Inflation, Wages and Profit

How the Capitalists make their Capital!

What are the causes and the role of Inflation in a Capitalist Economy? To the ordinary, working citizen, it seems to indicate a rise in prices, not only when their wages are kept fixed, but also always over and above that crucial income, and recurring year after year. So, clearly it is always an extra added to the overall costs of production.

It, clearly, isn’t in either the customers’, or the workers’ interests. So let’s consider how it happens, and what excuses for it, are trotted out by those who always actually benefit from it!

Argument one: It is always offset by wage rises in line with inflation!

No, it isn’t! Prices rise all the time, but wage awards, if you are very lucky, happen only annually. So, only after the cumulative effects of a year’s inflation have been suffered, are the wages risen to “the same rate”.

You won’t have been spending it, when the prices were actually rising, but only in the following year, while inflation is, still, all the time, rising prices further.
Even if you get the exact same %age rise as the inflation at that point, you will still lose every single year!

They will never give you a rise to cover the coming inflation!

Argument two: We will recoup those increases by selling abroad!

Not necessarily so, I’m afraid, for if inflation abroad is less that it is at home, they will buy our exports cheaper than what we made them for. We are constantly told about exports to other countries being invaluable, but NOT if our inflation outstrips theirs”
And, if inflation in the receiving country is more than ours, then they cannot buy as much of it: it will be too dear!

Argument three: We can avoid home inflation by buying our necessary resources to go into our manufactures abroad.

But, that will only work if the suppying country has high inflation, if it has low inflation the exact opposite will be the case!

Finally, various overall factors can severely change these relationships. If circumstances outwith a particular country, cause a severe drop in trade, as with the 2008 worldwide slump, then the necessary wherewithall within each country to pay for many things is severely reduced, and in a Capitalist country, the employers will lay off workers, and also change the conditions under which they employ anybody else will be considerably reduced.

Now, such a discussion as this, cannot be carried onwithout any reference to Profit¬ For, the main purpose of Capitalism is to make Profits – for these accrue to the owners of the means of production, who use them to ensure an ever better life, and as accrued Capital for re-investment.

Profit is the most important thing in a Capitalist Economy!

So, what is it and where does it come from? If economic transactions balanced out perfectly: that is if costs exactly balanced income, then Capitalism couldn’t work! The necessary change has to be the ADDING of a necessary profit to prices charged for goods and services produced. Things MUST cost more if they are to produce this crucial extra! In a way it is similar to the effect of inflation, but it always has the same purpose. It goes to the investors in, or owners within, the producing country. They get an annual dividend, determined by how much their investment is now worth (whatever it was originally). It is produced by an added increase in price over and above all costs of production.

Now, this may sound reasonable, but it certainly isn’t!

For, not only can they get these dividends for many years, without any of it reducing their invested amount, but they can sell their investment at a significant different kind of profit, if the company is successful!

One way or another ALL the proceeds of Capitalist enterprises go ONLY to the Owners and Investors. And, clearly, if the level of workers pay can be restricted, it naturally increases the profits.It is interesting where this econd kind of profit comes from! It is, clearly, from those who buy the goods produced, – and they can be workers too!

Longstanding and large dividends make investment in such a company very lucrative, so investors will pay a premium to get in on the act!

Now, if there exists a permanent inflationary situation, with prices constantly rising, and that isn’t reflected in in consequent rises in wages, then that TOO will end up as profit! FACT: an ordinary house in 1965 may have cost £2,750 –while in 2015, the same thing costs roughly £275,000 a hundred times more. That is also inflation – as it shows itself in house prices.

Of course, that still isn’t the full story

For, after such a slump, when taking on a new worker, employers will, if they can get away with it, be paid less than the prior rate.

Profit is sacrosanct in Capitalism!

So, from such an outset, a margin will be built into prices (or extracted from wages) to ensure that Vital Profit! So, in a simplified form, we now have the system clearly defined!

• First, the worker is always paid less than he or she should get.

• Second, prices are manipulated in the same way to guarantee regular profits!

• Third, both of these extract a surplus from workers to pay this profit to the capitalists!

Clearly, inflation is always the enemy of the Working Classes; because even if they get a rise “in line with current Inflation”, it will occur AFTER they have been getting paid and buying required goods at these constantly inflated prices. By the end of that year, therefore, they will have been buying things at prices ABOVE the rise thay had received. And, if they then get a similar in line with inflation rise, they will be paid fairly only once: for the rest of the year thay will be paying at inflated prices that they have not received enough to cover..

See the following diagram, which shows not only exactly how this works, but also gives how it should would so that workers are not ripped off!

The diagram with its “minus signs” shows how inflationary rises rip off workers at a fixed rate of pay!

Clearly, you can see why, in the present depressed state of World Capitalism, the bankers require a measure of Inflation; In the U.K. they have a required target of 2%.

Why do YOU think that is?

Why Capitalism is failing...

