overproduction

[luka]

In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.

Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.

The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.

The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

 

[luka]

quoted from an old essay of thirdforms i was reading in the bath. and in light of the supply-chain 'crisis' etc

 

[craner]

Where can I read the collected works of Thirdform, please?

 

[luka]

they're scattered all over the internet under a mad and maddening collection of aliases

 

[thirdform]

Where can I read the collected works of Thirdform, please?

Collected works are a bourgeois deviation.

 

[sus]

Are people hip to Peter Turchin's overproduction of elites thesis?

 

[luka]

Are people hip to Peter Turchin's overproduction of elites thesis?

yes we are.

 

[luka]

actually statistics show that around 80-90% of middle class jobs are invented just to keep middle class people quiet. they're wholly uneccessary and almost willed into being by people who believe they deserve a particular standard of living despite having no discernable talents

 

[sus]

It's very Girardean. A fluid social hierarchy & accompanying accredidation system get swarmed; even as wealth increases, gains are offset by massive increases in signaling spending for class accreditation; but the reality of a limited number of spots means this mimetic swarm bottlenecks hard, creating discontent.

 

[sus]

Oh I see. A step ahead of me.

 

[sus]

Has anyone read Graeber's Bullshit Jobs essay?

 

[sus]

What're the other core texts in this idea space, other than Third ofc

 

[luka]

Has anyone read Graeber's Bullshit Jobs essay?

yes

 

[luka]

What're the other core texts in this idea space, other than Third ofc

the idea that i was floating, speculatively, that what we are seeing might be what third describes as 'enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces' as a response to overproduction... or as a response to some related or analogous crisis

 

[sus]

Who enforces it? Or is it more like a natural law?

Me n Mvuent and Linebaugh were talking about whale falls and mast years today, walking through the woods. How the equilibria certain systems fall into necessarily involve boom or bust years. So, e.g., if there's a stable number of acorns that oak trees produce, the squirrel population will adapt to basically soak up all the free calories lying around. So every handful of years, the oak trees en masse sync up to drop a massive number of acorns, far more than usual, far more than the existing squirrel population can consume, guaranteeing some of the acorns will become trees.

Of course, the next year, mass starvation for the squirrels. And this just goes on in an endless loop, no way to break out of it except find some new, better symbiotic equilibrium.

 

[sus]

yes

Do you have a serious opinion

 

[luka]

Do you have a serious opinion

on the essay? what's the bar for 'serious'? how high have you put it?

 

[luka]

Who enforces it? Or is it more like a natural law?

ask third, it's his essay.

 

[luka]

Me n Mvuent and Linebaugh were talking about whale falls and mast years today, walking through the woods. How the equilibria certain systems fall into necessarily involve boom or bust years. So, e.g., if there's a stable number of acorns that oak trees produce, the squirrel population will adapt to basically soak up all the free calories lying around. So every handful of years, the oak trees en masse sync up to drop a massive number of acorns, far more than usual, far more than the existing squirrel population can consume, guaranteeing some of the acorns will become trees.

Of course, the next year, mass starvation for the squirrels. And this just goes on in an endless loop, no way to break out of it except find some new, better symbiotic equilibrium.

theres a big bit about this in the selfish gene.

 

[sus]

theres a big bit about this in the selfish gene.

Say more? At least give me a chapter I can read? You're not adding much here, and on your own thread!