” If the average American worker had any economic literacy, they would look at this chart and scream, “I’ve been getting royally screwed since 2001!” Capitalism was not supposed to work this way–as the workers become more productive their wages fall. But of course as wages fall and layoffs grow, the working class is well aware that they can no longer borrow from their home equity or their ten credit cards and so they cut back on discretionary spending. This means that our ten years of overcapacity in what’s left of our industrial plant will get worse.”
“…….Since 1980 politicians of both parties have preached the gospel of globalization–the ability of American multinationals to move their financial and physical resources anywhere on the globe to get the best return. For a while we were able to mask the hollowing out of our domestic industrial base with the fantasy that we would export our services all over the world and that the financialization of the American economy would make up for the shortfall in our industrial output. And now we are reaping the whirlwind of that bankrupt notion. Yes we have poured trillions into Wall Street banks to restart the casino economy, but the average American isn’t buying it. She wants to pay off her credit cards, not borrow more. The small businessman does not have enough orders to need to borrow money. And as a country, the only durable good we make that anyone wants to buy are weapons of war.”.... read more: http://coto2.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/is-globalization-working-for-america/
In recent years there has been much discussion about a certain end: Some speak of the “end of history”1, others mention the “end of work”2, while the dark powerful hubs of obscurantism present the “end of the world” in the form of eschatological prophecies by charlatans or Hollywood-style creations by certain “future predictors”.
Work, either in the form of food collection activity, or in the form of classical music creation and scientific research in the field of astrophysics and molecular biology, constituted –and still constitutes- the basic element of organized social co-existence and at the same time the sole power for development, setting in effect the measure for any civilization. Hence, it is only logical for one to wonder whether the “end of history”, or the “end of work”, means the end of organized social co-existence, or even the end of civilization and ultimately, the end of history.
However, if we examine the relevant “theories”, we shall find out that Fukuyama considers “liberal democracy as the final step of humanity’s ideological development and the final form of human governance, in such a way that it constitutes the end of history”3. So, sibly, Fukuyama’s argument is that “liberal democracy”, the political expression of manic capitalism4, is the final, i.e. the superior form, of human governance. According to Fukuyama this means that the human civilization has reached the end of its evolution and hence the end of its history. This theory, to which Fukuyama’s sponsors gave massive publicity, is not only naive and unscientific, but also ends up being an obscene ideological fabrication by someone who acts as the apologist of a neoliberal, globalised, barbaric and disastrous capitalism and who implies that after capitalism there is only chaos. The fact that Fukuyama himself, in response to the flood of negative reviews, tried to refute what concerns the “end of history”5, without at the same time distancing himself from the basic premises of his theory, does not alter the unscientific and deeply reactionary nature of his attempt to form an ideology.
Now, regarding the “end of work”, Jeremy Rifkin’s theory” is based on the fact that the scientific and technical revolution has leddevelopments to the level of “mass replacement of workers by machines, which will force all nations to re-examine the role of human beings in the social process… the transnational (overnational?)corporations announce that their profits rise steadily while in the meantime the same corporations announce massive job cuts… We are entering a new phase in the global history, one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed… the end of work… technological innovations and market forces lead us to a world with almost no working hands at all”.6
Rifkin’s mistake is that he identifies work with “working hands”, i.e. the living form of labor. This happens because he misinterprets the fact that the working person –“living labor”- during his historical course creates, for the improvement and efficiency of his productive process, tools, machinery and automation systems, also known as “means of production” (Produktionsmittel). Marx called the means of production, in contrast to living labor (lebendige Arbeit)7, objectified labor (vergegenständliche Arbeit)8, i.e. labor that is not the expression of dexterity embodied in certain materials, but becomes an object, which, to a certain extent replaces living labor -and thus he also calls it “dead labor”, (tote Arbeit)9
In reality, according to this concept, the total available labor, i.e. the “total productive capacity” (Produktivkräfte)10 in a society, in its most simplified form, equals to the sum of the total quantity of living – subjective – labor and the total quantity of the means of production –the dead – objectified historical labor.
During the course of humanity, one form of labor has been violently disrupted by the other and this led to the violent division of society and humanity as a whole into two main classes: the class of the producersof living labor and the class of those who usurp the historical labor. Even today, albeit in different forms in various periods, the total productive activity of each society is being organized on the basis of this division. The history of human civilization has basically progressed using the potential of this relationship involving the living and historical form of labor, in the field of the total economic activity of each society.