Amazing speech from Richard Wolff

The Crucial Outstanding Tasks for Marxist Theorists

Gustav Klutsis

What is to be Done: IX

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

The very unavoidability of the Origin of Life on Earth could NOT be tidied away. It demanded explanation, and slowly but surely using Life as a template method, initial definitions of Emergences as radically transforming Natural Events began to be formulated.

Surprisingly, these were NOT lead by the Marxists. Instead, individuals and small groups of scientists began to formulate these generally.

Many Wrong Turnings

Various diverse groups embraced the area of study “from their own discipline standpoints”. Green campaigners were enamoured of the approach, but did little to develop it scientifically (Lovelock comes to mind). The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Laughlin in opposition to the consensus in Modern Physics also lined up on the side of Emergences. Emmeche from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen published a joint paper with two colleagues from other areas of study espousing the Emergentist approach, and finally Murray Gell-Mann and colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute in America also insisted that they were ”of the same persuasion”. But though I suppose that these were a significant and diverse group of supporters of the idea of Emergence, I’m afraid that they did not turn any significant corners. They were, of course, ill equipped to address the real problems and tasks involved, for these were unavoidably philosophical. In addition it turns out to be impossible for anyone to make contributions in this field who are still following the standard pluralist approach of the majority of scientists. It is clear to me that such researchers, no matter how dedicated, cannot overcome the problems inherent in the pluralist approach. After all, the most essential feature of Emergences MUST be that they are creative! In the same way that Evolution was incessantly punctuated by the entirely New, and involved a regular opening up of new Potential and Form, so it was with all Emergences. The creative aspect of these Events was anathema to most thinkers.

The iron grip of strict Determinism on the one hand, and still-existing religion on the other, were sure they had ALL the answers already. They had always had the answers, of course! To depart from strict Determinism was condemned as Metaphysics on the left hand side, and Sacrilege on the right.

The epitome of the Scientific approach was embodied in the work of Holland (at Santa Fe), who along with ALL his colleagues it seems, was convinced that he could “demonstrate” Emergences via
Computer Simulations.

Forgive me while I fall about laughing uncontrollably. The idea that a retrospective form such as a computer simulation could possibly produce creative Emergences was unbelievable. But, remarkably, that turned out to be the Determinist/Reductionist consensus. Quite clearly such people could never tackle the problem: the Emergence of Life on Earth could never be addressed merely by a re-mix approach.. All they would be able to do is emasculate it! They might be able to turn it into a vehicle for their careers, but they could never address its true essence.

So, Who Could Tackle This Problem? It should be obvious WHO should be doing this work. IT IS YOU!

Indeed, as far as I can see ONLY dialectical materialists could ever address the questions posed in this area. With a multi-discipline approach, and taking in ALL the developments since the time of the great Marxists, we should attempt a Marxist description of Emergent Events, and to do this believably, we must first tackle, then reveal, and finally destroy the prevailing scientific consensus methodology based on Plurality. We must bring about the demise of Reductionist Determinism as the main barrier to progress in this crucial area ( as well as many others)

The undertaking is about Epistemology – the task of understanding and explaining Reality, and about Method – the means by which we do this. The established methodology CANNOT address what we must deal with here, so we must first criticize fully, and then replace, the old methods. We must see the flaws in the old reductionist/Determinist methods and define the necessary alternatives. Not Plurality, But a New Holistic Science.

Now, earlier in this paper, I already intimated that Plurality is not only a purely pragmatic approach to the study of Reality, but also, and unavoidably, imposes the consequent conceptions of Determinism and Reductionism upon how we see things as a whole. These ideas “unify” our global conceptions into what seems like a coherent and comprehensive Whole. But, it is merely a useful myth.

Its opposite, Holism, fared even worse, for though seemingly more all-embracing, still delivered NO effective methodology with which to deal with Reality, and, in any sort of scientific way, reveal its inner workings. So, we are presented with this pair of alternatives, neither of which is adequate to the required task. Therefore, though it seems incomprehensible, our task is defined as having to work through this dichotomous pair to another, different approach, which really does reflect the real situation.

We must explain in detail how these alternatives have in the past only led us astray, and following this attempt a synthesis which transcends their evident contradiction.

No easy task!

First, we must reveal the unavoidable dead-ends involved in a purely pluralistic methodology, and then without clanging over to the opposite extreme of ineffective Holism, point the way instead to a superior methodology.

Of course, such a task is a supreme undertaking, and of course, way too big for a single paper, or even for a single contributor. But a start must be made, for only by such actions will other additional forces be recruited to this fundamental task.

Charlie Chaplin

What is Wrong with Pluralist Technology?

Let us first establish irrefutably the limitations of the now universally established Pluralistic Method. By the processes of isolation, extraction and abstraction we separate embedded relations from their Real World context, control or ignore formative, as well as seemingly trivial, simultaneous factors, and then limit the ground for their intended use, so that they do indeed deliver what is required when used there.

We construct stepping-stones across the veritable river of changing Reality, without tackling the torrent as such. Of course - we are aware that each and every extraction is limited to its own Domain of Applicability – our secure stepping stones, and that if their limits are transgressed, our formulae fail, and we step into the midst of the torrent, and are swept away to oblivion.(For once beyond these limits the formulae are totally useless and give false values for all crucial variables). Indeed, the experienced user of these methods knows, that to ensure any progress, we must abandon our last stepping stone for another in the next Domain.

