A world without money

[robbo203]

Interesting pamphlet from the people at Resource Based Living. Ive recently noticed quite a few sites arriving at communistic conclusions about the need to get rid of capitalism and the money system. Could this be the beginnings of a signficant trend? Hope so http://www.itsjustcommonsense.co.uk/AWorldWithoutMoney.html

[Dimentio]

Maybe RBL has something to do with the RBEF? NET has had quite close relations with those people before.

[robbo203]

Here's another group advocating the abolition of money I just came across http://mouvementutopia.site.voila.fr/ It would be an interesting and useful exercise to compile a list of such groups given the central significance of the concept to communism. Any thoughts?

[bricolage]

First link says I need a plugin that my computer doesn't now exists. Long.

[Dimentio]

Here's another group advocating the abolition of money I just came across http://mouvementutopia.site.voila.fr/ It would be an interesting and useful exercise to compile a list of such groups given the central significance of the concept to communism. Any thoughts?

http://www.technocracynet.eu

[El Rojo]

hmmm, very interesting. Although I wouldn't agree with everything that this pamphlet says, its description of a "post monetary" "resource based system" is more or less Communism. However, I take issue with thier plan for spreading the word, which assumes that the ruling elite is gonna sit back and let the transition go ahead. well i guess thats where we come in :D

[hefty_lefty]

I have always held an ideal that one day money would be abolished..not destroyed, but rather through certain actions made worthless.
People always laugh at this, not being able to fathom an alternative to money.

Money really is just another 'middle-man', used against us in a most cruel way. The greatest spiritual crime against humanity, it has balloned nearly all of our negative behaviours and emotions.

Money really bugs me, mostly because I don't want it, but need it.

[al8]

First link says I need a plugin that my computer doesn't now exists. Long.

Same here. I don't have the plug-in either, and do not know what that plug-in might be. Is this material perhaps available in some other format?

[robbo203]

I have always held an ideal that one day money would be abolished..not destroyed, but rather through certain actions made worthless.
People always laugh at this, not being able to fathom an alternative to money.

Money really is just another 'middle-man', used against us in a most cruel way. The greatest spiritual crime against humanity, it has balloned nearly all of our negative behaviours and emotions.

Money really bugs me, mostly because I don't want it, but need it.


Might I recommend Ken Smith's book Free is Cheaper (John Ball Press 1987) Ken's central argument is that, with the abolition of the money system, most of the work that we do today in the formal sector in capitalism would disappear since it serves no other purpose than to keep the system ticking. A non-monetary communist or socialist society would thus be a vastly more efficient society from the standpoint of meeting human needs...

[hefty_lefty]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[KC]

"The abolition of money" is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Zimbabweans.

[Dimentio]

It depends on what money is replaced with. There are several proposals. Labour credits and energy accounting are two of them.

[KC]

It depends on what money is replaced with.

No it does not. But you're a Technocrat and not a revolutionary socialist so you wouldn't understand that.

[JimmyJazz]

"The abolition of money" is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Zimbabweans.

Didn't the Bolsheviks intentionally inflate the ruble during War Communism? The only source I can recall for the "intentional" part is Richard Pipes, so I certainly don't want to repeat it as fact without corroboration.

Also, obviously I'm not implying that if the Bolsheviks did it, it was right.

[bricolage]

"The abolition of money" is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Zimbabweans.

That's like saying the abolition of the state is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Somalians.

[KC]

That's like saying the abolition of the state is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Somalians.

Abolish the state isn't a revolutionary demand. I don't know why you would think it is.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Abolish the state isn't a revolutionary demand. I don't know why you would think it is.

If the abolition of money and the abolition of the state are not revolutionary demands, pray tell KC, what is?

[Niccolò Rossi]

Didn't the Bolsheviks intentionally inflate the ruble during War Communism? The only source I can recall for the "intentional" part is Richard Pipes, so I certainly don't want to repeat it as fact without corroboration.

Also, obviously I'm not implying that if the Bolsheviks did it, it was right.

From my understanding, no, it was not at all intentional. However, there were certain elements of the party, particularly amongst the left at the time, who saw this as the beginning of the process of the abolition of money and who saw expressions of war communism, such as the payment of wages in kind, as a transitional phase away from capitalism.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Dimentio]

No it does not. But you're a Technocrat and not a revolutionary socialist so you wouldn't understand that.

Where is the argument here? '

I have searched and searched and searched and searched for a clue, but I couldn't find one.

A lot of people wonder what constitutes a revolutionary demand in your world. Is it perhaps the workers elevating a vanguard to the position of attaining state power, so they could rule as an enlightened leadership of a glorious proletarian dictatorship for the betterment of all the working class of the world? And it must happen in the entire world simultaneously as well? Otherwise it isn't revolutionary?

Right...

P.S ~ Nice attempt at provoking me. I can almost feel your utter self-righteousness, contempt and hatred through those letters. It feels so soothing. ;)

[ckaihatsu]

A lot of people wonder what constitutes a revolutionary demand in your world. Is it perhaps the workers elevating a vanguard to the position of attaining state power, so they could rule as an enlightened leadership of a glorious proletarian dictatorship for the betterment of all the working class of the world? And it must happen in the entire world simultaneously as well? Otherwise it isn't revolutionary?


I'm going to take this seriously and ignore the distrust or pretend factionalism, whichever the case may be....

These conditions you've listed are *objective necessities* -- you don't seem to appreciate this fact. A vanguard is only functional in terms of a class-war situation -- often revolutionaries *don't* last (politically) into the world they've ushered in -- in terms of the future, your mistrust is unfounded because a *post-class* society would be one with *no enemy* to fight, and thus no *need* for a vanguard function anymore.

If a vanguard-coordinating revolution *isn't* worldwide, then it could very well get *swamped* by *many* capitalist armies, as happened to the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Dave B]

From;


Abolish the state isn't a revolutionary demand. I don't know why you would think it is.

Frederick Engels
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
Chapter IX: Barbarism and Civilization





We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong - into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm)

.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"The abolition of money" is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Zimbabweans.

In that case, I might as well cite the sliding scale of wages and hours as the effective abolition of money. :p

The fourth congress of the Comintern looked at what was going on in Germany, with hyperinflation and high levels of unemployment, and what was eventually inserted into the 1938 holy grail of broad economism had these sliding scales as its core.

One may convince workers about the anti-unemployment thrust of the sliding scale of hours (better addressed by Post-Keynesians like Minsky, by the way), but not about the central planning implicit in the demand (planning based directly on resources).

[hefty_lefty]

It depends on what money is replaced with. There are several proposals. Labour credits and energy accounting are two of them.

Money would be best not to be replaced at all.
Why must we be able to hold the fruits of our labors?
A coin, a piece of paper, a coupon...none of these are needed to prosper in a balanced society.

You go to work, the work in which you have been educated in or are best suited for, you go home to your house which is provided to you by socialism along with your other means of survival.
Food can be made available at a market for you to pick up, with certain rules for what and how much one can take.

Certain luxuries can be made available to you according, perhaps, to the number of years that you have worked.

You would not get paid for your labor, and in turn would not pay for the products of labor.
Materials are extracted through labor, and if the country is self-sustaining then the only costs are that of labor.

An unrefined idea yet, but the possibility is there.

[Luís Henrique]

Money would be best not to be replaced at all.

The problem is, it absolutely needs to be replaced, unless we are going back to a "natural economy".

If I am not growing lettuces or raising chicken, I need access to lettuces and chicken in some other way; a distribution system is needed.

If we aren't mystifying money, we should know that it is merely a part of the existing distribution system - market. It is an awful distribution system, inefficient and unjust, but it is better than no distribution system.


Food can be made available at a market for you to pick up, with certain rules for what and how much one can take.

That's fair, but what rules would those be? And how do we deal with scarcity? How does this system give producers of food feedback on what to produce? How do they know that they must grow more pigs and less chicken, or the other way round?


Certain luxuries can be made available to you according, perhaps, to the number of years that you have worked.

Certain luxuries? According to what criteria? And why would this be dependant on the number of years one has worked? I think this clause reintroduces the whole damned effort/reward thinking that we should be trying to eradicate.

Luís Henrique

[Dimentio]

I agree with LH. We need a distribution system, but money is clearly inadequate in its current form.

[hefty_lefty]

In socialism work is king, everyone who can work works. No unemployment, so in such a society is labor not the best avenue for reward?

