After commodity production.

[VILemon]

Given that commodity production has persisted in most (if not all) socialist or "communist" societies, what is supposed to supplant them after socialism (or even communism has been achieved)?

In Kapital, Marx is pretty clear that commodities did not exist in slave society or feudalism etc., but I'm unclear on his view of the nature of consumables under a system of free men "with the means of production held in common." Do commodities exist, only like under pre-capitalist societies with commodities (mercantilism, for example) but with a decidedly different nature?

[mykittyhasaboner]

Well there are many opinions on this, but at a glance I'm guessing your asking whether or not commodity production can coexist with social forms of ownership (i.e. socialism); well in my opinion it can but this has to be understood in a specific context, otherwise we are just reciting abstract terms and concepts.

Stalin talked about just this in his Economic Problems, in fact it comprises a whole chapter of it (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch03.htm). I think he does a good job at explaining commodity relations in the Soviet context, this is the most relevant and forthright part of it though:


It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private owner-ship of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity. Without this there is no such thing as capitalist production.


Well, and what is to be done if the conditions for the conversion of commodity production into capitalist production do not exist, if the means of production are no longer private but socialist property, if the system of wage labour no longer exists and labour power is no longer a commodity, and if the system of exploitation has long been abolished - can it be considered then that commodity production will lead to capitalism all the same? No, it cannot. Yet ours is precisely such a society, a society where private ownership of the means of production, the system of wage labour, and the system of exploitation have long ceased to exist.

Commodity production must not be regarded as something sufficient unto itself, something independent of the surrounding economic conditions. Commodity production is older than capitalist production. It existed in slave-owning society, and served it, but did not lead to capitalism. It existed in feudal society and served it, yet, although it prepared some of the conditions for capitalist production, it did not lead to capitalism. Why then, one asks, cannot commodity production similarly serve our socialist society for a certain period without leading to capitalism, bearing in mind that in our country commodity production is not so boundless and all-embracing as it is under capitalist conditions, being confined within strict bounds thanks to such decisive economic conditions as social ownership of the means of production, the abolition of the system of wage labour, and the elimination of the system of exploitation?

It is said that, since the domination of social ownership of the means of production has been established in our country, and the system of wage labour and exploitation has been abolished, commodity production has lost all meaning and should therefore be done away with.
That is also untrue. Today there are two basic forms of socialist production in our country: state, or publicly-owned production, and collective-farm production, which cannot be said to be publicly owned. In the state enterprises, the means of production and the product of production are national property. In the collective farm, although the means of production (land, machines) do belong to the state, the product of production is the property of the different collective farms, since the labour, as well as the seed, is their own, while the land, which has been turned over to the collective farms in perpetual tenure, is used by them virtually as their own property, in spite of the fact that they cannot sell, buy, lease or mortgage it.

The effect of this is that the state disposes only of the product of the state enterprises, while the product of the collective farms, being their property, is disposed of only by them. But the collective farms are unwilling to alienate their products except in the form of commodities, in exchange for which they desire to receive the commodities they need. At present the collective farms will not recognize any other economic relation with the town except the commodity relation - exchange through purchase and sale. Because of this, commodity production and trade are as much a necessity with us today as they were, say, thirty years ago, when Lenin spoke of the necessity of developing trade to the utmost.

[robbo203]

Given that commodity production has persisted in most (if not all) socialist or "communist" societies, what is supposed to supplant them after socialism (or even communism has been achieved)?

In Kapital, Marx is pretty clear that commodities did not exist in slave society or feudalism etc., but I'm unclear on his view of the nature of consumables under a system of free men "with the means of production held in common." Do commodities exist, only like under pre-capitalist societies with commodities (mercantilism, for example) but with a decidedly different nature?

Commodity production will not exist in socialism or communism (terms which Marx used more or less interchangeably to stand for the same thing). Capitalism as he said in the opening paragraph of Capital is characertised by an immense accumulation of commodities. In socialism or communism there is no money, no buying or selling, no wage labour, just freely associated labour whereby individuals would give according to their abilities and take according to according to their needs. Tentatively Marx suggested a lower phase in this society in which a labour voucher scheme operated but he was adamant that these vouchers no more constituted money than did a "ticket to the theatre" - they do not circulate. In the higher phase, there would be full free acess to goods and services without any form of economic exchange

Stalin's attempt to justify the existence of commodities in what he called "socialism" - a complete departure, incidentally from what traditional Marxism called socialism - was ridiculous. He could hardly deny that this is what communists/socialists wanted - the abolition of commodity production - and in fact quoted Engels to the effect that upon the achievement of a working class revolution commodity production is completely done away with. However he maintained that this could not happen in the Soviet Union essentially because the agricultural sector had not yet been fully socialised - this notwithstanding the fact that state enterprises were connected to each other via commodity relationships, that labour power was clearly a commodity in the Soviet Union for which the workers received in exchange a (paltry) wage and that means of consumption generally speaking took the form of commodities. In short, the Soviet system was a system of state run capitalism in which generalised commodity production prevailed - exactly what Marx identified with capitalism

[Niccolò Rossi]

Given that commodity production has persisted in most (if not all) socialist or "communist" societies, what is supposed to supplant them after socialism (or even communism has been achieved)?

It is not only the commodity which has persisted in the 'socialist states' but the entire capitalist system.

Communism supplants the production of commodities (exchange values) for the anarchic laws of capital in favour of the consciously planned production of use values to meet the needs of humanity. In favour of distribution on the basis of exchange value and money, distribution of goods will be organised on free-access and the principle "to each according to his needs".


In Kapital, Marx is pretty clear that commodities did not exist in slave society or feudalism etc.

This is not quite correct. Commodity production is not a phenomenon unique to capitalism. Simple commodity production is a feature common to all but the earliest human societies. Capitalism is distinguished by the generalisation of the wage labour relation and the generalised production of commodities.

[h9socialist]

Before this thread gets too carried away, I would remind the participating comrades that Marx knew very well that there would be a transitional phase -- I may be wrong in saying that it was in "The Critique of the Gotha Programme" where he states that in it's initial stages "the dictatorship of the proletariat" would at first present itself as "the universal capitalist." I'm not terribly enchanted with the idea -- but I have yet to read a realistic plan for shifting the world's gears from transnational capitalism to global socialism without a grinding period of transition.
My position is that the first, critical step to the end of commodity production is shorter work-time with standard of living guarantees or incomes policy. Again, it is only a first step, but. it is one that can be accomplished in a transitional phase -- and one that several "communist" societies never got around to.