Our feeble attempts at transcending these boundaries automatically are similar to constructing makeshift bridges from one stepping stone to the next. Such “bridges” can only be retrospective, as each and every stepping stone has to be separately investigated to produce its pluralistic formulae. Only then can these purely artificial bridges be constructed.

The method is what I call “Additive Complexity”, where the various Domains and their formulae, become different “terms” within a cover-all single equation. The terms are integrated in such a way that as we move from one domain to the next, the old term vanishes, while the appropriate new one comes into dominance. It is a clever (and once again pragmatic) trick. But it delivers NO explanation of the transition at all. It is a purely retrospective frig, to deliver a practical, mindless solution..

Though, highly popular amongst engineers, these frigs tell us nothing about what is actually happening, and why. They could not by any stretch of the imagination be called Science. They are mere Technology!

It HAS to be asked, “What is really happening as we move across such boundaries?”

It is abundantly clear that our pluralistic methods cannot address this question, because the answer MUST be contained within the VERY FACTORS that we have either “nailed to the floor” or totally ignored. Clearly, our selection of what was vital, ceases to be true. Our banker, dominant factors will melt away and themselves become negligible, to be replaced by others from those we cast away. Indeed, the very factors necessary to deliver the changes are unavailable, as our pluralistic methods disposed of them as irrelevant.

This post is the ninth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is now available as a Special Issue. Read it all here!

A Necessary and Revolutionary Change

What is to be Done: VIII

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

Most of our established methods assume immutability and seem to have served us very well. Even Formal Logic would crumble if nothing stays the same – if all things were in constant change into other things! 

Systems of rationality, such as Euclidian Geometry would surely prove to be mere invention? It is clear that we are reaching the nitty-gritty in a number of separate and vital ways. 

Once again, our dichotomous imperative drives us towards the precipice of contradiction. We immediately assume that Change undermines everything, and all our achievements grounded firmly on permanence will be thrown away. But as they say on the cover of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy – DON’T PANIC! 

We have to see Stability within Change to cope with these problems. 

Stability & Change 

The reason that we succeed with our immutability assumptions is that Reality is MOSTLY stable – indeed, it is actually self-regulatingly stable as its primary mode. It keeps itself stable most of the time, in spite of constant minor changes. In spite of the holistic Whole of innumerable contending factors and the bottom to top, and side to side mediations, these do NOT generally lead to total Chaos. And the reason is that there are also stabilising top to bottom mediations that constantly adjust to keep a maintainable balance. The normal situation is that destabilising factors are countered by changes by the rest of Reality, producing periods of relative stability, where assumptions of |immutability are approximately and usefully true. 

BUT, all this is NOT to say that immutability is therefore the Truth. It isn’t! 

Behind the temporary stability, there is always an incipient instability, which DOES lead to Change of various kinds. The most conducive Changes we term Evolutionary, while the cataclysmic changes we term Revolutions! 

Emergences! 

Within the tiny DOT of our span of existence, Reality has been relatively stable, changing only in an evolutionary way, but as soon as we expand the timescale beyond this DOT, we see Reality as subject to the most drastic and far reaching revolutions, where everything can be overturned. 

These are termed Emergences, and are most clearly and exhaustively categorised by a single stupendous and irrefutable example – The Origin of Life on Earth! 

Do you doubt that this Revolution occurred? 

The evidence is indisputable!. And as they say in Logic “There exists a…….”, which implies that others of a similar nature must also be possible, indeed likely. Now, working up a generality from a particular is not to be recommended as a reliable process, but the very existence of a particular of such vast and far reaching importance, does at least infer that it is one of many. 

So though we can establish that such a category of Events does exist we cannot fully define that generality. To do that we must have available a whole range of examples, within which we are able to discern the commonalities that can be seen to DEFINE the category. 

Nonetheless, the Origin of Life is pretty special. Whatever is wrong with this back-to-front method, its existence does pose a whole series of vital questions which strike at the heart of our previous (and now rapidly dissolving) assumptions. and if for nothing else the indisputable occurrence of that Event does prove the case foe other such Events – for Emergences as regular, if rare, creative Revolutions. 

But, as I have already intimated, such things don’t happen very often, indeed NEVER within the time on earth of Mankind, so in chasing the nature of these important happenings, we have no choce but to take what is available. 

G.W.F. Hegel

Friedrich Hegel 

The really fundamental work on this area was undertaken WITHOUT full consciousness of a physical significance or even of a sociological aspect. 

The crucial work was done by Hegel, when “Thinking about Thought!”. He too was preoccupied, as Zeno had been, with the limitations our our universally agreed assumptions and premises, but these occurred primarily, and to his way of seeing essentially, in Human Thinking.He cringed at the absence of Change in Formal Logic, for he was perfectly well aware of the trajectory of Thought itself, which was shot through with Realisation and new conceptions. To consider Thought without addressing Change was moronic. He became intent upon the need for a Logic of Change to replace Formal Logic. 

