by RM
There is a hypocritical sentiment beneath those who attempt to bring about a society absent of masters while merely advocating a change in teh general management of the social structures of our present existence; rather then identifying the structures as capitalist in nature as well as in their origin- and thus maintaining the relationships created by capitalism and therefore domination. While many anarcho-communists do challenge capitalist social relations to some extnet, from what I have seen they have not analyzed to much extent capitalist time, language, mathematics and art; forms of specialization and alienation and thus exploitation. Most expect time, mathematics, language and art to continue within their anarcho-communist societies as they exist within their present form; all of which continue to hyper alienate humans and what they need in order to exist freely. This is not an analysis of symbolic culture per se (in which I feel is a very important analysis, as it analysis the mediation created by the use of symbols), but an analysis of capitalist culture and how it by nature hyper alienates and twists the use of symbols to its advantage. Anarcho-communists claim relationships brought forth by capitalism will not exist within a truly anarcho-communist society. But such acceptance of such institutions will continue as forms of specialization as long as time, mathematics, language and art so appreciated by capitalism (and as long as they do not come into conflict with capital) continue to exist. In order to understand such symbolism and how they have been deeply rooted as systems of control and its use of control we must understand how they have developed and become increasingly alienating and specializing social relationships.
Time was first created as a way to organize life in a method that could benefit the newly formed system of capital. As such people who had lived outside capital had no use for it. As the system of capital expanded, the need of private property necessarily created ruling classes interested mainly in surplus that is early from of profits.1. Supported by surplus resources, teh ruling classes consisting mainly of priest or emperors as in China during the 2698-2598 BC through the emperor Huang Ti; which used their early mathematics to apply to days and hours 2. created time and refied tiem through measurement and was used to directly control the exploited. Time and space became part of the human dimension and, once mastered, were used to control the lives of great masses of men and women 3. As capital expanded as well as specialization and population due to private property, the ruling classes of the time needed ways in which to both control the exploited while gaining surplus, thus requiring the ruling classes of different civilizations to impose control over daily life which was becoming ever more linear and alienated. The Babylonian ruling classes thus created the 12 hours and 360 day year 4. and the Hebrew ruling classes created the 7 days. 5. In China during the Han dynasty the application by the ruling class of Chinese years occurred for greater control to the benefit of capital.6. Such methods of Babylonian and Hebrew control eventually led to the creation of the monastery by Christian ruling classes in feudal Europe 7.; that which controlled and ruled daily life to an extent unmatched by any before them. During the 1300's A.D. time became more rooted in social relationships imposed by the ruling classes and by 1345 the divisioj of sixty minutes and sixty seconds made it into existence which became more and more the pont of reference for both action and thought and led to the creation of the first mechanical clock around the same time. 8. Around 1400-1600's European capital had gained an upper hand in trade with China over American Silver which carried more influence of western capital in contrast to before hand when capital in China was more productive (see foot note 13) Due to the existence of the mechanical clocks in Europe, such mechanization and contrl of time spurred on by the needs of capital for better efficiency and control eventually led to the greater control of nature and the beginnings of modern science in the 16th century and continued through the seventeenth century. The developement of industrialism gave the greatest advantages to the capitalist ruling classes in which productivity of the exploited and thus profits was enhanced dramatically while controlling the exploited as if the workers were no more than mere cogs in a giant machine. The workers had become mere commodities themselves to be turned down and cast out in mass when their bosses wished. Time with mathematics created modern science. It is unsurprising then that modern science serves as a tool of the ruling classes; only functioning to enhance the system of capital by allowing the ruling class to control and discover other methods and ways to exploit the environment and the exploited class using methods and views of the world as giant clockwork machine. Out of such methods came various types of phsyics. Among them relativity physics which mathematizes the universe on a macrocosmic level and quantum phsyics which is the science of subatomic particles. Such sciences, along with number and time had brought about the nuclear age and eventually leads to our current situation- that of cybernetic technologies, genetic engineering, implants, electro-magnetic 'mind control' weapons 9., fiber optics, super computers, greater surviellance technologies, etc. which are all newer tools for the ruling classes to exploit and control the exploited so as to continue the system of capital.
The earliest mathematics (early decimal mathematics) in Chinese civilization was used to enhance the effiency of capital, private property and surplus most notably through the measure of time in China during the 2698-2598 through the emperor Huang Ti (see footnote 2) Western organized capitalist mathematics originated from the notion of private property, from the ruling classes of Ancient Egypt in 1300 BC for measure land and tax purposes. 10. Algebra used by the Egyptian and Babylonian ruling classes were used in aiding commercial transactions. 11. The rectangle represented a piece of land in a particular shape. 12. Math however, became much more organized and exact during the growing trade of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD. Such mercantile capitalism required more refined and defined forms of measurement. Numbers by that time had been combined with time and public clocks were used to regulate the social life of people so as too continue to allow capital to function as smoothly as possible. Around 1400-1600's European capital had gained an upper hand in trade with China over American Sivler which carried more influence of western capital in contrast to before hand when capital in China was more productive. 13. Maritime commerce and the spreading of capital used mathematics for accuracy in navigation and artillery to slaughter enemies and native peoples. 14. The notion of a single god, rather than of many had also become the dominant notion of thinking within the west which their view of God acquired mathematicl properties. As the euro-number system had evolved from geometry and algebra to form analytic geometry as well as calculus, such methods influenced Descartes' in his modern philosophy in which he viewed the whole universe as one giant clockwork machine with all life in it were engines in motion or cogs that humans are the masters and possessors of which was interwoven with the dominant Christian religion of the time. 15. In other words his view point rationalized the objectification of all life for the use and profit of the ruling classes. Desecartes' philosophy had attempted to eraicate all chaotic elements of nature through orderly repetition of his view of a clockwork universe, therefore turning everythin wild into a commodity to be exploited within his view of a universal mechanical system designed to rationalize and enhance capital. Isac Newton had forwarded such thinking creating equations to mathematically explain the attraction and repulsion of objects that is physics. He had forwarded the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century by developing a complete mathemeatical formulation of nature as a perfect machine or a perfect clock. 16. As mathematics and the newer scientific systems spread throughout particularly in the west, such views of the world came to influence and dominate other forms of human activity to a greater extent. In 1747 Le Mettrie produced L'Homme Machine in which 'man' came into view as completely mechanical as compared to the previous notions that 'man' had a soul so was not mechanical. 17.
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