Looking ahead to when, after the midterm, I get to humanity's true watershed boundary-crossing of 1870: how I now think I will present things, summing up the history of human economic growth to that..
I don't know Engels, but it is succinct, logical, and has many wonderful turns of phrase.
Someone needs to either consolidate or obliterate the world 'Socialist'. Russians could not agree what it meant in 1917, and it has only gotten worse. Now many Americans think the word means progressive taxation and a strong safety net (Social Democrats in the EU), some think it is forced equality, a few fossils think it means state ownership of the means of production, and for the rest it is just name calling.
If we ban "socialist," we'll have to reinvent it. It simply means ranking the public welfare first, ahead of money-making. It is what Brad calls "Polanyian." The problem is that the founding socialists grossly under-appreciated how difficult and inherently experimental Polanyianism is. It takes time and trial-and-error, and genuine (not cheap/ersatz/"traditional") knowledge of our species-being.
Polanyism is socialism—a free society of associated producers—but it is also lots of other things. It is, I think, every single variety of reaction against the distribution of consumption, of wealth, and thus of social power that the market generates from property ownership, production technologies, and demand.
What are your thoughts on the degree to which our new "primary beneficiaries" (Alfred Chandler's phrasing) parrot, borrow from, replicate, and/or (maybe) even embody the old-style coercive surplus-takers? Wealth itself corrupts, doesn't it?
That’s a good definition of Socialism too. My point isn’t the definition but that a word with such vastly different connotations and denotations within the population is reduced to a form of miscommunication.
I like it and wish I were in the class. My add-on would be about the Marxist assumption that sociology is easy rather than hard. Figuring out how to tame the old elites and administer a fair and balanced and humane society of sufficiency was taken to be easy and obvious by the founding socialists. It isn't. It's actually an order (half an order?) of magnitude harder than figuring out how to turns 0s and 1s into low latency megaspeed communications networks. The Menshevik instinct at least pointed to that, but wasn't really equipped to explain it well, given the rude state of democracy and the lack of actual knowledge of human nature, not to mention (ahem ^^^) human economic history.
The nature vs nurture framework is missing. By that I mean the ways Malthusian life influenced the gene pool such that traits that we are born with encourage a will to domination. Stalin would easily have understood that. As would Darwin. So no matter how big the pie gets you still get oligarchs.
I'm skeptical that there is a gene for domination, much less many such genes acting in concert. And I'm more skeptical that there has been enough time during the era of domination -- roughly, the 8000 years or so since the development of agriculture -- for natural selection to select for such genes.
I would guess that selecting genes for domination predate agriculture based on evidence from human societies in existence today that never adopted agriculture, as well as archeological research. Then there’s the behavior of primates with whom we share over 90% of our genes.
I have read it through several times and on each point that I had a « but what about » thought, I quickly realized « no, ino, he’s got this. » Like Michael Dawson, I too would love to be in this class.
The peabrain ignorantly thought of how, in current and unfortunately in the past politics, our thought leaders are living in the past. Mr tDrumpf and JDee want the past to magically reappear. Their MAGA followers lust for the past.
On the world stage, Putin is living in the past glory that was the Russian empire and the USSR. Are Modi and Xi living there too???
As in science, will society advance one funeral at a time?
I love the idea that it was not the inequality of property distribution that the socialists disliked but the tediousness of keeping track of it all. I am not being the least sarcastic. If I am asked for one more password....
This is a J.I. Case company web site, and the history of the company there gives a timeline that includes other companies, from the 1840's to today, that were absorbed into J.I. Case.
For your book, go further back to 1830's agriculture history, the Cyrus McCormick reaper. Without that invention, it is possible that there would be serious problems with food supply. Is for harvesting wheat.
After a great while, not predicting when, the world will belong to those who can live on 2,000 calories per day (men) and 1800 calories per day (women).