He could conceive of only one area of study to develop this new Logic, and that was obviously in dealing with the trajectories and achievements of Human Thinking, and despite, once again, it being a non-objective way to do it, he felt that he had no choice but to trace the pathways and the poetry of effective Thinking, and reveal ITS LOGIC. 

His contributions (in the esoteric area of Philosophy) were a total revolution, and left a mark on Humanity still evident to the present day. He was able to show that Emergences (though he didn’t call them that) were in fact legion within Thought, and he attempted to map their diverse trajectories. A whole generation of disciples (The Young Hegelians) mushroomed up around this significant work, and it was they who realised the universal nature of his “Emergences"

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

They, and most particularly, Karl Marx, widened the subjects of study to include History, Economics, Science and Social Development – indeed, Marx had the objective of widening the sphere to include the Whole gamut of Human Endeavour and study. Indeed, he was intent upon that crucial area of Social Emergences - or Revolutions, (and in particular the French Revolution) which he saw as evidence of Emergences occurring everywhere and at every possible Level. 

But, though vast strides were made by the Marxists, it has to be remembered WHEN they did their work – in the latter half of the 19th century. 

Though what was available in Science was avidly annexed to the new approach, there was still a paucity of areas for detailed studies. Just as with Hegel and Thought, so with the Marxists, the obviously available and vital area was clearly the Social Revolution. The unavoidably aberrant growth switched from Thought to Politics. Such interludes were lopsided but essential nevertheless, and they brought significant results. 

Active Philosophy - Revolution 

The next generation carried out the FIRST conscious Social Revolution in October 1917 in Russia. 

Now, this is not a political essay, but no-one can deny the vital contribution of Marxism in this essential undertaking. The path was unavoidable, yet crucial, sothere need to be no apologies for what was achieved. For, it was, as usual the problem of pulling ourselves up by our own bootlaces. 

Undelivered Application 

The general study of Emergences was NOT undertaken. By this I mean the must-have-occurred Emergences in the development of Reality as a whole, which includes the Emergence of the Origin of Life on Earth, and the obviously following cascade of Emergences involved in the subsequent Evolution of Life itself. 

In spite of the importance of such Events throughout the full history of Reality, this approach was neglected and indeed “elbowed out” by the well established methodologies of Science and Formal argument. The consensus attitude omitted addressing Emergences at all! 

Indeed, they were dismissed as self-kid! 

A mechanistic alternative ruled the roost, and because of the evident inadequacies of such an approach, substituted a pragmatic patchwork of separate Domains, for any attempt at a coherent, comprehensive and integrated Emergentist perspective. 

And it still pertains to this day.

This post is the eighth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is now available as a Special Issue. Read it all here!

Explanation or Use?

What is to be Done: VII

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

We have a bifurcation between Explanation & Use.

For literally centuries these were only used as a "team of horses" and clever scientists (like circus performers) learned to "switch horses" whenever necessary with remarkable agility. But the horses got bigger and more powerful and began to wilfully pull into their own ìfavouredî directions. The circus act became more and more difficult.

The Crisis in Physics

In the early 20th century, the long established, classical explanations in Physics began to fail drastically in certain sub atomic areas.. The age old problems of Descretness and Continuity, first intimated by Zeno again raised their contradictory heads and the physicists were stumped.

They then did a remarkable thing.

They abandoned Explanation completely as unreliable, and plumped for depending entirely on their mathematical equations. This gave them prediction, so they could do things with their formulae, AND as these were Pure Form alone, these could be manipulated in any way they liked. AND used in Formal Proofs as well. Even Absolute Truth was available when only Pure Form was involved. So all in all their decision made life much, much easier.

The only "minor" difficulty was that you had to know which formula to use where, but such people were used to juggling ñ they just did it now SOLELY within the realms of Ideality (for perfect forms) and Reality (for Use).

Mining Ideality?

But. Explanation was never a mere luxury. The bran-bin of Forms just got increasingly packed full of separate, unrelated alternatives.

Some co-ordinating narrative was STILL essential to guide our disembodied maths-manipulators through a still-there Real World. They couldnít admit defeat and return to Explanation in the old sense, so they turned inwards to their maths formulae and studied them instead. They looked for Unity within their extracted Pure Forms (for they believed that THERE only could be found the true Essence of the situation. And they started initially looking for identifiable sub-forms. The Truth was in their formulae!

And they found such sub forms in abundance, and taking their cue from Einstein, labelled each of these as if they represented physical entities or properties. Initially, they gave them shame-faced names such as charm and strangeness, but very soon these names became ìvery likeî the names of actual physical entities ñ such as , for example, particles and properties.

The scientists had learned to"mine" Ideality for new entities and properties for some conceptual glue!

The new Abstraction Processes involved in this are shown in the Modified Abstraction Diagram (shown below) in the overlap between Science and Ideality regions.

The essential role of Reality as the supreme arbiter in Science had been overthrown. This role was now to be taken over by Mathematics.

