: Second, you anticipate that 'even greater technologies [will] do almost all the laboring in productive industry without man.' This contradicts ENTIRELY the LTV which posits that only humans can create value.In the same way that the inventor of the wheel has made possible its value (not the muscular efforts of poeple centuries later repeating the formula of actions necessary to make a wheel) so the conceptual process of robot designers and product designers will be the labor behind this imagined future production - with robots doing the muscular motions previously given to people as instruction.
I am sure many people would be involved in production in such a futuristic scenario, but far less as a proportion.
: Thirdly, the ' more flexible "circulation" work' you anticpate is PREDICATED upon the production process. Without commodities, there is nothing to circulate. And, as I explained before, circulation CANNOT expand indefinitely (to 'accomodate' more employees); it is a drain upon the use-values produced (only) in the production sphere.
As you would have read my response you will understand that the work is not parasitical in the sense of being unnecessary but more 'symbiotic' in being an essential part of the package that is 'buying a video' or whatever product. There is scope for expansion in the above scenario.
: The more labor in the production sphere is squeezed by rising circulation costs, the more the revolutionary potential of workers in countries that are predominatly characterized by production will INCREASE.
And which nations will be left in such conditions? Those not prepared for socialism, those where to work is to work predominantly at production such as the current 3rd world. revolutionary potential caught in a catch 22? Nations 'ready for it' are not so pressured due to manufacturing tech whilst those without the tech are not 'ready for it' but feel the pressure. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the popularity of marxism in the 3rd world relative the 'the west'.
: And lastly, your comment about the 'successful socialist society without the compulsion the socialists on this board reject' buys into the anarchist pie-in-the-sky pancea of RD's artisan utopianism. Which is fine---but it's NOT socialism. To deny class struggle is FUNDAMENTALLY utopian; so let's NOT call those anarchist quacks 'socialists' any longer---it only confuses the issues.
Should such people be referred to as anarchists then? Perhaps you need to clarify 'who's who' in a fresh post.