Scarcity is scarcity, not everyone can have it, but to create a system where there is an opportunity through money or a money substitute to gain scarce items is coming dangerously close to capitalist opportunism.

I understand my ideology has flaws, give me some feedback but there's no need to attack.

And rewards are a good thing, to award those who do good, and let them be shining examples to others. This is a key part of socialism.

[Dimentio]

Who is going to do the rewarding in your system?

[robbo203]

"The abolition of money" is not a revolutionary demand. Ask Zimbabweans.

Oddly enough, I have been in communication over several years with a number of revolutionaries in Zimbabwe, one of whom was viciously beaten up by Mugabe's thugs. If you were to ask them they would tell you in no uncertain terms that they desire a world without money, without wage labour, and without employers and employees.

Of course, the mere elimination of money per se is not what its about; its about the social relationships (of capitalism) that necessitiate money. Get rid of those social relationships and install direct free access to goods and services produced voluntarily by the population. This is what real communism is all about. Labour credits and energy accounting strike me as just superfluous and cumbersome ways of operating a genuine communist society when we already have the technological capacity to make "free access" a reality - "from each according to ability to each according to need"

[hefty_lefty]

Well Dimento, me of course.
Would you like an award? Hero of socialism? Protector of the People?
Devout RevLeft Member?
I have an award for every occasion.

But really though, who else but the people can decide anything in a socialist system, so let the people pick who deserves the awards.

[ckaihatsu]

Labour credits and energy accounting strike me as just superfluous and cumbersome ways of operating a genuine communist society when we already have the technological capacity to make "free access" a reality - "from each according to ability to each according to need"


Just for the record I absolutely agree with the spirit of communism -- I just think that stuff would *have* to be kept track of, regardless, including actual labor time.

Labor credits would be a formality, a technicality -- it wouldn't have to be a *bad* thing, or impede the overall communistic spirit that would prevail. It would be an economy "on stilts", so to speak -- something more specialized and forward-oriented than what most (--?) people would need or want for their day-to-day living requirements.

[robbo203]

Just for the record I absolutely agree with the spirit of communism -- I just think that stuff would *have* to be kept track of, regardless, including actual labor time. .

But why? And even if there was a good reason for doing this how would you differentiate between different kinds of labour. Monitoring or keeping tracking of labour time ITSELF uses up labour time, labour time which could be directly applied in producing useful things or augmenting human welfare generally

[ckaihatsu]

But why? And even if there was a good reason for doing this how would you differentiate between different kinds of labour. Monitoring or keeping tracking of labour time ITSELF uses up labour time, labour time which could be directly applied in producing useful things or augmenting human welfare generally


Well, how do we keep track of *anything* material these days? Certainly the *logistics* is not the issue, here in these times of networked computing.

I'm a little surprised here -- are you really asking how we would "differentiate between different kinds of labour"? Is that *really* so difficult? Have you ever been in the working world?

And is punching a clock really that time-consuming? How about paper and pen instead? Or dash off an email? I suppose if the workers were *that* adamant about it they could just use RFID chips in ID cards so that walking through a particular entrance would be sufficient.

[robbo203]

Well, how do we keep track of *anything* material these days? Certainly the *logistics* is not the issue, here in these times of networked computing.

I'm a little surprised here -- are you really asking how we would "differentiate between different kinds of labour"? Is that *really* so difficult? Have you ever been in the working world?

And is punching a clock really that time-consuming? How about paper and pen instead? Or dash off an email? I suppose if the workers were *that* adamant about it they could just use RFID chips in ID cards so that walking through a particular entrance would be sufficient.


No the point that I was getting at is why "labour credits". The actual timekeeping process is a fairly minor aspect of all this - technically as you say it is quite feasible. Its what comes afterwards that concerns me. For example, you ask whether it would really be so difficult to differentiate between different kinds of labour. Well, you tell me. What is the value you would attach to one hours work by a skilled lathe operator compared to say one hours work as a holistic masseuse? The point of keeping track of labour time in your view is presumbly to serve as a basis for the remuneration of workers - this what I am questioning. Over and above the question of time keeping, there is the question of keeping records and whole administration of the voucher system itself. This would be far more complicated and problematic than you seem to make out. A system of free access and volunteer labour would be far more simple and streamlined when you dont have to worry about the whole issue of "remuneration"

[Durruti's Ghost]

Remuneration has no place in a communist society. If there is to be a transition period between capitalism and genuine communism, it could theoretically feature some sort of labor credit system (this is what both Marx and anarcho-collectivists like Bakunin advocated); however, I think that trying to implement it would ultimately just end up slowing down the process of the revolution.

[ckaihatsu]

No the point that I was getting at is why "labour credits".


Labor credits are necessary so that a society can collectively determine *how best* to use its labor.





Well, you tell me. What is the value you would attach to one hours work by a skilled lathe operator compared to say one hours work as a holistic masseuse?


Obviously this isn't for me, *personally*, to decide -- but I do advocate a system that uses various *multipliers*, by job, to convert labor hours into labor credits. The multipliers, as for a skilled lathe operator or a holistic masseuse, could be determined with a mass survey.





A system of free access and volunteer labour would be far more simple and streamlined when you dont have to worry about the whole issue of "remuneration"


Hey -- absolutely. I don't mean to suggest that things should be made *unnecessarily* complicated. If people of a locality want to just swap their own handmade goods and service hours with each other, then so be it.

*But* -- here are some *complexities* that are pre-existing to this basic setup:

- A small-scale, local economy is going to be *limited* compared to one that combines up several localities over a wide geographical region. Without an aggregation of areas into a larger economic unit there is always the danger of isolation and local tyranny, or Stalinism, in short.

- Children growing up in more autonomous (autarkic) areas may be suffering a disservice because of the lack of greater options, even for material things. It would be preferable for younger people to have the option, at a fairly early age, to partake of broader cultural experiences that cannot be found at home. This would necessitate having more complex links with the wider world, including the possibility of travel and hospitality.





The point of keeping track of labour time in your view is presumbly to serve as a basis for the remuneration of workers - this what I am questioning. Over and above the question of time keeping, there is the question of keeping records and whole administration of the voucher system itself. This would be far more complicated and problematic than you seem to make out.


Again, we are currently living in an era of *information abundance* -- the unique phenomenon of *infinitely replicable* digital goods and services, typified in the Internet, has brought us to a point where the *process* of tasks like timekeeping, recordkeeping, researching, and administrative matters in general has become virtually *effortless*.

If you're referring not to the *technical* process of recordkeeping, but instead to the *political* process, well, then, here we are...! Let's call it a work-in-progress...! = )

I've attached a diagram that can bridge these two modes using only a spreadsheet -- it is flexible enough to serve in *any* kind of group-planning capacity.

As far as my *own* model of labor credits goes, I do not support "vouchers" -- rather the model is suited towards cross-industrial applications, where the intensive work of one particular group of laborers will benefit much larger populations, far beyond their own numbers, and so should be kept track of, at the very least for historical purposes.

Labor credits would enable the *intermixing* of various types of labor, over vast distances -- globally -- while taking into account variables like education, training, difficulty, and distastefulness of various tasks. In short, the service of one hour of labor of a certain difficulty / multiplier entitles the worker to one hour of labor of the same difficulty / multiplier from anyone else, anywhere in the world.

Since assets and resources would be collectively societally open (non-commodified), they would be readily available as *attachments* to the labor process itself, or for personal consumption, leaving labor time as the *most* precious resource available to humanity.

[h9socialist]

The last I looked, the great etching for society's banner was to be "From each according to ability, to each according to needs." A system of labor credits seems to me to be a "halfway house" between money and true socialism. Socialism frees society from the tyranny of exchange -- to transcend exchange, I believe, our great task is to establish an "economic commons." To do that, you have to do what Companero Guevara said: eliminate self-interest as society's motivating factor. I believe that money should be abolished in order to end capitalism. But replacing money with labor credits is only a step toward the ultimate resolution: replacing exchange with the "commons" where commodities are totally de-commodified, and sharing in both the work and the bread is a matter of common humanity, not compulsion or selfishness.

[JimmyJazz]

Sometimes I'm convinced ckaihatsu is just fucking with me with those flowcharts that he posts.

