example.   The myth of home ownership (in this context) as part
of the American (first world?) one's own home, crossed with the myth of
"a man's house is his castle" and juxtaposed with "home is where the
heart is" all jangle hard against one another if taken seriously.  I
feel that I "own" the silver amalgam fittings and gold crowns in my
mouth nearly as "intrinsically" as I do the teeth they are attached to. 
If I were in a Nazi death camp, I suppose those who operated it might
not care much about that distinction.   They own my teeth (in your sense
of "ability to destroy") as surely as the gold and silver married to
them.  What I *might* still own is my sense of dignity (I happen to have
just re-read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - set in a
Stalinist Gulag, but still pretty daunting).

..

<deleted protracted tangential argument on the contrast in arguments
around "right to bear arms" and "freedom of choice">

...

> 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)?

I think that is very close, if not spot on, and provides the foundation
for the stronger sense in which I was trying to delineate different
modes of ownership".  

Elaborating what I think is implied in what you said here:

Using the language of Socialist/Capitalist (in their stronger senses), I
agree that the former might believe that by virtue of the fact that some
specific "means of production" are tapping in an imbalanced way into
some kind of "commons", that to allow private/individual (vs
communal/collective) control over that "means of production" gives the
owner unequal access to the shared resource in "the commons".   By
extension, this "means of production" might should become part of the
commons in their mind. 

A Capitalist may want to deny the very idea of "a commons" and believe
that all unowned resources are available for appropriation (esp. by
them).   For the longest time, bodies of water, grazing land, forests,
veins of minerals were pretty much treated that way.  Possession was
100% of "the law".  Ownership of some conserved "means of production" is
an even better lever with which to appropriate... if you dam the river
and put in a water mill, if you set up a sawmill operation big enough to
clear a mountainside, or bring in big enough drills/pumps to empty an
aquifer or a oil deposit, then even if you  don't claim to own the
water-head, the forest, the aquifer, you have established the ability to
appropriate it (somewhat) to the exclusion of others. 

In the struggle between labor/capital in the industrial age - Labor, as
you point out is to Capital, just another commodity to be virtually
"owned", "traded", and even "destroyed" in some sense.  Labor becomes
part of the "means of production".   Labor Unions flip that around (to
some extent) by collectivizing Labor into a presumed CoOp (though many
Union members or students of criminal activity around Labor Unions might
argue that is also an illusion), the individuals making up the Labor
have their own labor potential returned to themselves (though now
collectivized).  "Right to Work" laws speak in the language of
returning/leaving those rights in the individual but it appears this is
almost exclusively a storyline and misdirection by Capital to undermine
Unions to maintain their ability to exploit the labor of Labor at-will. 
This battle, I would claim, has squeezed out everything but the thinnest
of illusions than an individual might "own" their own labor (potential).  

I continue to fail to match you in conciseness and honor your
forbearance in tracing out some of my more convoluted responses and
distilling some aspect of their essence for continued remastication.

- Steve

>
> 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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