Paul Mason is back, in the Guardian, and as daft as ever, more so in fact, having the constraints of the BBC removed seems to have completely unhinged him. He’s offering us up for consideration a seemingly endless stream of socialist consciousness, or just an extreme of socialism.
Having got joyously over-excited about the Arab Spring and ‘The New Global Revolution’ that was kicking off everywhere, hence the Tory majority, he is back, peddling the same old glorious student utopian spindrift that tells us that….
The end of capitalism has 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.
Capitalism, it turns out, will not be abolished by forced-march techniques. It will be abolished by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviours. I call this postcapitalism.
Capitalism is dead…he’s right, I hadn’t noticed ( Must try that in Tescos…‘What you want money for all that!!!??? Don’t you know capitalism is f**king dead!!!???’)….and Mason has dreamt up a name for the aftermath…Postcapitalism. Wow man, what are you smoking? I want some.
Wasn’t Capitalism pronounced dead in the 1930’s?
Even Seumas Milne acknowledges the flaw in thinking like Mason’s.…’A Financial Times-Harris poll conducted across the advanced capitalist world this month found large majorities believe the financial crisis has been caused by “abuses of capitalism”, rather than the “failure of capitalism itself”‘
The problem with people like Mason is that they think Capitalism, like Communism, Fascism or Socialism (The unholy Trinity that proves three can be one) is an ideology. It’s not. It’s the default human way of living and working….producing something, or having a skill, somebody else might want and selling it, then buying something with the proceeds that you need and so on….there’s no manual, little red book or sacred text.
Mason bases his disinterred theory upon three scenarios…one that we are all put out of work by robots…heard that before….didn’t happen…has he not heard of Luddites? We adapt and new types of jobs are created. Second, he tells us, information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant….what? I make widgets and I can’t price them because…information is abundant???? What information? Just how does that stop me pricing my widgets?
Oh hang on…here’s the explanation… ‘By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.’
Got that? Good.
He builds on that...Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy. The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3bn a year in revenue.
Hmmm…Okay…So Google is worthless then? Wikipedia is essentially an information service, an electronic book…Google provides a mechanism, a product, to search the internet amongst other things….it makes a lot of money…..only two days ago…
Google shares jump as profits handily beat expectations
Google shares jumped Thursday after the company reported quarterly profit that easily topped analysts’ expectations, helped by growth in advertising revenue.
The stock climbed more than 11 percent in extended trading after the Internet and technology giant posted adjusted second-quarter earnings of $6.99 per share on $17.73 billion in revenue. Sales were up from $15.96 billion.
Yep, they just can’t find a way to put a price on information and information technology….Google being completely unresponsive to the dictates of the market.
Here is the heart of his theory, what a postcapitalist™ economy will look like…
Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis….New forms of ownership, new forms of lending, new legal contracts: a whole business subculture has emerged over the past 10 years, which the media has dubbed the “sharing economy”. ….To mainstream economics such things seem barely to qualify as economic activity – but that’s the point. They exist because they trade, however haltingly and inefficiently, in the currency of postcapitalism: free time, networked activity and free stuff. It seems a meagre and unofficial and even dangerous thing from which to craft an entire alternative to a global system, but so did money and credit in the age of Edward III.
Such sub-economic structures and mechanisms have always existed, there have always been ‘sharing economies’, credit unions, co-operatives and even parallel currencies. People have always ‘down-sized’, dropped out of the ratrace and gone to live in communes to live the Good Life. To claim this is the start of a global economic revolution is a sign of just how desperate Mason is to see the Revolution rolling having been prematurely pronouncing its birth for the past 7 years.
Here he is dreaming of his postcapitalist™ utopia…
I believe it offers an escape route – but only if these micro-level projects are nurtured, promoted and protected by a fundamental change in what governments do. And this must be driven by a change in our thinking – about technology, ownership and work.
We need a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet. And we need to get on with it.
All sounds rather complicated and as if we will need many committee meetings of the comrades to execute the plans….it may take 5 years but it’ll be worth it. I have an unfailing faith that Mason and his Pinko mates can work out just how many tractors we will need and just when the wife is supposed to turn up at the coal mine for her shift.
Up the workers!
Being a revolutionary looks like fun…..
….man the barricades!
This is brilliant.
As always with the Guardian, just when you think you’ve reached ‘peak Guardian’ you find its always a plateau, pausing before the next rise in complete lunacy.
Paul doesn’t seem to realise that even a mass apocalypse would not wipe out “capitalism”.
After the apocalypse, two survivors – Paul and Harry – go apple picking. Harry puts in a bit more effort than Paul. As a result Paul comes back with 10 apples but Harry comes back with 15.
Capitalism begins again….
Paul and Harry – no future.
Paula and Harry OK.
Paul and Harriet OK.
Paula and Harriet – no future.
Farmers kill the males not required for breeding.
WAD.
Your argument would have more weight if you understood what you were talking about.
The process you describe between Harry and Paul is a process of exchange. That process happens in every social system irrespective of the economic system.
The issue and moniker of post capitalism isnt something recently made up and is aterm that has currency amongst individuals of a various political persuasions.
The notion of post capitalism relates to capitalisms natural tendency to concentrate production into the hands of fewer and fewer larger companies/corporations. If you want to stick to apples the consider the reduction in the number of high street grocers over say the last hundred years. The other thing is that as technology advances there is a disconnect between consumers and manufacturers. For example do you know how you mobile phone works? The result is that more and more people are alienated from both the means of production and the products that they use in their daily lives.
The important thing also to note is that capitalism involves free trade and a rational ecomnic man. Look no further than our current energy market to realise that capitalism has long been dead. Heil Caesar!
Have you any clue how boring and pretentious you are ?
If thats the only response you can muster then clearly I have won the argument yet again.
Post-capitalism? I’m hoping to see post-socialism before I die.
Considering the liberal infestation of schools, universities, and media outlets throughout the western world, I wouldn’t hold much hope to this dream.
Socialist, leftist progressive drivel will be the death knell of western civilisation. When you indoctrinate children that their lifestyle that has fed them, clothed them and educated them is completely evil there is little hope.
Doesn’t the cartoon at the top say it all! Lol! Capitalism alive and well and thriving in the left!
“We need a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet. And we need to get on with it.”
So where is this laboratory where they tested out the ‘design’ of mass immigration, (American slave trade? That worked out well didn’t it), or the ‘design’ of replacing the scientific method which gave us the developed ‘West’ by cutting the ‘grain of history’, (same-sex ‘marriage?, ISIL?)?
According to the Bishop of London the laboratory is London. Pity they never asked the rats if they wanted to take part!
‘…it’s time to be utopian’
Comrade Mason may have moved on from the BBC – he’s now gone sort of Post-National Broadcaster to a new cosy berth at the Guadian/Channel 4 – but his spirit of marxian-techy-utopianism (Nigel, pass the I-pad, luv) certainly lives on at the BBC.
‘…goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market’
A bold statement which you might be tempted to believe had you been watching, for instance, World News The Travel Show this morning..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csy4d9
‘we’re in China as Ben Zand sets out on an adventure across the mainland using only a smartphone as his guide’
So our Ben arrives at a Chinese national park, wonderful scenery (‘the inspiration for Avatars floating mountains!’ – you see where were going with this …? Utopia calls) except its teeming with Chinese tourists. Oh bother! Our Ben can’t be doing with that. He’s a BBC dude. He needs to get away from the plebs. He’s special, he needs to get off the beaten track – think backstage gold VIP pass at Glasto.
So he’s quick on his I-phone, zapping in on one of the social media apps not banned in post-Communist China.
As if by the magic of television a charming, good-looking, English-speaking female guide pops up and meets our Ben for a VIP inside-knowledge tour.
And all before you have time to say Ding-Dong, or should be Ting-Tong….?
But seriously, of course our Ben says nothing at all about paying for the young lady’s time by way of fee or tip. Nothing. Nada.
So Comrades, our Ben/ the BBC is happy to leave the viewer with the happy impression there was no financial exchange here.
Hong Kong Fuey! Of course the lady expected payment of some kind. But in the wishful thinking, time for utopia liberal-techy-marxian mind set any mention of cash changing hands , well that’s all far too…. capitalist a notion, I guess.
Leave all the muck and brass to the likes of Judith Chalmers package deal Travel Show. Long gone are days when the BBC told you what a holiday deal for two adults two children sharing full board with flights from Stanstead would actually cost.
You see we’re on a World Mission, well they are, we’re just watching – and paying, let’s not forget.
Wasn’t Mason previously a music teacher from Sheffield? How on Earth a music teacher evolves into a ‘leading economist’ is beyond me.
Same way a total twat from Renfrewshire became Chancellor then Prime Minister. It’s not what you know it’s who you know and where your sympathies lie . Show enough hatred and loathing for your fellow countryman and your heritage and the sky is the limit.
Only the Guardian and Channel 4 would have Mason as their ‘Economics Editor’ – the boy is an ignorant f..kwit Leftoid of the same water as Flanders and Peston, who themselves would make a good comedy duo performing silly songs.
Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy.
Ah, yes – and presumably there’ll be collaborative health care, education, energy, farming, transport, road building, aircraft production, car production etc. etc. etc.
What a dork.
Well that’s the BBC mullahed then . No overpaying to get “talent” , no selling to other countries , no selling DVDs of past programmes . No contracting out to TVL to get the money in .
I must get me some of this post-capitalism…
The end of capitalism has begun | Books | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/…/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-
3 days ago … Postcapitalism is published by Allen Lane on 30 July. Paul Mason will be asking whether capitalism has had its day at a sold-out Guardian Live …
3300+ comments. Not bad. Wonder how many have had their ironectomy?
Must check with Apple on the new business model:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15199917
‘Apple, on some days, is now the most valuable company on the planet. When I went on holiday this year I took an iPad (for reading books on my Kindle App); my iPhone (for recording an impromptu story for Broadcasting House and getting my e-mail on); and my MacBook Pro, which has all the work I have done since the day Lehman Brothers fell stored on it. Ah yes, and a 160gb iPod.
Maybe Apple ‘donated’ them? Or simply a very generous employer?
If so, handed back on leaving, or…. ‘lost’ like so many others?
Property is, after all, theft.
“Property is, after all, theft. ”
Personally, I have always believed taxation is theft and I consider the Licence Fee to be daylight bloody robbery.
Mason needs flagship project.
He should take up Anthony Wedgewood Benn’s undelivered goal ………half his life or more to remove HMQ’s head from British stamps as detailed in Paxman’s book.
On ye go Mase
Back of the net!!