[ckaihatsu]

The last I looked, the great etching for society's banner was to be "From each according to ability, to each according to needs." A system of labor credits seems to me to be a "halfway house" between money and true socialism. Socialism frees society from the tyranny of exchange -- to transcend exchange, I believe, our great task is to establish an "economic commons." To do that, you have to do what Companero Guevara said: eliminate self-interest as society's motivating factor. I believe that money should be abolished in order to end capitalism. But replacing money with labor credits is only a step toward the ultimate resolution: replacing exchange with the "commons" where commodities are totally de-commodified, and sharing in both the work and the bread is a matter of common humanity, not compulsion or selfishness.


Yeah...! I certainly appreciate this guiding ethos of our politics.

I think the widespread *political* support for this vision is key -- as long as people continue to follow the lead of the bourgeois politicians they allow the *current* system to continue to propagate itself, and we know things could be a hell of a lot better....

With workers controlling production everywhere the actual *production process* itself could almost solely be a technocratic function, but of course it wouldn't be, since it would have to be integrated with the politicized worker-collectives population, meaning *everyone*. We would want as much political-technical oversight and involvement from all persons in society, as much as possible.

The productive processes *themselves* could be very *hands-off* -- *not* labor-intensive -- once they got rolling, thanks to the use of computerized routines and automated assembly lines.

I have to grudgingly defend my support for the use of a system of labor credits, as a measure of labor hours and effort, but only entirely with your ethos in mind, h9socialist. The reason is only for administrative purposes, since it would aid in the overall mass political decision-making by the liberated human population over the entire globe.

People could certainly stick to local and small-scale labor efforts in a post-capitalist society, and thus could stay out of the formal economy altogether -- and, by definition, a liberated humanity would not force *anyone* to work, so work involvement itself would be entirely optional for everyone in a society of material abundance.

But on the larger scales it would be *better* *to have* a formal, bottom-up, labor-based economy. For industrial processes I couldn't see how a society could do without it, really, since many, many resources and items would have to be kept track of over a global network of production centers.

A formalized political economy could also address ecological concerns, since worker-based administrations could examine what natural resources are being harvested, from where, and with what impact on the earth. Proper oversight and planning would enable the very kind of collectively conscious society that we all wish to bring into existence.





Sometimes I'm convinced ckaihatsu is just fucking with me with those flowcharts that he posts.


Hey -- c'mon -- you know nothing here is *personal*...! Either they're an assistance to you, or else I guess they're...not.

= (


= )

[JimmyJazz]

Hey -- c'mon -- you know nothing here is *personal*...! Either they're an assistance to you, or else I guess they're...not.

= (


= )

They're just a little hard to decipher.

[Mo212]

Remuneration has no place in a communist society. If there is to be a transition period between capitalism and genuine communism, it could theoretically feature some sort of labor credit system (this is what both Marx and anarcho-collectivists like Bakunin advocated); however, I think that trying to implement it would ultimately just end up slowing down the process of the revolution.

Yes a renumeration system would be necessary, there is a finite amount of scarce resources that can be used for any number of different things, how do you allocate rivalrous scarce resources under a system of no renumeration amongst competing projects who's worth and value is undecidable or extremely complicated to determine?

[Hyacinth]

Yes a renumeration system would be necessary, there is a finite amount of scarce resources that can be used for any number of different things, how do you allocate rivalrous scarce resources under a system of no renumeration amongst competing projects who's worth and value is undecidable or extremely complicated to determine?
Why is the allocation of such scarce resources incapable of being decided democratically? <rhetorical question>

[h9socialist]

There will always be "renumeration" -- the more important question is whethere that renumeration occurs as a matter of human right or a matter of reward for serving a hierarchy. The problem with capitalism is that even if it starts as a "meritocracy" private ownership eventually creates a hierarchy and all the injustice that goes with it. The only way to avoid this is renumeration on a collective scale where individuals share in all the work and all the reward as a matter of common humanity. I agree with Che that the aim is to drive out selfishness as a societal motivation. Nevertheless, if the workers are not renumerated for their labors, why are we *****ing about capitalism?????

[ckaihatsu]

I'll continue to advocate a formalized / remuneration-type approach here for several reasons, the most basic and (hopefully) uncontroversial one being for simple administrative / historical recordkeeping purposes.

Building on top of this, I think it's entirely reasonable to imagine that the social-collectivist *planning* process would want to *gauge* the logistical possibilities inherent to *any* prospective project. Need new computers? Who's going to engineer them, which factories would be the best ones to manufacture them, where are the materials going to come from, etc. For any given numbers of consumer requests from local populations all over the world there would have to be a major *preliminary* planning project undertaken just to assess demand and determine the requisite supplies of all necessary materials, labor, production plants, equipment, components, and so on.

While many understandably motivated revolutionaries might want to fast-forward to a math-free, massively informal good-vibes kind of communist world society, I think we would quickly find that the comforts and conveniences of a developed civilization -- even a modest one -- would come with a price. I don't mean to sound patronizing in the least -- it's just that many would want to transition *forward* to a *more-advanced* technological society, not *backward* to a revival of primitive communism, even if now on a globally networked scale.

Given that the revolution is always ongoing, and that we're always struggling to *transition* -- if only in people's minds for the here and now -- we may want to actually *keep* *some* of the economic social conventions that people are used to, for the beginning stages of the shift towards collectivization into the proletariat's hands.

One practice might be the use of *quantified* values, as simple measurements of inventories, and also for planning and logistical (scenario) purposes involving workers' labor hours / labor credits.

(I even advocate an incremental step before this, towards building up a worker-socialized, full-labor-value, global *syndicalist* currency, as a revolutionary strategy to cut against the existing system of commodity production.)

The overall idea is to chart a trajectory directed towards the final communist economics in which the *scarcest* resource at that time would be human labor, the most precious of resources in existence.

I don't think we should necessarily balk at formalized routines, categorically, even ones that measure labor down to the minute and on a scale of difficulty that ranges into several decimal places of precision. A *technique* of recordkeeping -- as long as it's accurate / truthful -- is just a *tool of measurement* and says *nothing at all* about the foundational *political economy* itself.

I'll even go so far as to say that "selfishness" and collectivization-socialization are not necessarily contrary to each other. Given a truly post-commodity, post-capitalist world of worker relations I can't imagine any socio-political problems arising from the mere *measurement* of individual workers' efforts over their lifetimes. In such a liberated society it would just be one of those incidental qualities, like how tall someone is, or what their hobbies and interests are -- some people might find themselves more prone to a work-oriented life while others would be more content at their leisure for the bulk of their lifetimes.

Some might even have -- (gasp) -- *personal goals* of achievement and productivity for themselves, akin to a competitive athlete's motivation. Such qualities, again, are *not* threatening to the overall collectivized structure of socialized property, because they would be entirely separate from an avaricious, abstract obsession with self-aggrandizement.

[robbo203]

There can be no remuneration in a communist society. Remuneration - or payment - for labour rendered implies employment and thus the division of society into an employing and employing class. In other words, not communism.

MO212 makes this observation:

Yes a renumeration system would be necessary, there is a finite amount of scarce resources that can be used for any number of different things, how do you allocate rivalrous scarce resources under a system of no renumeration amongst competing projects who's worth and value is undecidable or extremely complicated to determine?


Communism, in my view, will be based on a self-regulating system of production in which production and distribution units link up with, and respond to, each other in a complex network of information flows and requests. The determination of the relative scarcity of any factor in any given configuration of factors can be easily discovered through the application of von Leibig`s law of the minimum to identify which of these is the limiting factor. This will obviously depend on the level of stocks of said factor and the technical ratio of inputs to outputs (if you only need a small quantity of a given factor it does not matter so much that stocks of that factor are not so abundant)

Once the limiting factor has been identified i.e. the factor which constrains the output of the good you want to produce, it is then a case of going back to the suppliers to see if there was any possibility of increasing the supply of the factor in question and thereby increase the output of the good you want to produce in the first place.

Here is where I think it will be important for suppliers to have at their disposal some idea of the hierachy of production goals agreed by the community. If the good you want to produce falls within the categoriy of a high priroity good then it will be rational for suppliers of the factor in question to divert more of it to the producer producing this good. If not, then some other approach may be needed - for example technological substitition - to reduce the constraining effect of the limiting factor.

This is the way in which the problem of scarcities in a communist society can be overcome without any recourse to so called "remuneration"

[ckaihatsu]

There can be no remuneration in a communist society. Remuneration - or payment - for labour rendered implies employment and thus the division of society into an employing and employing class. In other words, not communism.