These relations, known as “forms of production” (Produktionsformen), or “relations of production” (Produktionsverhältnisse)11 form the “hard core of power” within the framework of a given society, which in turn shapes what we call “socioeconomic system” according to its particular interests. One of the various relations of production which appeared during the historical course of humanity, in particular the one that violently turned the historical form of labor into capital, which came as a “result of the right of the organizers of production (der Kommandeuren der Produktion) to appropriate and dominate the products of labor”,12took the form of “capitalist relations of production”.13
From a general viewpoint, we are witnessing a never-ending and painful effort on the part of the producers of living labor, i.e. the working people, to create more and better “means of production” –historical labor- in order to be able to satisfy all their personal and social needs with less effort and to achieve more freedom, prosperity and happiness. A process in which“the quantity of utilized living labor (will) steadily diminish as far as its quantity is concerned by the objectified labor itself”,14 so that humanity will leap someday “from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom”, to uninhibitedly quote Karl Marx, who is still as relevant as ever.
Unfortunately, by breaking up the historical form of labor and alienating from its creators, i.e. the producers of living labor, the historical form of labor at the hands of its usurpers is forced to push its creators to the fringe of economy and society. Through this process of constantly increasing substitution of living labor by historical labor we reached the present era: living labor, i.e. the traditional proletariat, becomes a surplus labor force and is excluded from the process of production. Furthermore, as “surplus society”, it is displaced from the historical labor, i.e. the “machines that form the new proletariat.”15
This absurdity of turning science, technology and culture into “proletariats” makes the working humanity obsolete in order for a handful of “transnational (overnational?) companies” to maximize their profits while at the same time turning the dictatorship of capital over labor, i.e. over the working humanity, into “a necessity”. Obviously, this has been a result of the violent activity on the part of the barbaric and manic capitalism, which deceived humanity, as it promised “Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood”, delivering instead Slavery, Inequality and Hostility.
It is also obvious that in order for the break up of labor to stop and for its unity and autonomy to be reinstated, all forms of ownership of the means of production must stop (i.e. abolition of capital, not as a material thing, object, money or machinery etc, but rather as “social relationship, as historical means of production”)16. The means of production must become communal with the establishment of “relations of self-management, or self-regulation, of unified labor”. These relations will free human civilization from the obscure myths and the various forms of oppressive power and consequently the necessary and proper conditions will be shaped: Conditions that will allow the reunification and immediate self-determination of society, the reconciliation of humanity, and will pave the way for the New Freedom of Man, for a “civilization of Love, Knowledge and Creation”.17
It is important to highlight that Rifkin, together with tens of thousands of scientists and millions of working people, points out that “the high tech revolution could mean fewer working hours and more benefits for millions of people. For the first time in modern history big multitudes might be liberated from long working hours and would devote their spare time to activities that please them”.18
Capital, however, responds with successive attacks of mental and ideological disorientation, increasing –rather than decreasing- working hours and forcing at the same time millions of workers to become unemployed. All this takes place in the name of the so-called competitiveness and naturally at the altar of profit maximization.
The clash of the -arbitrary and lacking any historical justification- capitalist voluntarism with reality, which has been shaped by humanity’s accumulated struggles and sacrifices in thousands of years, is still spreading disaster and leads to the barbarism of neoliberal globalization and US hegemony. Rifkin observes the following, as far as this clash is concerned: “These two totally different ideas regarding the relationship between technology and labor clash more and more on the eve of the new high tech revolution. The question is to whether the technologies of the Third Industrial Revolution will materialize the dream of endless profits or the world’s dream of greater freedom. The answer depends mainly on which of the two visions of humanity’s future is intense enough, so that the next generation devotes to it its energy, talent and passion”.19
It is obvious that Rifkin, being a prominent social democrat, does not challenge capital, and being a scientist who is part of the capitalist system, washes his hands in the name of a pretentious and fake “neutral science”, “tossing the ball outside the field”, where the “next generation” is supposed to be sitting. Of course we need to acknowledge that Rifkin does not exclude the possibility that the Third Industrial High Tech Revolution would not necessarily mean the end of work. Still, he does not make any arguments in favor of this possibility. This however does not reply to the question, since the clash involves work versus technology, according to Rifkin’s rationale, the possibility that “work will not end” means the end of technology or something else, which is not named. This impasse is the result of a false assumption by Rifkin, who sees an opposition between work and technology but not between capital and work.
It is well known, however, that history does not present problems that lack mature solutions. It is also known that in the era of virtual reality there is always a clash between the true self and its appearance. Thus, the problem of the clash between work and capital is presented as a problem of clash between work and “technology”, in essence between the living form of work and the historical form of work. The objective is obvious: capital will remain “innocent”, remaining outside the scene of the clash –hence, if “technology” wins in the form of capital, we are then presented with the “end of work” and the perpetuation of “neoliberal democracy”, in other words of the capitalist system.
On the contrary, when putting the problem into its right perspective, the clash that takes place involves capital and work. On the one hand, capital as a social relationship and as a historical mode of production –which no longer express anybody, except a sad bunch of mischievous warmongers, who commit continuous crimes against humanity and civilization- is incapable of providing solutions to the problems of society and humanity and is also unable to bring progress in the next phase. On the other hand, work as a totality, with all its peaceful and creative forms, represents, as the creator of global wealth and civilization, the whole of humanity. Hence, the resolution of this conflict will unavoidably be linked to the following:
a) the defeat of obscure myths regarding “divine will” and ideological fabrications involving concepts like “free market” and eternity of capitalism.
b) the end of capital as a social relationship and historical mode of production. And consequently,
c) it will be linked to the triumph of the forces that support unified work, socially sensitive science and universal civilization.
These forces will prepare the next steps towards progress in order for humanity to attain a better world, the world of Liberty and Equality, Democracy of Direct Consultation and Civilization of Ecumenical Humanism.20
*
NOTES
1 Francis Fukuyama, The end of History and the Last Man, Livanis publications, Athens1992., (greek edition).
2 Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, Livanis publications, Athens 1996, (greek edition).
15 Jacques Attali, Millennium. Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order, Random House, New York 1991, p. 101, refers to Rifkin, The End of Work, p. 64.
16 «Capital is not a thing but a specific social relationship of production, belonging to a specific socio-historical formation and this relationship is depicted as a “thing”, which in this way acquires a specific social character »: Marx Karl, Das Kapital, vol. 25, p. 822.
17 Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Boukoumanis publications, Athens 1974, (greek edition).
20 See also, Kostas Lambos, «The 21st Century Humanism is our Humanism», in www.Infonewhumanism.blogspot.com, 21 November 2007 and www.monthlyreview.gr, 30 November 2007.
Athens, 17 August 2008
_______________________________
* Kostas Lambos (prodial21@gmail.com) holds s PhD in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin. He has taught History of Economic Theories and European Economic history at the University of Macedonia, State and Greek experience of Development, Technology and Labour relations at the National School of Public Administration and also Economic Planning and Cooperative Economy at the Athens Technological Institute (TEI). He is a prolific writer and his articles have been published in the Monthly Review magazine and website since 1982.
(Esay über die sozialen Funktionen und die ökonomischen Nebenwirkungen der Furcht, als auch über die Rolle der Linke unter den Bedingungen der Globalisierung)
Von Dr Kostas D. Lambos
(Kurze Zusammenfassung)
Die natürliche Furcht hat sich während des letzten Jahrhunderts, von individueller, biologischer und gelegentlicher lebensrettender Alarm zu einem globalen machtgierigen lebenstötenden Albtraum umgewandelt.
Wir fürchten uns nicht mehr der Gefahr entgegenzutreten oder unser Leben zu retten, sondern wir werden ununterbrochen und systematisch bedroht und eingeschüchtert.
Wir werden beängstigt, um uns zu unterwerfen. Wir werden beängstigt, um uns beherrschen zu lassen. Wir werden beängstigt, um uns ausbeuten zu lassen, damit die reiche zu unserem Lasten reicher werden. Und schließlich wir werden beängstigt, um ständig und überhaupt Furcht vor jedem Machthaber zu haben. Wir leben schon lange her im Zeitalter der Furcht, wir leben in eine Furchtzivilisation.
Vor wen und warum haben wir aber Angst? Ich meine, dies kann nur die bisherige Geschichte der Menschheit beantworten. Gleichzeitig glaube ich aber, dass es nicht das Schicksal bzw. die Zukunft der Menschheit ist oder sein darf.
Deswegen versuchen wir mit diesem Buch die Zusammenhänge zwischen Furcht und Macht, Reichtum, Armut und Verfall zu untersuchen. Wir untersuchen alle Fürchte. Sowohl die kleinen als auch die großen und die ganz großen, d.h. die Weltfürchte bis auf die Furcht der neoliberallen Globalisierung. Und wir untersuchen sie von allen Seiten. Von innen und von außen. Allgemein und speziell.