If agriculture shrinks because of lack of fertilizer or other factors there will be less food. Some places it looks like the soil has played out. The "Green Revolution" beginning during the 1960's will be over.
There won't be big meat eaters as you described, which sounds sickening to me. Anyone who says: "I can eat all the food I want and not gain weight " will be dead.
How is agriculture doing in Ukraine? Ukraine used to be called "Bread basket of the world". Is that still true?
I know that there are work farms in Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba, but don't know if they are still operating. Those are places to practice growing food and survivalist living together, everyone with the same calories. I know the Cuban ones were growing potatoes. Cuba wanted everyone to participate, to weed out big eaters and send them to the United States. That is kind of a sad way to live, like building your fallout shelter in the 1950's thinking that will guarantee your survival. I still think that it is worthwhile for everyone to have some farm background, though.
At least as far as the history of ideas is concerned, the students be entitled to know that the idea of the administration des chôses replacing the governement des hommes does not come at least originally from Engels (and Marx) but from Saint-Simon and his school, who have the right to be regarded as the original prophets of technocracy empowered by scientific knowledge and its application.
As my one time mentor Domenico Settembrini highlighted in his Due Ipotesi per il Socialismo in Marx ed Engels, the work of Marx and Engels contains two main hypotheses regarding the development and implementation of socialism:
1. The Historical Materialism Hypothesis: This hypothesis delves into the idea that the development of human societies is primarily driven by material conditions and economic factors. According to this view, the transition to socialism is seen as an inevitable result of the contradictions within the capitalist system, leading to its eventual collapse and the rise of a socialist society. This hypothesis is rooted in Saint-Simonian thought and does not necessitates a revolution. The administration of things replacing the government of men is rather the outcome of an evolution.
2. The Proletarian Revolution Hypothesis: This hypothesis focuses on the role of the working class (proletariat) in overthrowing the capitalist system. This involves the proletariat seizing control of the state and the means of production, thereby dismantling the capitalist structures and creating a classless, stateless society. This is the hypothesis that Marx (and Engels) are probably best known for, at least in terms of its political ramifications.
This is of course a simplification (one should read Settembrini’s book for the details) but one that helps reconciling apparently contrasting strands in Marx and Engels’ thought, which would become apparent through the history of the Marxist movements (eg Second International vs Third International). Within Marx’ intellectual system, Hegelian dialectic is supposed to provide the unifying framework.
At least as far as history of ideas is concerned, I think the students be entitled to know that the idea of the administration des chôses replacing the governement des hommes (including the expression itself) does not come originally from Engels (and Marx) but from Saint-Simon and his school, who have the right to be regarded as the original prophets of technocracy empowered by scientific knowledge and its application.
As my one time mentor Domenico Settembrini highlighted in his Due Ipotesi per il Socialismo in Marx ed Engels, the work of Marx and Engels contains two main hypotheses regarding the development and implementation of socialism:
1. The Historical Materialism Hypothesis: This hypothesis delves into the idea that the development of human societies is primarily driven by material conditions and economic factors. According to this view, the transition to socialism is seen as an inevitable result of the contradictions within the capitalist system, leading to its eventual collapse and the rise of a socialist society. This hypothesis is rooted in Saint-Simonian thought and does not necessitates a revolution. The administration of things replacing the government of men is rather the outcome of an evolution.
2. The Proletarian Revolution Hypothesis: This hypothesis focuses on the role of the working class (proletariat) in overthrowing the capitalist system. This involves the proletariat seizing control of the state and the means of production, thereby dismantling the capitalist structures and creating a classless, stateless society. This is the hypothesis that Marx (and Engels) are probably best known for, at least in terms of its political ramifications.
This is of course a simplification (one should read Settembrini’s book for the details) but one that helps reconciling apparently contrasting strands in Marx and Engels’ thought, which would become apparebt through the history of the Marxist movements. Within Marx’ intellectual framework, Hegelian dialectic is the way contradictions are solved or pretended to be.
