From: miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard)
Subject: Re: Hypothetically speaking
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 19:11:52 GMT

In article <1992Nov14.020901.18391@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu writes:
>In article <DRW.92Nov13164010@tarski.mit.edu>, drw@tarski.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov13.123849.49903@ccvax.ucd.ie> x551_003@ccvax.ucd.ie writes:
>>   > What do you do about the > plight of the poor, And why?
>>
>>   Hand over power to factory committees, workers councils etc so that
>>   we can have Anarchism.  (If only it were this easy).
>>
>>It isn't even that easy.  The people who don't have jobs would not be
>>empowered by factory committees, workers' councils, or the like.  Such
>>groups improve the lot of the workers by expropriating the facilities
>>in which they work.  (Which may be a good or bad idea.)  But that
>>mechanism is not available for those who do not have jobs.
>>
>>Dale
>
>BINGO!
>
>Industries in general are becoming less labor intensive.  This includes the
>servant-sector industries.  So don't count on them to grow the job market.
Yes, most industries are becoming less labor intensive.

>Sooner or later we have to come to terms with the fact that labor and
>productivity have less and less to do with each other.
Yes and no.  Labor creates the machines which make the labor applied to 
those machines more productive.  Labor has everything to do with productivity,
as labor is the source of all creativity, including the creativity it takes
to make the means of producing goods and services more productive.

>The percentage of people who have something non-trivial to contribute to the
>economy is shrinking.  I bet if the economy were under no luddite pressure the
>unemployment rate would be a clear majority.  Maybe it will take MIT-types like
>Dale and OU types like myself longer to become irrelevant.
What or who is relevant depends on who is defining need and what production
is carried on for.  If the means of producing goods and services are in the 
hands of private owners who's goal is to have commodities produced for sale
with a view to profit, then irrelevance will be determinedf by THEM.  If
on the other hand, these means of producing goods and services are democratically controlled by the producers/workers, they can decide what is useful and 
what they need.  If there's too much, they can decide to reduce the work day
and take a vacation.

>But thanx to the Calvinist Work Ethic, workers are begging to be hired; and
>begging their policymakers to give industries all kinds of tax and regulatory
>breaks so they'll have the freedom to "create jobs".
Workers are only begging to be hired because they need money to buy the 
commodities they make.  If they don't get money, they're in big trouble.
I don't have any sympathy for those who's primary reason for working is 
the Calvinist ethic.  I do sympathize with my fellow wage-slaves who 
produce all the social wealth and find themselves being labled redundant,
when the real redundants are the parasites who buy their labor skills and
then when the market is saturated, they lay off these self-same wage slaves.

>Instead of giving the workers more control over the factories, give the
>factories less control over the workers!
Give the workers control over the factories and let them exert control 
over production decisions and there will be no need to dream of the
factories having control over the workers.


>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>Walter Lee    w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
>
>Don't blame me, I didn't vote!


-- 
Mike Ballard 
Time is money. Steal some today!
Don't just complain, organize! e-mail iww@igc.org  Ph: (415)863-WOBS.

Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy