Regarding the letter from 'Oxford G.A 's' to Subversion dated 18.8.97
This letter is a very disappointing contribution to what is potentialy a very interesting and useful debate My original letter to Subversion was a serious attempt to initiate discussion amongst anti-capitalists as to how a free and equal communist society coul d organise it's maintenance and it's relationship to the rest of the natural world. G.A. '5 response overemphasises the common ground between themselves and Subversion and at the same time responds to my letter not with reasoned debate but with bad-tempered,dishonest sniping
It probably won't surprise G.A. to learn that I have read Bob Black's 'Abolition of Work' and whole-hear tcdly .eitdorse it. Work,in the sense in which Bob Black calls for it's abolition,is activity performed under duress. My point is that if people can cook ,make clothes ,grow food etc without being coerced into doing so then I don't see why they shouldn't be able to, oc&asionally,opperate a steel plant,for example, without being coerced into it.My letter explicitly states that this activity could be carried out by volunteers.Perhaps G.A. do not understand what this word means - it means that people do things voluntarily,without being coerced,of their own free will
'Primitive' people engage in both productive activity,hunting, gathering,building,gardening etc and celebratory activity,dancing, singing etc.I see no reason why this should not be the case in a communist society whatever it's technological level.I don't suppose G.A. would consider hunting people who dance and sing to be experiencing 'leisure 'after hours'
I am not ' wrong' to say that "a digging stick is technology. . . . " as C.A. state ,I am simply using the word differently rrom them.Many words can be used in a variety of ways by different people to mean very different things - think of the words 'Communism' 'Anarchy' and 'Democracy' for example.So it is as well to be clear about what we mean.Cenerally the word technology is taken to mean advanced industrial activities and their organisation.However,modern industrial technology has not sprung from nowhere it has developed over a long period of time from simple to complex.So I think it is valid to use the word technology to mean all the ways in which people manipulate the world.In prehistoric times people had a simple technology based on wood,stone,plant products,leather etc.As G.A. point out it utilised simple tools which did not require a 'division of labour' to produce. As I use the word this doesnot mean that it was not a technology it means that it was a simple technology
People are ,ofcourse ,quite entitled to use a word like technology in different ways. The technology that G.A. define as being bad is that which involves a 'division of labour' and this is an interesting point.Despite the assertions of many 'primitivists' we simply don't know enough about life in prehistoric times to make a definitive judgement as to what extent ,if any,there was any 'division of labour' .However,many hunting people in modern times use a 'division of labour' in their hunting practices with one group opperating as a line of beaters while another group kill the prey for example.The reason I use this example is that here the 'division of labour'concerns an activity not the production of an artefact - is this o.k. with G.A 7
Anyway why is the 'division of labour' considered to be an absolute evil in all circumstances ? If people are drawn towards certain activities,wish to develop certain skills0 is there something wrong with this ? In my view a genuine human community can only be organised around the principle "from each according to their abilities(and desires) ,to each according to their needs (and desires). "If a community is genuinely commited to the well-being of all its members I can't for the life of me see why people shouldn't choose to do (a variety of) different things and in the process add to the well-being and richness of the community and all its members, The free development of each being the precondition for the free development of all. For some reason C.A. seem to hold as a dogma the view that people can only exist as a genuine community if every individual is capable of performing every activity ever performed by any member of the community
I would also suggest that C.A. might find it interesting to study Chris Knight's book 'Blood Relations' (Yale University Press(New Haven and London - 1991).While I cannot possibly do justice to the scope of this book here part of his argument suggests that what was probably the initial 'division of labour' ,that between men and women,far from being a negative thing was in fact part of the process by which our ancestors became fully human and acquired the possibility of solidarity and communism.Female power organised around the 'home base' and its activities broke the power of the male 'dominance hierarchies' and sexual competition which characterise primate societies and forced (freed) males to collectively take part in the provisioning of the whole group.
Whether or not we accept all of what Knight says at least he offers a materialist account of human origins which challenges capitalist notions of 'human nature' without romanticising some particular moment in our species existence
Incidently G.A. are right the fact that apes,beavers,sea otters etc use tools does not make them technological species it just shows that our technological ability has emerged from the process of biological evolution,which is unsurprising
G.A. should read my letter again I never did cite any technological means that would "make life richer,more pleasurable, more creative and fulfilling".I speculated as to what sort of technology a communist society emerging now might want to use.