The maths-derived entities are correctly shown WITHIN Ideality in the modified diagram below. Where else could they be? And the pernicious amalgam of classical explanation with these new forms is shown by process XIII as below:

Man --- Maths Forms --- New Entities --- Analogistic Models --- Maths Forms

Now, this is ONLY a diagram!

A full analysis of what Modern Physicists have being doing does exist, but we have a more general objective here and must press on without too many detailed diversions.

To proceed, we MUST return to the basic philosophical assumptions about Reality which underlie the whole of Mankindís Thinking. We have NO choice! We must address his basic assumptions critically, and find out where he has ìgone wrongî

Reality Evolves!

I have already mentioned Holism and Plurality, and the difficulties associated with this dichotomous pair, but there is an even more profound assumption (connected to these for sure, but even more far reaching). It is connected with the question, "Is Reality the result of a summation of independent Parts - a Complexity - or does it actually EVOLVE?"

The normal answer to this question is always the former, whereas the evidence is mounting that the latter HAS to be the Truth. Reality must have a history. It must change with Time. Indeed it must evolve creating ever NEW forms and possibilities. Now, this is not merely an assertion of belief. The evidence is all around us. We have only to LOOK!

On a hundred fronts it is clear that Reality DOES have a history of Change and Development, in which New things emerge and its very Nature changes profoundly.

But as soon as we bring in Change in this way, all hell breaks loose philosophically

• "If things change, why do they change?
• "If things change, how can we alight upon the elements of Reality in order to understand it?"
• "Is Reality totally self-moving, and actually creative in itself, or merely mechanistic?"
• "Can we deal with Everything in Reality with Matter & Energy alone?"

 - and of course, an abundance of other similar questions.

This post is the seventh in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is now available as a Special Issue. Read it all here!

The Early Solutions

What is to be Done: VI

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

Now, in spite of the difficulties with the current pluralistic forms, they had emerged fairly late in the history of Mankind, and throughout that long, long "prehistory" Man had developed OTHER important views on the World around him. Indeed, sometimes Reality itself seemed to be organising against him, and a holistic attitude to Nature was unavoidable. In addition Man was an intelligent animal, who had learned to intervene with Reality in order to survive and prosper. His own necessarily purposive actions coloured his World View, and he felt the need to endow purpose to Reality itself. He expected causes, just as he himself was the cause of many things in his day to day life. Of course, this led to animism and ultimately to a God, made in his own self-image, but it also expected useable causes to be available for dealing with Reality in general.

Contradiction Premise

Now this led to primitive versions of philosophy and science originally, and when Experiment finally arrived to invigorate his investigations, it also accompanied the experimental method as its Explanation. The tradition of looking for causes gelled with the extraction of relations and gave a meaningful narrative to those isolated achievements. Mankind developed Explanatory Science. But, this cosy idea of what Science became was a myth. Indeed, the experimental imperative was technological(?), whereas the explanatory imperative was surely scientific(?). These were NOT a perfectly matched pair!

Abstraction

Some years ago I realised this and determined to investigate. For a long time I kept tripping over my own incorrect basic assumptions and getting nowhere. But I finally settled on the man-made process at the heart of all of these diverse things. It was Abstraction!

I began to try to categarise exactly what Abstraction consisted of, and to effectively define it, started to conceive of the crucial Processes of Abstraction, and their resultant Products at various stages in a sequence of essential Abstraction Processes.

The task turned out to be prodigious!

For Mankind's earliest conceptions were also abstractions, So, I began to attempt to construct a sequential list of the Stages of Abstraction used by Mankind in his attempt to comprehend the World.

He certainly started with Observation, Recognition, Categorisation and a crude very speculative attempt at Explanation, but after the advent of Societies wonderful new forms appeared including Logic and Geometry.

The Processes and Productions of Abstraction

Finally, with the rise of Experimental science, the first true Theories began to emerge.. [I have written a great deal on this, under the title of The Processes and Productions of Abstraction, which has even culminated in a general overall Diagram. This figure attempts to relate the whole area as a single system] We cannot attempt here to replicate the whole of this extensive research here, but its final diagrammatic Form can be useful, and is reproduced here.

Now we must never lose sight of the fact that Abstraction is a man-made invention. It recognises diverse things in Reality which display features in common, and attempts to concretise this commonality under an appropriate Category Title, whose Name, then represents that commonality.

Note: This diagram is NOT the latest version, nor can it ever be, as it is constantly being revised and improved. But for the purposes of this paper it should prove quite adequate.

Once more the usual dichotomies and difficulties occur, due to our assumptions and premises, and even in Thinking and Thought ñ more particularly Abstraction ñ the bifurcations appeared which clearly showed TWO diverging roads which seemed impossible to merge.

Without this necessary excursion expanding into a veritable ìworld tourî, let us just concentrate on this parting of the ways. A brief explanation of the Diagram will be necessary.

Explanation of the Diagram

At the centre is the Active Element in the whole series of Processes ñ which is, of course, MAN, The background to the whole figure is, as it must be, Reality. While, in between these two there is an annulus containing the various Productions of Extraction ñ shown as labelled circles.