Robbo, I have to respectfully disagree with this linear-oriented thinking. If we're talking about a *communist* society, then that's one in which there is *no* private property, and therefore there could be *no* coercion used against a person's claim to the requirements for life and living.

With full, globalized collectivation comes the end of the class division, liberating all workers from working for commodity production and being commodities themselves.

It's within *this* context that we can discuss a *wide range* of administrative possibilities, including a formal system of labor credits and remuneration for actual labor time and effort. Obviously we're only brainstorming at this point, but whatever options are being proposed, including yours, they would be implemented in a society in which -- by definition -- coercive practices would be entirely *unavailable* to any would-be force-using group -- not that there *could* be any kind of elitist state anyway since all administration would be one and the same as the liberated workers themselves.





[...]

This is the way in which the problem of scarcities in a communist society can be overcome without any recourse to so called "remuneration"


While I agree with your supply-chain model, I think you're leaving out the fact that, in a communist society, *labor time* itself might very well have to be treated as a *scarce resource* -- this means that *it* would have to be factored into any planning scenario, thereby revealing the *differing interests* between the communist society as a whole and the laboring force tasked out to fulfill societal demands, especially for more specialized and leisure-related, or discretionary, products.

This situation would still be outside of *any* type of politics that could blackmail a worker against their own human needs for the basic essentials of living. It is *for* this fact of workers' liberated status that the larger society would have to *respect* and even *chase after* the cooperation of potential laborers, including offering rates of formal remuneration, so as to obtain people's time in the role of labor.

We *don't* have to conceptualize this possible situation as "class-based, exploitative employment" because [1] there would be no classes or private property, and thus no force-backed obligations compelling work whatsoever, and [2] one's build-up of remuneration for past work done could never be exchanged or otherwise used as a claim to ownership of land or a share in the ownership of mass production. An accumulation of labor credits would be akin to an accumulation of video-arcade game tokens, where one could use them only to be compensated with specialized goods and services for consumption, but *not* in any capital-representing, circulating-currency kind of way.

[robbo203]

Robbo, I have to respectfully disagree with this linear-oriented thinking. If we're talking about a *communist* society, then that's one in which there is *no* private property, and therefore there could be *no* coercion used against a person's claim to the requirements for life and living.

With full, globalized collectivation comes the end of the class division, liberating all workers from working for commodity production and being commodities themselves.

It's within *this* context that we can discuss a *wide range* of administrative possibilities, including a formal system of labor credits and remuneration for actual labor time and effort. Obviously we're only brainstorming at this point, but whatever options are being proposed, including yours, they would be implemented in a society in which -- by definition -- coercive practices would be entirely *unavailable* to any would-be force-using group -- not that there *could* be any kind of elitist state anyway since all administration would be one and the same as the liberated workers themselves..


Let me clarify my position here. I accept that the system of labour vouchers suggested by Marx for the lower phase of communism/socialism transcend a system of commodity production. As Marx pointed out, labour vouchers do not circulate and so do not constitute money. So it is from within this framework that I question the need for a labour voucher system and I think Marx's support for this proposal was somewhat half-hearted anyway.

Basically , my ciriticisms are as follows

1) A labour voucher system was put forward as a suggested response to material scarcities and the consequent need for rationing. Marx was writing at a time when the technological potential for a socialist society was still not yet in place. I would maintain that all talk of labour vouchers is now redundant in an area of potential abdundance

2) You say a system of remuneration by labour credits would not be "coercive". I question this. There is surely an element of coercion in any quid pro quo set up. Individuals who do not work or who are excessively lax in their approach to work will find pressure being put to bear on them - the ultimate sanction being the denial of labour credits and literal starvation, presumably. How do you get round this without watering down the whole system in the first place? In which case why bother with it at all?

3) I think a labour voucher system would actually foster attitudes antithetical to a cooperative outlook. Resentments would especially build up around issues such as how to differentially remunerate different kinds of labour. Inevitably some people will come to question the ratios between say skilled and unskilled labour, not to mention different categories of skilled or unskilled labour - how do you compare one hours worth of labour of a doctor with a computer programmer?). There would also develop a kind of quasi-class of supervisors charged with responsibility for monitoring the labour inputs of individuals which might then go on to develop a specific class interest themselves.

4) While labour vouchers are not money, there are moneylike qualities about it which worry me. You have to remember that not only are individuals remunerated in the form of labour credits, but the things that they purchase with their labour cedits have to be "priced" in terms of the amount of labour time embodied in them. Kropotkin made the facetious comment in 1907 that "after the Collectivist Revolution. instead of saying 'twopence worth of soap' we shall say 'fivepence minutes worth of soap'". In other words the position of the workers will not be that much different from that in capitalism.

5) There is a theoretical risk that a system of labour vouchers, while not in itself constituing money, might give rise to a parrallel black market system using one particular commodity as money. Within the prison system for example, amongst prisoners it has been observed that cigarettes have performed the function of a universal equivalent.

6) there is the inherent problem of how do you begin to differentiate between different kinds of labour

7) The monitoring of labour inputs requires a vast bureaucreatic apparatus which effectively draws labour and resources away from socially useful production. Yes I know you have said that these days with computer technology it is very easy to monitor labour inputs via a kind of sophisticated punch card system along the factory model . But this is only one aspect of the system - there are many others including the relative pricing of consumer goods as well and the problem of supervision and management and recording expenditures of labour credits

For all these reasons and because we already have the techological potential to support a fullly communist society I prefer instead to advocate a free access system. It would be far more efficient and streamlined than other comparable system





While I agree with your supply-chain model, I think you're leaving out the fact that, in a communist society, *labor time* itself might very well have to be treated as a *scarce resource* -- this means that *it* would have to be factored into any planning scenario, thereby revealing the *differing interests* between the communist society as a whole and the laboring force tasked out to fulfill societal demands, especially for more specialized and leisure-related, or discretionary, products.

This situation would still be outside of *any* type of politics that could blackmail a worker against their own human needs for the basic essentials of living. It is *for* this fact of workers' liberated status that the larger society would have to *respect* and even *chase after* the cooperation of potential laborers, including offering rates of formal remuneration, so as to obtain people's time in the role of labor.

We *don't* have to conceptualize this possible situation as "class-based, exploitative employment" because [1] there would be no classes or private property, and thus no force-backed obligations compelling work whatsoever, and [2] one's build-up of remuneration for past work done could never be exchanged or otherwise used as a claim to ownership of land or a share in the ownership of mass production. An accumulation of labor credits would be akin to an accumulation of video-arcade game tokens, where one could use them only to be compensated with specialized goods and services for consumption, but *not* in any capital-representing, circulating-currency kind of way.

Like I said , the issue is not whether or not workers would be remunerated "in any capital-representing, circulating-currency kind of way". I agree that we are not talking about capitalism here even though there are some aspects of a labour voucher system which are somewhat similar to capitalism.

Labour time accounting is another matter entirely; it is not to be confused or conflated with labour time vouchers. Of course, I accept that the labour needs of production units in socialism/communism have to be assessed then publicised and communicated to the population at large inviting people to participate. Something akin to our present day "job centres" may play an important role here as well other approaches

However labour time accounting would be undertaken for the purposes of planning but planning in a decentralised sense - not central planning. It would be the labour needs of particular production units that would be the focus

[ckaihatsu]

Like I said , the issue is not whether or not workers would be remunerated "in any capital-representing, circulating-currency kind of way". I agree that we are not talking about capitalism here even though there are some aspects of a labour voucher system which are somewhat similar to capitalism.

Labour time accounting is another matter entirely; it is not to be confused or conflated with labour time vouchers. Of course, I accept that the labour needs of production units in socialism/communism have to be assessed then publicised and communicated to the population at large inviting people to participate. Something akin to our present day "job centres" may play an important role here as well other approaches

However labour time accounting would be undertaken for the purposes of planning but planning in a decentralised sense - not central planning. It would be the labour needs of particular production units that would be the focus




1) A labour voucher system was put forward as a suggested response to material scarcities and the consequent need for rationing. Marx was writing at a time when the technological potential for a socialist society was still not yet in place. I would maintain that all talk of labour vouchers is now redundant in an area of potential abdundance


So then it may be best to limit the usage of a labor vouchers / labor hours-credits system to those materials that *are* (continue to remain) in a condition of scarcity. I would include specialized skilled labor in the service of politically speculative projects in this category.





2) You say a system of remuneration by labour credits would not be "coercive". I question this. There is surely an element of coercion in any quid pro quo set up.


You're forgetting / ignoring that a system of labor credits could *only* take place in a revolutionary / post-capitalist / communist collectivized political economy. This means that people could *only* claim personal possessions, mass production projects would require a transparent mass political approval process, and everything else would be open and available for the taking for personal use.

This is *hardly* a societal atmosphere that would lend itself in any way to *coercion* -- if a person didn't want to take part in any labors that were within the labor credits system, there would be *nothing* that could compel the person to do so -- they would still have society's bounty available to them, or the means to *personally* grow, harvest, or build their own without interference.





Individuals who do not work or who are excessively lax in their approach to work will find pressure being put to bear on them - the ultimate sanction being the denial of labour credits and literal starvation, presumably.


Well, I *don't* think that this is a *warranted* postulation -- you're presuming that a lack of regular work on absolutely everyone's individual part would cause gaping holes to open up in society's fabric, leading to thuggish hierarchies, famines and starvation. Pressure can *only* conceivably come from *organized* entities or institutions -- most notably the state.

In a *post-class* society there *could not be* any possible material basis for the *institutionalization* of an organized force-using body like a bureaucracy or a standing army -- these are institutions that derive from the persistent existence of a privileged strata in society. With class *abolished* by the general (working class) population, the resulting societal composition would be too ground-level, free-moving, diffuse, and -- most likely -- persistently *dynamic* at *all scales and distances* to permit the build-up of a stagnant organization of force as we're so used to seeing over generations of lifetimes under capitalism.





How do you get round this without watering down the whole system in the first place? In which case why bother with it at all?


"Watered down" may very well be a good baseline conceptualization to work with here -- the point is that, under capitalism, there is too much of a *disparity* between that which is built up and that which is left undeveloped. So what we *want* is more of an *initial* "watering down" of that which is built up, so that resources can be distributed more equitably -- that would be the point of a revolution.

Once total human need has finally been provided for, *then* a system of labor credits might be more suitable, as a formalized, economic-like shorthand to expedite the mass planning and implementation of more specialized and speculative political-humanity projects.





Kropotkin made the facetious comment in 1907 that "after the Collectivist Revolution. instead of saying 'twopence worth of soap' we shall say 'fivepence minutes worth of soap'". In other words the position of the workers will not be that much different from that in capitalism.




3) I think a labour voucher system would actually foster attitudes antithetical to a cooperative outlook. Resentments would especially build up around issues such as how to differentially remunerate different kinds of labour.


No, I think you're just being unreasonably pessimistic here -- a good way to cut against the possible emergence of unfairness, sore feelings, and resentments is to make sure that the administrative process used is fair, commonly agreed on, accessible, and transparent to begin with.

My proposal is to have a rolling schedule of public surveys that continually glean the active workforce's attitudes on what is considered to be challenging and arduous labor -- a mass average consensus could be determined by on-the-job and exit polling for all kinds of labor roles, to aid in providing not only job descriptions and expectations but also for determining a fair multiplier on labor hours, acknowledging that not all jobs are the same.

The "economic" component of the multiplier on labor hours would be accompanied by the *political* component of a mass, localized aggregate political prioritization list -- while some work roles may have attractive, higher multipliers attached to them, they may also be *lower* on the locality's political prioritization list -- especially considering the higher material cost associated with them -- meaning that those jobs really aren't needed at the moment. Go-getting, avaricious types could very well shoot for higher-multiplier job positions, but without those positions being a priority for the locality the budgeting / funding of requisite labor credits (implicitly a promise of future labor being made available) for those positions just *wouldn't be there*, leaving the more self-serving types back at the discretion of the prevailing popular political will.





6) there is the inherent problem of how do you begin to differentiate between different kinds of labour




Inevitably some people will come to question the ratios between say skilled and unskilled labour, not to mention different categories of skilled or unskilled labour - how do you compare one hours worth of labour of a doctor with a computer programmer?). There would also develop a kind of quasi-class of supervisors charged with responsibility for monitoring the labour inputs of individuals which might then go on to develop a specific class interest themselves.


Let's *not* think of the labor-hour multiplier rates in terms of fluctuating market prices, but rather as a system of continuously rolling promises and fulfillments of work-time being made and closed-out, forever propelling the society's cooperation and collective development into the future.

The mass surveys could be conducted anonymously and impartially so that the *aggregate* of public opinion for *all* work roles would be revealed, bringing out a definitive social *objectivity* from the process of determining the mass *pan-subjectivity* -- *this* would be the basis of the labor-hour multiplier standard -- *not* a bubble-surfing market rate or even an idealized, "level-playing-field" supply-and-demand mechanism. The survey-derived labor-hour multipliers would *stand apart* from the actual *political economy* that the liberated labor force would *consciously determine* through discussion and explicit mass planning.





there are many [other aspects of a required apparatus] including the relative pricing of consumer goods as well and the problem of supervision and management and recording expenditures of labour credits


Supervisors would *not* be needed to oversee each and every work position since the nature of the supervisory role implies a *divergence of interest* between the worker and the supervisor. In a post-capitalist political economy those people who really would not want to work *would not work*. There would be nothing critical to their well-being that could compel them to give up time and effort out of their lives if *they themselves* didn't *want* to put in that time for the sake of work.

Individual workers would be accountable *not* to a managing strata that represents a *divergently-motivated* ownership class, but rather to *other workers* who are *like-minded* and *motivated in common*. In today's world people are able to achieve a communism-*like* mode of production through being able to fund their own hobbies, clubs, sports, interest groups, and so on, but due to the nature of capitalist ownership these activities are necessarily on a *very* limited, small scale. Anything that requires greater supplies and streams of resources *must* submit to and satisfy the profit motive if they are to see the light of day.





4) While labour vouchers are not money, there are moneylike qualities about it which worry me. You have to remember that not only are individuals remunerated in the form of labour credits, but the things that they purchase with their labour cedits have to be "priced" in terms of the amount of labour time embodied in them.


No, *you* have to remember that, aside from major assets like factories, all other non-personal resources from nature or past production would be freely available for personal consumption and *could not* be claimed as private property by *anyone*.

Without commodity production or commodities *nothing* could be "priced" -- *nothing* would have *any* formal value. Only labor credits could be assigned for work completed, and they would entitle the bearer to request (and claim) the equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time -- but *not* the material proceeds from that labor, because that would be the formation of private property. In practice this would merely be an "economic" mechanism for the planning of mass production projects that would congregate various types of labor into component labor roles while formally acknowledging the fulfillment of those work hours. Those who have worked more in the past would have greater accumulations of labor credits and so would have a stronger "economic" pool with which to plan and request / designate *future* work roles for future work projects. Their "economic" might would be checked by the larger communist political society which would *politically* determine a *prioritization* of requests, for extant material resources and for initiating planned projects that would require certain work roles / labor hours.

So, in more everyday language, the people of a locality could say, "We have these assets available to us, like the local factory and rail lines, and we've determined that we want the following production projects to happen so that we can produce these things for our locality."

A *subset* of this locality would be the *most active* laborers who have put in past effort to work in and around the locality (or further afield), and thus have built up impressive personal stores of labor credits. *These* workers would then be in a position to be the "movers and shakers" on the ground, making their labor credits available to *certain* other laborers in return for work in work roles *of their choosing* that *they* determine to be the most appropriate.

The continuing rollover and progression of labor credit transfers would be the material of a self-determining labor network that could be neither *insular*, due to the *overall* locality's *political prioritization* of needs and requests ("demand"), *nor* could the labor network be *commanded* by the locality, since the locality would *be dependent* on *some* group of workers appropriate to the roles it wanted filled. No *compulsion* could be used on workers because the post-capitalist society would have an abundance of the means for everyone to easily satisfy their basic living needs without having to work *at all*. And nothing of *economic* value could be offered because there would be no private property or commodities *to* offer -- if resources existed people would have every right to just take them for their own personal use. Only the *promise* of being able to designate future *specific* work hours / roles could be used as an incentive to motivate a person to work, through the locality's issuing of labor credits. The outstanding labor credits issued would be a *debt* incurred by the locality that could only be cancelled out with the fulfillment of future, corresponding work hours put in by the inhabitants of that locality.