G.A. allege th.rt in the sort of society I was speculating about 'creativity' will be in the upper" (G.A. '5 emphasis) of the 'two level system of production'. I honestly don't see why this should be the case.In a communist society creativity will be generalised it will not be 'in the hands' of anyone to the exclusion of anyone else.I don't happen to think that making a film,recording music or helping to organise a telephone system,for example,are more creative than gardening,craft production,woodland management etc they are just different activities.I happen to believe that human beings are capable of organising themselves and their creativity autonomously and without hierarchy in a wide variety of settings.How about you ,G.A. what do you think ?As to your jibe about television actually I don't see any reason why a communist society should not employ video technology.The problem with broadcast television is that it is in the hand' of a tiny minority,controlled by the rich and powerful and deployed against the vast majority.This is because we live in a capitalist society.A communist society would organise things differently.
G.A. say that I have 'little idea what communism will be like' - well, I suppose none of us will know until we get there,if we do.But I think it is G.A. who seem to have a limited idea of what communism could be - they think that Hollywood,Disney,T.V. soaps and The Spice Girls etc mean that people aren't capable of using or developing cinema, video or recording technology in any authentic human way. None of us can possibly have any idea what a communist culture would be like,how can anyone claim in advance that it would not want to use moving images or recorded sound ?
Do members of G.A. really never go to the cinema or listen to recorded music ? I am prepared to be 'upfront' enough to admit that I do and! yes,I even watch T.v. sometimes.Perhaps G,A. would be 'upfront'enough to state clearly and without equivocation what is implicit throughout this letter - that they want everyone in the world to live using only simple tools made from wood,leather,bone and stones which they happen to find lying around on the ground
I agree entirely that what will make life richer in communism is the establishment of a genuine human community.G.A. should read my letter again I never did say that 'gadgets will make life better,freer and more equal than authentic human community' .I was attempting to look seriously at what sort of technology ('gadgets' if you must) a communist society might choose to use.I wasn't aware that I was arguing for 'moderation' or a 'middle way' between anything least of all communism and 'technocracy' It is an example of C. A. 's dishonesty that they use the word 'technocracy' when what they mean is technology - which I think they will find Subversion are no more eager to abolish than I am.It is a shame that C.A. would rather engage in stupid name-calling than genuine debate.I have been called many things in my time but an anorak totally colonised by Prometheanism' takes the biscuit!!
I do not ignore the extraction of surplus value as the motor of History.In fact I would have thought that was one of the things all communists could agree on. I don't really see what that has to do with the following but here we come to another example of G.A. refusing to understand what my letter sa~s.I did argue quite clearly that tasks in the advanced technology sector 'would only get done if people did find then enjoyable' .G.A. accuse me of not suggesting 'what would become of the technological infrastructure if they did not9 .1 would have thought that this was clear enough from what I wrote but obviously not so let me spell it out If there was a revolution which destroyed capitalism and all forms of domination and alienation and led to a situation where people were genuinely in control of their own lives and it was somehow decided that it wasn't worth maintaining any technology beyond the simplest tools of stone and wood then that is what would h appeflj The point is that I think this is ,to put it mildly,highly unlikely
I did not suggest there should be 'trading through barter systems' What I suggested was that that was part of the primitivists vision of the future
Incidently it is quite wrong to suggest that 'Primitives were loath to trade' Trading is very important to many modern 'primitives and there is convincing evidence that extensive exchange of goods took place over hundreds of miles in prehistoric Europe and Australia centuries before the emergence of agriculture/civilisation/class-society. 'Trade' is presumably one of G.A.s swear words but the mere exchange of goods does not imply relations of inequality and dominance as presumably it did not in prehistoric times
Contrary to what G.A seem to think communism is not something which can only exist at some particular level of technology; a very simple level or as they would put it no technology~Communism is a potential which exists within our species as is evidenced by our capacity for empathy ,solidarity, cooperation ,collective struggle etc and its fulfilment would be the conscious unification of our species on a global level~The essence of communism is full human community,the abolition of the conflict of interest between individual and society, 'Gemeinwesen' if you like.Once this has been achieved we are free to organise our lives as we see fit - and because we will be a conscious part of nature it will go without saying that part of that will be not reducing the autonomy and richness of the rest of the natural world. Just because the history of the last 5,000 years,the history of class-society from Ur to the New World Order ,has been a nightmare of exploitation,oppression and alienation that does not mean that that is all that human beings are capable of once we go beyond the hunteri gatherer mode of reproduction.
all the best
Steve
Hastings
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