Between Man, Reality and the Products of Abstraction are the Arrowed Lines which represent the actual Processes of Abstraction. They too are numbered to both indicate their presumed sequence of use, and to allow them to be referred to precisely.

The earliest likely Processes can be seen to be fairly simple loops. From Man via Reality to the Product. Later the Processes take in previous Productions on route.

For example: Man via Categories to Objective Relations

The crucial Split occurs in the Science Region, where we have:-

VII --- Man --- Objective Relations --- Reality --- Analogistic Models

IX --- Man --- Objective Relations --- Maths Forms

Now, this is not a treatise on Abstraction, so the reader is asked to merely notice these TWO Processes.

Though the Process ending in Analogistic Models goes via Reality, and ends up within the Science region, the second alternative Process bypasses Reality and ends up in the World of Pure Form alone, which I have termed Ideality.

As you have probably guessed, I have highlighted these two because they reveal exactly where the most important problems arise. If we are to use our relations back in Reality itself, we have to go via this realm of Pure Form. Yet, it is a thoroughly laundered place. In it there is NO Reality, only Abstract Form. 

This post is the sixth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is now available as a Special Issue. Read it all here!

What is to be Done?

Read it here

Our continuing blog series on the importance of new Marxist theory is now also available as a Special Issue of the Shape Journal. 

An interesting video about gravity...

New Special Issue: Back Ways Up

Read it here

Understanding Reality does not merely involve the ascending of a simple staircase of key discoveries. It is clear that there are innumerable floors (or levels) in this “Mansion of Truth". Nevertheless, it is always very difficult to find the way up to the next floor, for no staircases are immediately evident, and to ever find the presumed Grand Processional Stairway just isn’t possible – for it doesn’t really exist!

Of course, it is easy to convince yourself that everything you need to know and understand will be available on the current landing (Level), especially as the number of available doors (study areas) seems infinite, and, crucially, if one door turns out to be useless, you can always switch to the door opposite (the alternative arm of the Dichotomy?), and try that!

Mankind’s basic, and still universal, Pragmatism ensures the maximum possible is extracted from each level, but cannot go any further in a coherent and comprehensive way, without transcending that current level’s impasses.

However, new "hidden staircases" are becoming apparent with real potential for revealing a breakthrough.

One is the investigation into the inexplicable Quantum Entanglement, while another is certainly possible with Nuclear Decay. Finally, a third possibility could well be in the genetic role in Evolution – particularly involving the so-called Junk DNA. And, there are many more such quandaries that are beginning to reveal possible ways up!

The following papers, mostly from December 2015, are perhaps the most fruitful concerning the required General Holistic Approach.

The Technological Revolution

What is to be Done: V

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

For several hundreds of years, Science has been flowering and equipping Mankind to investigate Reality, and bend sections of it to his own purposes. The modern world is the proof of this progress. But we must see why the tremendous series of advances have taken place. What was it in the Scientific Methodology that opened up the gates for such technological development?

Ask a scientist, and he will correctly tell you that the starting point was the turn to Experiment that vastly increased our Knowledge of Reality. So instead of mere discussion and Logic being the ONLY route to Truth, scientists insisted on carefully designed experiments to extract vast amounts of quantitative data, which could then be fitted up with pure mathematical forms for the purposes of reliable and useable predictions.

Measured Data as Primary Source

We must look much more closely at this process, for it is based on very ancient and well established premises, BUT applied for the first time with the possibility of control.

This ancient idea is termed Plurality, and involves seeing everything in the world as composed of Parts – indeed Plurality can be defined as “The Whole and the Part”. In spite of innumerable connections, mediations and determinations of all things with everything else, it is usually the first step in studying something to conceptually isolate it as an easily identified Part.

We Name it, and observe it with great care, to then move the same process on to identify its component Parts in turn.

Such a process historically usually didn’t get very far, because so many things were simultaneously involved. You couldn’t see the wood for the trees! Indeed, many crucial and causative factors were well hidden, and sometimes totally invisible, so such an undertaking frequently collapsed under the weight of multiple competing and hard to assess factors.

The Scientific Experimental Method and Use

But, Science finally appeared when sufficient was known to allow the absolutely essential control of a situation to maintain well defined and limited situations amenable to detailed study. The investigators “held down” as many variable factors as possible in any given situation to reveal ONLY a couple of variables free to change and openly display their mutual relation. Only when this sort of experiment could be carried out was the possibility of a Plurality inspired Science possible. This was the break through!

But, we must be very clear, an experiment is NOT a mere hands free observation of Reality. Quite the reverse! It first involves the process of isolation of the identified Part to be studied – both conceptually AND physically.

Now what was being achieved is that the scientists were artificially revealing a hidden (or at least obscured) relation within Reality for detailed and easy study. For the first time such relations were “made available” AND subsequently “matched” to Pure Relational Forms – mathematical formulae, which had over many years been extracted from Reality in a piecemeal way. But, they were ALWAYS definitely purified forms. Their “independence” was never established as such. for they never occurred alone in nature. 