Warum befassen wir uns mit der Furchtuntersuchung? Einfach um die Furcht zu überwinden. Um uns vor irgendwelcher Macht nicht mehr zu fürchten. Vor nichts und vor niemandem, auch vor der Furcht selbst. Um zu lernen ohne Furcht, frei und glücklich zu leben und zusammenleben.
Lesen Sie dieses Buch, wenn Sie Furcht haben, sei es auch Angst oder Phobie, vor Leben, Tod, Gott, Krieg, ‘Grossen Bruder’, Pax Americana, ‘Fremden’, Arbeitsgeber, Spiegel, eigenem Schatten und zuletzt, aber nicht als letztlich vor Armut, Zukunft, Freiheit, Ungerechtigkeit und vor allem vor den kleinen und/oder vor den großen, legalen oder illegalen Mafia, die unser Leben hemmungslos und systematisch ruinieren...und falls Sie etwas besseres vorzuschlagen haben, dann behalten Sie es nicht nur für sich allein. Diskutieren Sie darüber, protestieren, beanspruchen, widerstehen und fangen Sie sofort an, an eine bessere und gerechtere Welt zu träumen und für sie zu kämpfen.
Sie können sogar, ab sofort, als der Mensch von Morgen und nicht der von Gestern versuchen in diese Neue Welt, soviel wie möglich, wirklich zu leben. Aber ab Heute und nicht ab Morgen, denn der Morgen wird Übermorgen Gestern sein. Deshalb beeilen Sie sich, frei und glücklich, ohne Furcht und mit viel zukunftskreativem Pathos zu leben und mitzuleben.
Kurz über den Inhalt und die Architektur dieses Buches:
Furcht und Ökonomie: Hier werden die Zusammenhängen zwischen Furcht und Macht, die sozioökonomischen Funktionen, sowie auch ihre Folgen, wie Hunger, Durst, Krieg und Umweltkatastrophe der unter Globalisierung sich befindeten Menschheit untersucht.
Furcht und Verteilung des Weltreichtums: Hier wird die Furcht des Amerikanismus, als Furcht vor der Globalisierung bzw. vor der Pax Americana und ihre Rolle bei der Verteilung des Weltreichtums, sowie die Furcht des Antiamerikanismus, bzw. des weltweiten Widerstandes gegen Amerikanismus untersucht.
Einige Nebenwirkungen der Furcht zur Umverteilung des Einkommens in Griechenland: Hier werden die wichtigsten Gesichter des griechischen ‘mafia economic systems’ und seine Nebenwirkungen zu einer weiteren Umverteilung des Familieneinkommens der Armen zugunsten tagtäglichen Mafiosen, die die Furcht erwecken, organisieren und verwalten, untersucht.
Die Furcht des Gesetzes: Dieses Kapitel befasst sich mit der Natur der bürgerlichen Gesetzgebung, der in ihr verkörperten Furcht und strukturellen Gewalt, sowie mit den Konsequenzen dieser ‘ungerechten Gerechtigkeit, bzw. gerechten Ungerechtigkeit’.
Die Furcht der Freiheit: Hier wird versucht die historisch bedingte Furcht der Menschen vor dem Neuen, vor der Zukunft, vor der Freiheit zu beleuchten.
Kampf für einen Neuen Ökumenischen Humanismus: Die Antwort zur Furcht: Hier wird versucht einen Ausweg von der zentral und gewaltig strukturierten Furchtzivilisation des Kapitalismus, bzw. von der „Zivilisation des Todes“, zu der glocal (global+lokal) strukturierten Ökumenischen Humanistischen Kultur, eine Kultur ohne Furcht, die «Kultur der vergesellschaftlichten Menschheit» zu beschreiben.
Ein furchtfreies Werk, mutig, realistisch und überzeugend dokumentiert.
(Essay on the social functions and the economical side effects of fear, as well as on the role of the Left Party under conditions of globalization)
By Dr Kostas D Lambos
(Short summary)
During the last century, the natural fear -which used to be an individual, biological and occasionally live saving alarm- has been converted to a global live-killing nightmare with a greed for power.
We are not any longer afraid to face the danger or save our lives, but we are continuously and systematically threatened and intimidated.
We become frightened in order to submit ourselves. We become frightened to control ourselves. We become frightened to let ourselves be exploited, in order for the rich to become richer to our detriment. Finally we become frightened to constantly fear every master. We already live for a long time in the age of fear, we live in a fear civilization.