I don't know Engels, but it is succinct, logical, and has many wonderful turns of phrase.
Someone needs to either consolidate or obliterate the world 'Socialist'. Russians could not agree what it meant in 1917, and it has only gotten worse. Now many Americans think the word means progressive taxation and a strong safety net (Social Democrats in the EU), some think it is forced equality, a few fossils think it means state ownership of the means of production, and for the rest it is just name calling.
If we ban "socialist," we'll have to reinvent it. It simply means ranking the public welfare first, ahead of money-making. It is what Brad calls "Polanyian." The problem is that the founding socialists grossly under-appreciated how difficult and inherently experimental Polanyianism is. It takes time and trial-and-error, and genuine (not cheap/ersatz/"traditional") knowledge of our species-being.
Polanyism is socialism—a free society of associated producers—but it is also lots of other things. It is, I think, every single variety of reaction against the distribution of consumption, of wealth, and thus of social power that the market generates from property ownership, production technologies, and demand.
What are your thoughts on the degree to which our new "primary beneficiaries" (Alfred Chandler's phrasing) parrot, borrow from, replicate, and/or (maybe) even embody the old-style coercive surplus-takers? Wealth itself corrupts, doesn't it?
That’s a good definition of Socialism too. My point isn’t the definition but that a word with such vastly different connotations and denotations within the population is reduced to a form of miscommunication.
Yeah, it has its looseness.
I like it and wish I were in the class. My add-on would be about the Marxist assumption that sociology is easy rather than hard. Figuring out how to tame the old elites and administer a fair and balanced and humane society of sufficiency was taken to be easy and obvious by the founding socialists. It isn't. It's actually an order (half an order?) of magnitude harder than figuring out how to turns 0s and 1s into low latency megaspeed communications networks. The Menshevik instinct at least pointed to that, but wasn't really equipped to explain it well, given the rude state of democracy and the lack of actual knowledge of human nature, not to mention (ahem ^^^) human economic history.
The nature vs nurture framework is missing. By that I mean the ways Malthusian life influenced the gene pool such that traits that we are born with encourage a will to domination. Stalin would easily have understood that. As would Darwin. So no matter how big the pie gets you still get oligarchs.
I'm skeptical that there is a gene for domination, much less many such genes acting in concert. And I'm more skeptical that there has been enough time during the era of domination -- roughly, the 8000 years or so since the development of agriculture -- for natural selection to select for such genes.
I would guess that selecting genes for domination predate agriculture based on evidence from human societies in existence today that never adopted agriculture, as well as archeological research. Then there’s the behavior of primates with whom we share over 90% of our genes.
I have read it through several times and on each point that I had a « but what about » thought, I quickly realized « no, ino, he’s got this. » Like Michael Dawson, I too would love to be in this class.
The peabrain ignorantly thought of how, in current and unfortunately in the past politics, our thought leaders are living in the past. Mr tDrumpf and JDee want the past to magically reappear. Their MAGA followers lust for the past.
On the world stage, Putin is living in the past glory that was the Russian empire and the USSR. Are Modi and Xi living there too???
As in science, will society advance one funeral at a time?
I love the idea that it was not the inequality of property distribution that the socialists disliked but the tediousness of keeping track of it all. I am not being the least sarcastic. If I am asked for one more password....
This is a J.I. Case company web site, and the history of the company there gives a timeline that includes other companies, from the 1840's to today, that were absorbed into J.I. Case.
For your book, go further back to 1830's agriculture history, the Cyrus McCormick reaper. Without that invention, it is possible that there would be serious problems with food supply. Is for harvesting wheat.
https://historycooperative.org/who-invented-the-mechanical-reaper/
After a great while, not predicting when, the world will belong to those who can live on 2,000 calories per day (men) and 1800 calories per day (women).
If agriculture shrinks because of lack of fertilizer or other factors there will be less food. Some places it looks like the soil has played out. The "Green Revolution" beginning during the 1960's will be over.
There won't be big meat eaters as you described, which sounds sickening to me. Anyone who says: "I can eat all the food I want and not gain weight " will be dead.
How is agriculture doing in Ukraine? Ukraine used to be called "Bread basket of the world". Is that still true?
I know that there are work farms in Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba, but don't know if they are still operating. Those are places to practice growing food and survivalist living together, everyone with the same calories. I know the Cuban ones were growing potatoes. Cuba wanted everyone to participate, to weed out big eaters and send them to the United States. That is kind of a sad way to live, like building your fallout shelter in the 1950's thinking that will guarantee your survival. I still think that it is worthwhile for everyone to have some farm background, though.
Personally, I like the idea that Marxism died of the contradictions of its implementations. Some good analysis though.
At least as far as the history of ideas is concerned, the students be entitled to know that the idea of the administration des chôses replacing the governement des hommes does not come at least originally from Engels (and Marx) but from Saint-Simon and his school, who have the right to be regarded as the original prophets of technocracy empowered by scientific knowledge and its application.
As my one time mentor Domenico Settembrini highlighted in his Due Ipotesi per il Socialismo in Marx ed Engels, the work of Marx and Engels contains two main hypotheses regarding the development and implementation of socialism:
1. The Historical Materialism Hypothesis: This hypothesis delves into the idea that the development of human societies is primarily driven by material conditions and economic factors. According to this view, the transition to socialism is seen as an inevitable result of the contradictions within the capitalist system, leading to its eventual collapse and the rise of a socialist society. This hypothesis is rooted in Saint-Simonian thought and does not necessitates a revolution. The administration of things replacing the government of men is rather the outcome of an evolution.
2. The Proletarian Revolution Hypothesis: This hypothesis focuses on the role of the working class (proletariat) in overthrowing the capitalist system. This involves the proletariat seizing control of the state and the means of production, thereby dismantling the capitalist structures and creating a classless, stateless society. This is the hypothesis that Marx (and Engels) are probably best known for, at least in terms of its political ramifications.
This is of course a simplification (one should read Settembrini’s book for the details) but one that helps reconciling apparently contrasting strands in Marx and Engels’ thought, which would become apparent through the history of the Marxist movements (eg Second International vs Third International). Within Marx’ intellectual system, Hegelian dialectic is supposed to provide the unifying framework.
At least as far as history of ideas is concerned, I think the students be entitled to know that the idea of the administration des chôses replacing the governement des hommes (including the expression itself) does not come originally from Engels (and Marx) but from Saint-Simon and his school, who have the right to be regarded as the original prophets of technocracy empowered by scientific knowledge and its application.
As my one time mentor Domenico Settembrini highlighted in his Due Ipotesi per il Socialismo in Marx ed Engels, the work of Marx and Engels contains two main hypotheses regarding the development and implementation of socialism:
1. The Historical Materialism Hypothesis: This hypothesis delves into the idea that the development of human societies is primarily driven by material conditions and economic factors. According to this view, the transition to socialism is seen as an inevitable result of the contradictions within the capitalist system, leading to its eventual collapse and the rise of a socialist society. This hypothesis is rooted in Saint-Simonian thought and does not necessitates a revolution. The administration of things replacing the government of men is rather the outcome of an evolution.
2. The Proletarian Revolution Hypothesis: This hypothesis focuses on the role of the working class (proletariat) in overthrowing the capitalist system. This involves the proletariat seizing control of the state and the means of production, thereby dismantling the capitalist structures and creating a classless, stateless society. This is the hypothesis that Marx (and Engels) are probably best known for, at least in terms of its political ramifications.
This is of course a simplification (one should read Settembrini’s book for the details) but one that helps reconciling apparently contrasting strands in Marx and Engels’ thought, which would become apparebt through the history of the Marxist movements. Within Marx’ intellectual framework, Hegelian dialectic is the way contradictions are solved or pretended to be.