Now, with the possibility of such experiments and extractions, accurate prediction was for the first time possible! And this led very quickly to purposive production. As long as the required and comprehensive Control was maintained, the derived “pure” formulae proved to be most definitely useable.

This whole extraction process can be most accurately encapsulated in the phrase isolate, extract and abstract.

The Fly in the Ointment

But, we must NOT assume that Mankind had discovered the golden, solve-everything methodology. He hadn’t! Experiment was a prodigious step-forward, but it both delivered and determined a particular direction of subsequent development. And, it cemented into our consciousness the erroneous Principle of Plurality. This leads to the conclusion that everything is composed of Parts, which can be be successively investigated, from sub-Part to sub-Part, all the way down to fundamental particles (or whatever were to be the irreducible minimal units of construction of Reality).

Reality was thus seen of as composed of a multiplicity of Parts. ALL phenomena were seen as a mere complication of successively more basic elements.

The full content of the World could be revealed by this magnificent Method! Thus, the Laplacian Concept of the nature of Reality was born! If we knew the positions and speeds of all the particles in the Universe, then the whole future could be accurately predicted in full detail and with certainty.

THAT, of course, is the flaw in this Methodology. And we must explain why that is the case!

Reality is not Pluralist: it is Holistic

Such a conception is an error because Reality is NOT so mechanist! For Reality includes Life, Consciousness and Evolution. To limit it to mere mechanist complication alone is a farce! Indeed, contrasting diametrically with this conception [Plurality] is the totally mutually interconnected and mediated alternative [Holism].

There are many version of this approach; the most famous is certainly that ascribed to the Buddha, 2500 years ago, but frequently revived by many thinkers throughout history. These people all see Reality as a much more self-referenced system. Rather than mere mechanist complication, this approach sees, from the very outset, constant Changes and development, generated by the myriads of possibilities inherent in the totally interconnected and mutually mediated elements in ways that in the end defy ANY mechanist analysis. 

Reality via this view becomes an unanalysible Whole. All analyses that we attempt to make are totally compromised, because we cannot encapsulate the limitless content involved.

Now, though there is profound Truth in such a view, it is hardly USEABLE to control and direct aspects of Reality to our chosen ends (except by an all-powerful God, of course!) It results in an essentially passive, contemplative approach favoured by hermits and holy men, BECAUSE it can only be an infinite process. The focus cannot be objective in any way, but only subjective – that is based on the individual.

Thus in these alternative approaches, we have the classic quandary! How do we intervene, understand and use aspects of Reality, while maintaining a truer holistic conception of its Nature?

Let us see, as clearly as possible, what it is that we are doing in our process of Scientific Experiment! The reason for the success of Experiment is that it modifies a part of Reality in such a way that the modified part is amenable to study.

Instead of hoping to hunt a totally wild animal for food, Mankind turned to controlling the herds via animal husbandry. THAT is the essence of the new slant - change reality in order to control it.

In the same way Mankind slowly got the wherewithall and the power to corral pieces of Reality, and thereafter study them in detail WITHIN the his erected confinement! The process certainly changed the studied Part as compared with the naturally embedded position within Reality, BUT he conceptually both excused and applauded this by conceiving of Reality in a new non-holistic way. Reality became a multiplicity of man-made corrals, rather than an integrated Whole. He had purposely changed Reality to FIT a version of Plurality. Mankind had learned how to deal with Reality so that it conformed to the Pluralist Principle – It COULD be conceived of as a summation of separate Parts. 

Edward Burtynsky

The Pluralist Solution – Farming Reality

By his isolation, extraction and finally abstraction of individual relations, he conceived of what he was doing as eliciting the Essences of Reality. He now had a method of investigation AND an overarching theoretical framework, which “together” would enable him to conquer the World (part-by-part of course).

And effectively, this WAS sort of true!

He did control, conquer and use broader and broader tracts of Reality, to the extent of having a powerful effect even on such enormous systems as the Global Climate of our planet.!

This post is the fifth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is AVAILABLE NOW as a Special Issue. Read it all here!

Interdisciplinary Research – Dance

What is to be Done: IV

The essential tasks for the Marxists of today

Many years later, I was developing Multimedia Resources for the Teaching of Dance (mostly Ballet and Modern Contemporary Dance). The main reason for this methodology was that we considered that the very best exemplars should be used at every level, and these could only be available in recordings. We also needed to intervene in any recording with perfect control plus easy and accurate access. A teacher HAD to be able to go directly to the movement she was teaching, and once at that moment to sensitively control its playing, with repeats and loops and slow motion. The DYNAMICS of each and every movement had to be precisely delivered, whatever way we were allowing its manipulation.

We therefore could NOT use Video Tape as the necessary access and control was too tedious and frankly impossible to effectively use. So we used Laser Disk technology. These contained a series of concentric tracks, each one containing a single 1/25th of a second frame. BUT, vitally these frames had been captured in an Analogue way. Moments from EVERY part of that 1/25th of a second were present within each and every frame. We had chosen Laser Disk for its controllability, but we had also chosen the ideal medium for delivering perfect movement dynamics.