Another "check" against the larger population of the locality would be that Local workers could always *collectively organize* and *withhold their labor credits* (funding of labor) if they didn't like the locality's plans. *Or*, workers who felt restless or otherwise dissatisfied could always *move on* if there was a prolonged impasse in the area -- labor credits would be universal all over the world. As a result of general labor dissatisfaction the locality would have to *mobilize* more of its *own* members into the active workforce to get things done, or else *make plans* to mobilize its members in the near future in order to *issue labor credits* in the *present* to secure laborers for current projects.





5) There is a theoretical risk that a system of labour vouchers, while not in itself constituing money, might give rise to a parrallel black market system using one particular commodity as money.




Within the prison system for example, amongst prisoners it has been observed that cigarettes have performed the function of a universal equivalent.


Markets only emerge as a way of mitigating the effect of scarcity, whether actual or artificially (politically) created. If enough basic resources are freely available then people won't need money, markets, *or* possibly even a system of labor roles and work -- (consider a technologically advanced form of 'primitive communism').





7) The monitoring of labour inputs requires a vast bureaucreatic apparatus which effectively draws labour and resources away from socially useful production. Yes I know you have said that these days with computer technology it is very easy to monitor labour inputs via a kind of sophisticated punch card system along the factory model . But this is only one aspect of the system -


So we're agreed that the *technical*, recordkeeping aspect would not be a challenge or an issue in a post-capitalist, worker-collectivized society. What might be more of a question mark is the *extent* of a locality's (or *region's*) need for administrative overhead -- I think this is what you're really getting at here.

I like to think that this part could be handled *collectively*, as with a routine of reading the daily news, so as to keep the formalization / institutionalization of the necessary administration to a minimum. Perhaps, once a policy initiative has been collectively approved, the prevailing policy's political backers would be the ones to administer it, while themselves being overseen / regulated by the general membership of the locality, through news channels. All of the background of political discussion and policy faction battles would be *uncompensated* since politics carries its own motivations and rewards -- a policy proposal would necessarily contain its own budget on labor credits for labor, and also a budget of labor credits for administration of the policy. The prevailing policy's backers would be accountable to that administrative budget while any deviation from that overall policy plan would put a hold on the implementation of the plan and would re-ignite a new round of politics -- something the policy's backers would want to avoid.

The pool (or puddle) of potential eligible workers -- with greater-labor-credit-earned workers having more clout -- would be a complementary, *self-administering*, *supply* component to the locality's policy-initiative, *demand* side of any project's equation.





For all these reasons and because we already have the techological potential to support a fullly communist society I prefer instead to advocate a free access system. It would be far more efficient and streamlined than other comparable system


In light of what I've just written you may want to expand on this -- what do you mean exactly by a "free access" system?

[robbo203]

So then it may be best to limit the usage of a labor vouchers / labor hours-credits system to those materials that *are* (continue to remain) in a condition of scarcity. I would include specialized skilled labor in the service of politically speculative projects in this category.


Doesnt the above contradict what you say here: "Only labor credits could be assigned for work completed, and they would entitle the bearer to request (and claim) the equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time -- but *not* the material proceeds from that labor, because that would be the formation of private property". If rationing is still required for certain goods on account of their scarcity there is a much better model available for this than labour vouchers. It is what I call the compensation model of rationing which would be much more simple and straightforward to operate




You're forgetting / ignoring that a system of labor credits could *only* take place in a revolutionary / post-capitalist / communist collectivized political economy. This means that people could *only* claim personal possessions, mass production projects would require a transparent mass political approval process, and everything else would be open and available for the taking for personal use.


Im not quite sure what you are getting at here. Are you saying labour vouchers would operate alongside a system of free access and apply only to scarce goods?



This is *hardly* a societal atmosphere that would lend itself in any way to *coercion* -- if a person didn't want to take part in any labors that were within the labor credits system, there would be *nothing* that could compel the person to do so -- they would still have society's bounty available to them, or the means to *personally* grow, harvest, or build their own without interference.

But then what is the point of having a labour voucher system in that case? I just dont get it. If labour vouchers dont entitle you to the "material proceeds" of the labour of others by which you presumably mean consumer goods then what do they entitle you to have? The "equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time" seems too vague to me. Can you elaborate in more concrete terms?






Well, I *don't* think that this is a *warranted* postulation -- you're presuming that a lack of regular work on absolutely everyone's individual part would cause gaping holes to open up in society's fabric, leading to thuggish hierarchies, famines and starvation. Pressure can *only* conceivably come from *organized* entities or institutions -- most notably the state.


Well I was kind of assuming that by a system of labour voucher/credits you meant something that entitled you , or gave you access , to consumer goods. Now Im not quite sure what you have in mind! However, with a system of labour vouchers applying to consumer goods I would say yes there is more than a suggestion of coercion involved because presumably people would only have access to labour vouchers and hence the consumer goods against which these vouchers were exchanged if they worked in the first place. No work means no labour vouchers means no consumer goodies to consume. No doubt people would not be allowed to literally starve if they did not work but preventing this from happening would be against the whole thrust of a labour voucher system in much the same way as the dole today is prevents people starving if they cannot find employment



In a *post-class* society there *could not be* any possible material basis for the *institutionalization* of an organized force-using body like a bureaucracy or a standing army -- these are institutions that derive from the persistent existence of a privileged strata in society. With class *abolished* by the general (working class) population, the resulting societal composition would be too ground-level, free-moving, diffuse, and -- most likely -- persistently *dynamic* at *all scales and distances* to permit the build-up of a stagnant organization of force as we're so used to seeing over generations of lifetimes under capitalism.



You may be right but I still think a generalised labour voucher system (though this does not appear to be what you are advocating) holds out the prospect of a return to class society. It may not happen but it could





Once total human need has finally been provided for, *then* a system of labor credits might be more suitable, as a formalized, economic-like shorthand to expedite the mass planning and implementation of more specialized and speculative political-humanity projects.




I really dont understand what you mean by this. Could you possibly elaborate. It seems to me in my naivete that once human needs have finally been provided for then the whole rationale for labour vouchers disappears completely anyway. We have entered the phase of higher communism





No, I think you're just being unreasonably pessimistic here -- a good way to cut against the possible emergence of unfairness, sore feelings, and resentments is to make sure that the administrative process used is fair, commonly agreed on, accessible, and transparent to begin with.

My proposal is to have a rolling schedule of public surveys that continually glean the active workforce's attitudes on what is considered to be challenging and arduous labor -- a mass average consensus could be determined by on-the-job and exit polling for all kinds of labor roles, to aid in providing not only job descriptions and expectations but also for determining a fair multiplier on labor hours, acknowledging that not all jobs are the same.

The "economic" component of the multiplier on labor hours would be accompanied by the *political* component of a mass, localized aggregate political prioritization list -- while some work roles may have attractive, higher multipliers attached to them, they may also be *lower* on the locality's political prioritization list -- especially considering the higher material cost associated with them -- meaning that those jobs really aren't needed at the moment. Go-getting, avaricious types could very well shoot for higher-multiplier job positions, but without those positions being a priority for the locality the budgeting / funding of requisite labor credits (implicitly a promise of future labor being made available) for those positions just *wouldn't be there*, leaving the more self-serving types back at the discretion of the prevailing popular political will.




So let me see if I have got this straight. You envisage a rolling schedule of public surveys to determine what people felt about the different ratios of remuneration in terms of labour vouchers attaching to different categories of work. First of all as you must be aware there are thousands upon thousands of different occupational categories - I say nothing of different levels of aplication or skill within the same category. To gather together public opnion on these matters would be a stupendously enormous bureaucratic exercise which does not recommend itself. Secondly you talk reaching a "mass average consensus" by such means. But this hardly constitutes an adequate way of preventing the "possible emergence of unfairness, sore feelings, and resentments". JUst because you arrive at an average notion of what is acceptable does not prevent individuals vehemently disagreeing with this notion. This is my point - you are always going to have this under any system of remuneration and this is part of the reason why I am so insistent on the need to do with the whole notion of remuneration in communism altogether





Without commodity production or commodities *nothing* could be "priced" -- *nothing* would have *any* formal value. Only labor credits could be assigned for work completed, and they would entitle the bearer to request (and claim) the equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time -- but *not* the material proceeds from that labor, because that would be the formation of private property. In practice this would merely be an "economic" mechanism for the planning of mass production projects that would congregate various types of labor into component labor roles while formally acknowledging the fulfillment of those work hours.