But why and who are we afraid of ? I think this question can be answered only by the hitherto existing history of mankind. At the same time, however, I believe that this situation is not and it should not be the destiny or the future of mankind.
Therefore, we try with this book to analyze the relationships between fear and power, wealth, poverty and decline. We examine all kinds of fear. The small, the large as well as the very large ones, i.e. from the world-fears up to the new-liberal fear for globalization. And we will examine it from all sides. Internal and external. Generally and particularly.
Why are we concerned with the investigation of fear? We do it simply in order to overcome the fear. So that we do not any longer fear any supremacy. Anything and anybody, even the fear itself. In order to learn to live freely and happily together, without fear.
Read this book if you have a fear, even if it is a fright or phobia, of life, death, God, war, “big brother”, Pax Americana, “strangers”, employer, “Spiegel”, one’s own shadow and last but not least of poverty, future, liberty, injustice and particularly the small and/or the big, legal or illegal Mafia, which ruin our lives unrestrained and systematically and if you have to suggest something better, then don’t keep it only for yourself. Discuss it, protest, claim, resist and begin immediately to dream of a better and fairer world and fight for it.
You can even try immediately, as humans of tomorrow and not yesterday’s, to live in this new world as much consciously as possible. But do it from today on and don’t wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow will be yesterday the day after tomorrow. Therefore hurry up to live without fear, free and happy and with a lot of creative pathos for the future.
Brief summary of the content and the structure of this book:
Fear and economics: Here are investigated the relationships between fear and power, the socio-economic functions, as well as its consequences, like hunger, thirst, war and environmental disaster of mankind which remains under globalization conditions.
Fear and distribution of the world wealth: The Americanism, as fear of the globalization and/or of the Pax Americana and their role in the distribution of the world wealth, as well as the fear of anti-Americanism, and/or the world-wide resistance against Americanism is examined here.
Some side effects of the fear for the redistribution of the income in Greece: The most important faces of the Greek “mafia economic system” and its side effects to a further redistribution of the poor-family income in favour of day-to-day Mafiosi, which arouse, organize and administrate fear, are examined here.
The fear of the law: This chapter is concerned with the nature of the civil legislation, its embodied fear and structural force, as well as with the consequences of these “unfair justice” and/or “fair injustice”.
The fear of liberty: A try is given here to highlight the historically caused fear that the humans have of something that is new, of the future and of freedom.
Fight for a new universal Humanism: The answer to the fear: An attempt is made here to describe a way out of that central and enormous structured civilization of fear and/or of the “Civilization of Death”, to the glocal (global+local)-structured universal Humanistic culture, a culture without fear, the "culture of the socialized mankind".
A book free of fear, courageously, realistically and convincingly documented.
"Ο Ουμανισμός του 21ου Αιώνα δεν μπορεί παρά να σημαίνει τη λαχτάρα, την προσπάθεια και την ικανότητά μας, ως ανθρωπότητα, να σκουπίσουμε το δάκρυ από τα μάτια της Μάνας-Φύσης και να ξανακάνουμε το άδολο χαμόγελό της, το συναρπαστικό φαινόμενο της ζωής, τη ζωή μας την ίδια, έργο τέχνης, πηγή δημιουργικής οικουμενικής ευτυχίας και αιώνιο στολίδι αυτού του αναρχοατελεύτητου και μεγαλοπρεπούς Σύμπαντος".
On the common road to the culture of homo humanisticus universalis, on the common road for a better future of the Humanity
The Initiative for Dialogue for a New Humanism
The Initiative for Dialogue for a New Humanism, represented by Kostas Lampos, is a cycle of thinking people, who care for Greece, Europe and the world on its whole. A cycle of people that is in constant and relentless conflict with any kind of oppressive authority and obscurantism and fights for Direct Democracy, Classless Society and Ecumenical Humanism.
Η Πρωτοβουλία Διαλόγου για ένα Νέο Ουμανισμό που εκπροσωπείται από τον Κώστα Λάμπο, είναι ένας κύκλος ατόμων που αγωνιά για το μέλλον της Ελλάδας, της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης και του κόσμου ολόκληρου και αγωνίζεται ενάντια στην καπιταλιστική βαρβαρότητα και σε κάθε μορφής σκοταδισμού και εξουσίας, για Άμεση Δημοκρατία, Αταξική Κοινωνία και Οικουμενικό Ουμανισμό.