We devised sophisticated and powerful Access & Control methods, which our users picked up in seconds and used with great power and subtlety to reveal the very essence of the movements.

The system worked like a dream and we won a British Interactive Video Award (BIVA) in Brighton in the Autumn of 1989.

The system worked extremely well, but we didn’t know why until we were required to do the same sort of processes using the “latest thing” – Digital Video. It turned out to be impossible!

I had to STOP the authoring of the new Multimedia Pack and find out why it didn’t work. I wonder if you can guess the reason for its inadequacy? It was Digital, hence though it still built movement out of 1/25th of a second frames, these were very different. They were each frozen STILLS. There were a series of such stills, each of which were held for 1/25th of a second and then replaced by the next still. All dynamics had been lost. Such a technology was fine for animation and fantasy, but Reality in movement was IMPOSSIBLE. After a long diversion researching the problem I was able to reveal the reasons for failure resided precisely in the “new” technology. It just could not cope with detailed analysis of movement. Indeed the movement NOT covered by the separate individual frames – indeed totally absent from the recording amounted to over 97%, and a fast moving hand could move (totally unrecorded) almost a yard between frames. I checked on sports events using digital cameras, and was amazed at the record of Paula Ratcliffe winning the New York marathon – there were only THREE positions of her arm in the record of a single swing, and, of course, such a movement was particularly slow. Imagine trying to study the dynamic detail in a delivery by a fast bowler with such an inadequate technology! Slow motion was a farce, and the dynamics of subtle movement always totally absent. No wonder it didn’t work!

You will have noticed, of course, the occurrence of the very same problem as I have mentioned several times already. Once again, we have a pragmatic solution to representing movement in terms of descrete moments – Descreteness was being used where Continuity turns out to be essential!

The information delivered by Digital Video for human vision and interpretation, which was to be used to recreate actual movement was clearly totally inadequate to the task. The only interpretations possible were crude and simplified extrapolations between inert stills.

But Dance, like Music is packed with subtle accelerations and decelerations, which deliver the Art involved, and these were crucially entirely absent!

So, why did the old alternative, Analogue Video, work so well, while Digital Video was useless?

Without going into the fairly complex detail of the results of my work, what I discovered was that elements from the whole of the 1/25th of a second duration of a frame were indeed present in the analogue version as a sort of “smeared still”. But, when you looked at such a frame in isolation, it appeared confusingly blurred and seemingly entirely useless. The Digital Frame in comparison was completely crisp and clear.

The universal consensus was (and still is) that ONLY the clear, focussed images available via Digital stills could facilitate the serious study of movement. And of course, in one respect they were correct. For while accurate, positional information could be extracted from a Digital Still, no such useable positions were possible from the smeared, Analogue alternative. But the myth was that widely spaced crisp positional information was sufficient to deliver the actual dynamics of the movement involved.

It wasn’t and never can be.

It was the age-old myth that precise numeric information is everything. In movement, that is never the case. The subtle variations in functional movement – the DYNAMICS – is what delivers the real content, and Analogue “smeared stills”, when delivered as a MOVIE, was the only way to deliver that. The very fact that each and every smeared still contained something from every moment of the frame period made it possible for the human Eye/Brain system to correctly interpret the movement. There can be no doubt that the analogue version was ideal for delivery in sequence, and also that our human facilities were ideally equipped to extract the maximum from that seemingly blurred and useless record.

I could go on and explain what could be delivered by slow motion, by looping and by many other techniques, but suffice it to say that on ALL these counts Digital was useless and Analogue was supreme.

Though, I have to admit, that I am in a minority of ONE in taking this position. The voluminous data from digital frames stills seduce the majority of “experts” in this field.

Do you recognise the SAME problem as we saw earlier in the Calculus and in Zeno’s Paradoxes?

It was, and is, the problem of Continuity and Descreteness once more!

Believe it or not, we solved the problem.

I will NOT burden you here with all the details, but suffice it to say that we, that the work led to the appropriate delivery of dynamics and even to the design of an entirely NEW camera for recording and studying movement, which I have called the Twin Movement Camera.

This may seem a long way from Marxism, but it is at the philosophical heart of it!

No-one else had even noticed what was being lost, and still the Digital avalanche continues unabated, and experts use Digital cameras to analyse movement in Sport and many other areas without discovering the inadequacy of their chosen means.

In contrast, a Marxist working alone, without either funds or facilities, cracked the problem, while literally thousands of scientists working in this field world-wide have failed to do so.

The legacy of this research continues in the current work by Bedford Interactive, and their pioneering software FORMotion.

If you think that the correct interpretation of movement in Ballet is resoundingly unimportant, may I change tack completely and go on to questions concerning the Nature of Reality and the universally accepted methods of Science to further my case?

This post is the fourth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work will eventually be published in Shape Journal as a Special Issue. Watch this space!

This post is the fourth in a new blog series entitled "What is to be done?" on the crises in both Marxism and Science, and how a revolution is necessary in both. This body of work is AVAILABLE NOW as a Special Issue. Read it all here!