I think it is important to stress that the proposal for labour vouchers is not linked to the proposal for labour time accounting. These two proposals should not be conflated. Ive said something about the latter already but as far as labour vouchers are concerned if you are going to have these then obviously you have to "price" the things against which these labour vouchers are to be exchanged. These things cannot all be equal in terms of the quantity of labour vouchers required to obtain them; they must also reflect in their "price" the differences in labour time that went into to producing them in the first place otherwise there is completely no point in having a labour voucher system at all, If ten units of labour vouchers (representing ten hours labour ) could get you a swanky car or a tub of butter we can easily guess which of these is going to attract the most interest. Those things have to mirror in their "price" what determines the amount of labour vouchers that workers recieve under such a system otherwise the whole system will fall apart.

Now I dont know what you think labour vouchers are going to be used for in the lower phase of communism - what are you exchanging labour vouchers for if not the "material proceeds" of other people's labour i.e consumer goods. So I have to reserve jusdgement and wait for you to expand on this point






The pool (or puddle) of potential eligible workers -- with greater-labor-credit-earned workers having more clout -- would be a complementary, *self-administering*, *supply* component to the locality's policy-initiative, *demand* side of any project's equation.


Are you saying that the purpose of acquiring labour credits would be to gain more clout and have a bigger say in the production process? Which means some people are more equal than others. This does not strike me as being consonent with the democratic nature of communism. It strikes me as being more like meritocracy






In light of what I've just written you may want to expand on this -- what do you mean exactly by a "free access" system?



Free access means quite literally you take from the public stores what you need as decided by you yourself. There is no economic exchange involved at all. There are no quid pro quos. This is in tune with the idea that communism is a system of generalised reciprocity. A true moral economy in the proper sense of the word

[ckaihatsu]

Doesnt the above contradict what you say here: "Only labor credits could be assigned for work completed, and they would entitle the bearer to request (and claim) the equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time -- but *not* the material proceeds from that labor, because that would be the formation of private property". If rationing is still required for certain goods on account of their scarcity there is a much better model available for this than labour vouchers. It is what I call the compensation model of rationing which would be much more simple and straightforward to operate


Well, do please feel free to elaborate here on your 'compensation model of rationing'.





Free access means quite literally you take from the public stores what you need as decided by you yourself. There is no economic exchange involved at all. There are no quid pro quos. This is in tune with the idea that communism is a system of generalised reciprocity. A true moral economy in the proper sense of the word


Yes, I am in agreement with a free-access system of personal consumption, with the proviso that virtually all mass consumption would have to be *pre-planned* and *formalized* into *political requests* for requisite production from a labor force. For flows of regularly consumed goods and services there would be an ongoing schedule of production runs so that supply would always be available with no patterns of starts-and-stops incurred.





It seems to me in my naivete that once human needs have finally been provided for then the whole rationale for labour vouchers disappears completely anyway. We have entered the phase of higher communism




Are you saying labour vouchers would operate alongside a system of free access and apply only to scarce goods?


I'm working from a radial-distribution conception of a post-capitalist, worker-collectives, factory-locus kind of model here -- picture a giant bull's eye target laid flat down on the ground that spans up to a few miles in diameter. This would depict the general layout of the locality's economy, where production would be at the center and the fruits of production would also be most easily accessed and concentrated at the center. Workers' power -- the locality's society's political heart -- would center around the factory at the center. (And of course *many* production facilities in an area would each have their own locus, creating an overlapping of distribution circles, like ripples in a pond.)

Using this bullseye model for *the economy as a whole* gives us an outlying *edge* boundary that represents *peripheral areas* *of the economy*. Life sustaining goods like food, medicine, housing materials, and so on would be more critical, and thus at the center of the economy, with ready capacity for producing these things anytime. Less-critical items would be more discretionary, enjoying lesser political support, and thus would be further out on the "radius" of the economy, towards the periphery.

It's *these* products, like luxury goods and specialized technical items, that might be allowed to exist in relative *scarcity* since it would *not* be a political priority for the locality as a whole. This is the (ring-shaped) region in which a more-formalized economy, based on labor-hour credits -- as I've described -- would be relevant and applicable. Goods and services that are more critical to *everyone's* basic well-being would enjoy easier and broader political support and could exist in continuous abundance towards the *center* of the "radial-shaped" economy.





But then what is the point of having a labour voucher system in that case? I just dont get it.


Currently production requires [1] labor, and [2] capital, right? Without the abstracted, bullshit capital-market-pricing valuation at play we would have to have a *political economy* that *collectively, consciously* assumes mass control and planning over society's productive capacities, right?

But this *political* aspect doesn't speak to the *labor* component in a post-capitalist political economy -- sure no one could be blackmailed into work roles against their basic human living needs, but how would the potential, willing labor *supply* be treated by the *larger*, *overarching* political society -- the "demand" -- ?

This is where *past work completed*, quantified into labor credits, would confer a kind of *seniority* or *labor social status* in organizing the (numerically smaller) supply of labor to potentially meet the (numerically larger) population's requests ("demand") for production runs.





Well I was kind of assuming that by a system of labour voucher/credits you meant something that entitled you , or gave you access , to consumer goods. Now Im not quite sure what you have in mind! However, with a system of labour vouchers applying to consumer goods I would say yes there is more than a suggestion of coercion involved because presumably people would only have access to labour vouchers and hence the consumer goods against which these vouchers were exchanged if they worked in the first place. No work means no labour vouchers means no consumer goodies to consume. No doubt people would not be allowed to literally starve if they did not work but preventing this from happening would be against the whole thrust of a labour voucher system in much the same way as the dole today is prevents people starving if they cannot find employment




If labour vouchers dont entitle you to the "material proceeds" of the labour of others by which you presumably mean consumer goods then what do they entitle you to have? The "equivalent labor time from another worker at a future time" seems too vague to me. Can you elaborate in more concrete terms?


The material proceeds would become the resources of the collective, common population. In terms of actual possession and consumption, *that* would all be *pre-planned*, right? It would have had to go through a mass political decision-making policy process in order to even be *initiated* in the first place -- so everything is according to political will, set quantities, schedules, and logistics.

The workers who work on any given production run do *not necessarily* have to be the *consumers* of the resulting products -- they could even be *traveling* / *itinerant* laborers who are not *from* the locality -- *this* is another good reason for introducing a labor-hours credits system, so that a locality has the *flexibility* of finding suitable labor without being *tied down* to geographical constraints, or a labor workforce's *personal* interests and *personal* voluntarism.





Are you saying that the purpose of acquiring labour credits would be to gain more clout and have a bigger say in the production process? Which means some people are more equal than others. This does not strike me as being consonent with the democratic nature of communism. It strikes me as being more like meritocracy





A *subset* of this locality would be the *most active* laborers who have put in past effort to work in and around the locality (or further afield), and thus have built up impressive personal stores of labor credits. *These* workers would then be in a position to be the "movers and shakers" on the ground, making their labor credits available to *certain* other laborers in return for work in work roles *of their choosing* that *they* determine to be the most appropriate.

So, in other words, more-consistently-active workers would be rewarded with relatively greater labor-organizing power *within* a locality's requested project or production run. Possession of more labor credits corresponds to being able to *select* more workers for more hours of work, since *those* *incoming* workers have to be *paid* somehow, right? Upon completion of the new work the labor-credit-possessing workers would *hand over* the labor credits to the new workforce that just put in the labor hours for completing the production run.

This would be akin to a syndicalism of sorts, though one gauged to actual track records of past work effort put in. With more labor credits comes more coordinating, labor-executive-like political power over future locality-planned projects. The transfer of labor credits also functions as a *formal material fulfillment* of rewards for work completed, because many (most?)(all?) of the labor-credit-possessing workers would *also* be residents of the same local locality, so their *putting up* of the labor-credit "funding" would be a further demonstration and representation of the locality's political intention.

If residents do not possess sufficient amounts of *existing* labor credits to fulfill an intended planned production project the locality would have to *incur a debt* by *summarily* issuing labor credits (out of thin air) that could then *later* be used "against" that locality (or any other, for that matter) to claim *their* labor for future work. The summarily issued labor credits would be recorded as such, and all records everywhere would be transparent anyway, so no locality could "get away" for too long with just summarily issuing debt-backed labor credits. The larger the labor-credit deficit, the more apparent it would be to everyone, and the political process would adjust accordingly, treating residents of a deficit locality as being more "desperate" for work, and certainly less deserving of being able to issue *more* debt-backed labor credits.





