PowerSwitch

Posted: **17 Jul 2015, 18:33**

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/j ... lism-begun

Without us noticing, we are entering the postcapitalist era.

At the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy.

The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian.

Meanwhile in the absence of any alternative model, the conditions for another crisis are being assembled. Real wages have fallen or remained stagnant in Japan, the southern Eurozone, the US and UK.

The shadow banking system has been reassembled, and is now bigger than it was in 2008. New rules demanding banks hold more reserves have been watered down or delayed.

Meanwhile, flushed with free money, the 1% has got richer.

Impeccable logic. Thanks Paul for an excellent article.

Posted: **19 Jul 2015, 17:53**

He's a mate of Varoufakis's

And that is a seriously good article. I will buy his book on the 30th July.

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 02:11**

One question? Why would any one percenter Capitalist do anything that would diminish his customers ability to buy and pay for his product or reduce his supplier's ability to deliver him raw material?

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 03:31**

vtsnowedin wrote: One question? Why would any one percenter Capitalist do anything that would diminish his customers ability to buy and pay for his product or reduce his supplier's ability to deliver him raw material?

Aw...bless

You think these people are clever and far sighted don't you.....

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 08:25**

And anyway it's not in the percenter capitalist's gift. The automation of which Mason speaks destroys the added value of labour and thus the wealth generation to be exploited.

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 08:47**

The point about automation is that it has reduced the need for (and value of) labour. This is a big driver towards inequality. (or moreso perhaps emphasising the inherent inequality of human beings).

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 09:25**

However automation almost always uses more energy (in operation or construction of the machinery ) than the human human labour that it replaces. In the age of limits and excess people, we are going to go back to human labour sooner or later.

Greece is probably at about that point now.

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 11:06**

I am not sure that is true. Humans in terms of food consumption for energy output are not that efficient. Obviously if a human being, for example, is pulling a plough that human being is going to use a lot more food than pressing buttons on a computer or driving a tractor.

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 11:18**

johnhemming2 wrote:I am not sure that is true. Humans in terms of food consumption for energy output are not that efficient. Obviously if a human being, for example, is pulling a plough that human being is going to use a lot more food than pressing buttons on a computer or driving a tractor.

I don't think you understood the point being made.

Pressing the button isn't more efficient, because it requires a massive input of fossil fuels or other industrially-collected energy. Purely in terms of converting chemical energy (from fats and sugars) into physical work, human/animal metabolism is second to none. Apart from a small amount of heat, which is a problem in the tropical environment we evolved in, there is no wastage at all.

Horses that eat "sun-powered" plants pulling a plough turn sunlight into work done far more efficiently than, for example, an electrically-driven plough powered by solar panels.

Posted: **20 Jul 2015, 11:19**

PS_RalphW wrote:However automation almost always uses more energy (in operation or construction of the machinery ) than the human human labour that it replaces.

I think that misses the point of the kind of automation that Mason (and Fleming 30 years earlier) is talking about. We're not talking about a mechanical digger versus a team of swarthy labourers.

Posted: **13 Aug 2015, 12:26**

Along the same lines as Paul Mason:

Paul Rosenberg: It's 460AD in Rome: This won't be fixed

Paul Rosenberg wrote: Let me be clear on this: Once ruling hierarchies get beyond a certain point, they cannot be reformed. And I am sure that the modern West is beyond that point.
•Do we really believe that central bankers will just lay down their monopolies?
•Can we seriously expect a hundred trillion dollars of debt to be liquidated without any consequences?
•Do we actually believe that politicians will walk away from their power and apologize for abusing us?
•Do we really think that the corporations who own Congress will just give up the game that is enriching them?
•Does anyone seriously believe that the NSA is going to say, “Gee, that Fourth Amendment really is kind of clear, and everything we do violates it… so, everyone here is fired and the last person out will please turn off the lights”?
•And does anyone believe that the military-industrial complex will stop encouraging war, or that corporate media will stop worshiping the state, or that your local sheriff will apologize for training his cops to be vicious beasts?
•Do we really believe that public school systems will ever stop lauding the state that pays all its bills?

I could go on, but I think my point is made: This system will never allow itself to be seriously reformed. Trying to fix this is like trying to revive a long-dead corpse.

The systems that rule the West will fail.

Whether the wider Western civilization fails is up to us: Do we have civilization inside of us? Or was it all just a pattern that we followed?

More and more I feel like we are witnessing the Neo-liberal equivalent of the collapse of the USSR. Both have strikingly similar traits - autocratic, an adherence to a failing ideology, out of touch with reality.
We know how the break=up of the USSR went. Are we prepared for a similar outcome here?

Posted: **13 Aug 2015, 17:38**

raspberry-blower wrote:More and more I feel like we are witnessing the Neo-liberal equivalent of the collapse of the USSR. Both have strikingly similar traits - autocratic, an adherence to a failing ideology, out of touch with reality.
We know how the break=up of the USSR went. Are we prepared for a similar outcome here?

So, which state assets will you buy for a song to make your billions with?

Of course, I'm assuming there are any left by then...

Posted: **13 Aug 2015, 19:34**

cubes wrote:
raspberry-blower wrote:More and more I feel like we are witnessing the Neo-liberal equivalent of the collapse of the USSR. Both have strikingly similar traits - autocratic, an adherence to a failing ideology, out of touch with reality.
We know how the break=up of the USSR went. Are we prepared for a similar outcome here?
So, which state assets will you buy for a song to make your billions with?

Of course, I'm assuming there are any left by then...

TPTB will have their greedy mitts on them before they are forced to do a re-enactment of The Last Flight From Saigon

Posted: **16 Aug 2015, 21:02**

biffvernon wrote:
PS_RalphW wrote:However automation almost always uses more energy (in operation or construction of the machinery ) than the human human labour that it replaces.
I think that misses the point of the kind of automation that Mason (and Fleming 30 years earlier) is talking about. We're not talking about a mechanical digger versus a team of swarthy labourers.

Why aren't we? You think that type of work is not still being done.
From My summers work. A half mile or new sewer pipe in a trench ten to fifteen feet deep and at least six feet wide. Do the math.

Posted: **16 Aug 2015, 21:55**

vtsnowedin wrote: Why aren't we? You think that type of work is not still being done.

No, I think you misunderstood. Of course that sort of work is still being done! I think that Ralph's point was that replacing men and shovels with a mechanical digger, while it may save a lot of sweat, does actually use more energy. The oil consumed by the machine has more Joules than the food eaten by the men.

But my point was that this is not the sort of automation that Paul Mason is writing about.

(We had a CAT digger like that digging the trenches for our ground source heat pump a couple of months ago. Awesome thing.)

PowerSwitch

Paul Mason - The end of capitalism has begun

Paul Mason - The end of capitalism has begun