You may be right but I still think a generalised labour voucher system (though this does not appear to be what you are advocating) holds out the prospect of a return to class society. It may not happen but it could


With this model the checks and balances would be built-in between the interests of labor for organizing strength (channels of labor credits flowing forward), and the interests of the population for skilled, experienced, readily available labor (large-group demands, concentrated and formalized through politically agreed-upon prioritizations of work projects, and paid for with difficulty-factored labor credits, by the hour).





So let me see if I have got this straight. You envisage a rolling schedule of public surveys to determine what people felt about the different ratios of remuneration in terms of labour vouchers attaching to different categories of work. First of all as you must be aware there are thousands upon thousands of different occupational categories - I say nothing of different levels of aplication or skill within the same category. To gather together public opnion on these matters would be a stupendously enormous bureaucratic exercise which does not recommend itself. Secondly you talk reaching a "mass average consensus" by such means. But this hardly constitutes an adequate way of preventing the "possible emergence of unfairness, sore feelings, and resentments". JUst because you arrive at an average notion of what is acceptable does not prevent individuals vehemently disagreeing with this notion. This is my point - you are always going to have this under any system of remuneration and this is part of the reason why I am so insistent on the need to do with the whole notion of remuneration in communism altogether


The *standards* of multiplier rates set to convert labor *hours* into *labor credits* would be *separate* from the actual functioning of the economy.

Think of the thousands of different occupational categories as being like *college courses* *rated* by college students as they finish the semester. Besides gathering up qualitative *descriptions* -- easily posted by the individuals to a website, thus reducing the overhead / administration / bureaucracy to near-zero, the cumulative opinions of each job role could be gathered in the form of a *quantified* *rating* -- a *universal* measure of 1 to 10. These collected ratings could be calibrated and re-scaled so that the *absolutely* *most difficult or distasteful* work roles that consistently received high-scoring survey returns would be considered to be the "ceiling" of difficulty in the work-role jobs ecosystem. These *massively cumulative*, averaged survey ratings would represent *thousands and millions* of survey returns, indicating mass sentiment -- all statistics could be kept anonymous but be made transparent so that everyone could see the distribution of data for each particular work role, rated by those who actually worked them, and sortable by general area, time-frame, and industry / occupation.

These ratings would be the basis for *multiplier ratios* to convert labor hours at each respective position into appropriately compensated *labor credit* pay rates.





I think it is important to stress that the proposal for labour vouchers is not linked to the proposal for labour time accounting. These two proposals should not be conflated. Ive said something about the latter already but as far as labour vouchers are concerned if you are going to have these then obviously you have to "price" the things against which these labour vouchers are to be exchanged. These things cannot all be equal in terms of the quantity of labour vouchers required to obtain them; they must also reflect in their "price" the differences in labour time that went into to producing them in the first place otherwise there is completely no point in having a labour voucher system at all, If ten units of labour vouchers (representing ten hours labour ) could get you a swanky car or a tub of butter we can easily guess which of these is going to attract the most interest. Those things have to mirror in their "price" what determines the amount of labour vouchers that workers recieve under such a system otherwise the whole system will fall apart.

Now I dont know what you think labour vouchers are going to be used for in the lower phase of communism - what are you exchanging labour vouchers for if not the "material proceeds" of other people's labour i.e consumer goods. So I have to reserve jusdgement and wait for you to expand on this point


No, as I've described, material proceeds would be a *pre-planned*, political "demand" on the part of a locality's general population. No commodity values, or exchange "prices", would be necessary.

[hefty_lefty]

Maybe scarce items need not be distributed at all, luxuries are not necessity and if it will possibly form gaps between those who have and those who don't have then socialist society is better off without those rare items.
Or, the state could stockpile these scarce items until there are enough to fulfill the wants of those who want. Equality is the backbone of socialism so it may be best that either we all have something or none of us have it.

[ckaihatsu]

With all due respect to serious and committed revolutionaries, I think that there's often a (very understandable) lack of realizing that *any* society, even a liberated revolutionary one, will always *have* to operate within the constraints of *materialism* itself. Materialism is merely the acknowledging that we are ultimately bound by a physical plane and that to get stuff done the energy and effort has to come from *somewhere*. Even the most humane, enlightened society will still be within these laws of the physical universe.

There's the everyday dynamic of *diminishing returns*, for example, by which we may realize that continually adding to our formal schooling will only go so far, personally and/or professionally. At some point most say, "I'm done here," because to put in further effort and take on additional expense might *not* propel one in *direct proportion* to the effort being put in. Same thing for running errands, where staying fixed in a mode of "getting things done" could very well allow one to accomplish much during daylight, but after awhile additional efforts just won't be compensated with the same, sustained rate of accomplishment.





Maybe scarce items need not be distributed at all, luxuries are not necessity and if it will possibly form gaps between those who have and those who don't have then socialist society is better off without those rare items.


The material-logistical question is *always* with us -- given that human hunger could be materially wiped out, what then? Some might say that they would find it *worthwhile* to then focus on producing luxuries and specialized technical developments. *No one* can authoritatively say that human existence must *preclude* art, aesthetics, style, beauty, leisure, romance, sports, games, hobbies, consumer technology, and other kinds of self-motivated interests and expressions.

In *strictly subsistence terms* these finer developments are materially indefensible while people die of water-borne diseases, or at least they should be a much lower priority for *current* societal energies. But after the revolution what is it that people might want to do with themselves? Probably the *same* kinds of things that people have been doing for thousands of years in developed, civilized life -- it's just that a revolution that wipes out the class division will free up *more people* to be able to *access* and *enjoy* these kinds of lifestyles.

As revolutionaries we can't *pretend* that after the day of the crushing of capitalism people will want to do nothing but circulate endlessly around the globe just shaking hands and hugging -- the intricacies of civilization and its administration will make a comeback, leaving us with the ever-present question of *where* and *to what* our attentions go, and to what ends.





Or, the state could stockpile these scarce items until there are enough to fulfill the wants of those who want. Equality is the backbone of socialism so it may be best that either we all have something or none of us have it.


In a *post-* capitalist economy priorities will of course be for basic human needs. I have the sense that, once the ruling class boot comes off of our necks, *this* goal could very well be accomplished *very quickly*. Considering the staggering technologies that exist to produce food and other common basics of modern life, I don't think we would be struggling with *capacity* or *logistical* issues for long at all.

But neither do I think that we should get hung-up and twitchy about keeping the *civilizational* landscape *flat* in a post-class society / economy. Even today plenty of people do plenty of stuff and plenty of people are not at all bothered by it nor does it concern them even when they find out. Did someone in a major city just buy a large diamond for millions of dollars? Okay, so the rest of us aren't in a position to do the same, because of wealth constraints, but many of us also wouldn't *be* that concerned about gemstones even if we *could* have free and easy access to such a field or possession.

We shouldn't become the epitome of the stereotype that the right-wing foists on us -- that of hypersensitive Stalinist authoritarians who will regulate everyone's cradle-to-grave emotional existence more meticulously than a lifetime supply of Xanax. We should acknowledge that it's not the *material disparities* that are the problem as much as it's the *inhumane* material disparities that exist.

We *don't* want to fall into the trap of being *ideological* on the *finer points*, because there's *no point* -- socialism is best when it's addressing the *glaring political catastrophies* of our modern age, but it's a fish out of water when it comes to how a liberated populace should run their own liberated civilization.

I have my own outline as to how material supply should be prioritized -- the rarer items could be handled on a first-come-first-served basis, or by lottery -- in this way we wouldn't *have* to shy away from the reality that a post-revolution world will contain unique and rare objects that might come under popular demand. Such a society will have to face up to and deal with *those* challenges using the best of *its* composition when the time comes.

[hefty_lefty]

But neither do I think that we should get hung-up and twitchy about keeping the *civilizational* landscape *flat* in a post-class society / economy. Even today plenty of people do plenty of stuff and plenty of people are not at all bothered by it nor does it concern them even when they find out. Did someone in a major city just buy a large diamond for millions of dollars? Okay, so the rest of us aren't in a position to do the same, because of wealth constraints, but many of us also wouldn't *be* that concerned about gemstones even if we *could* have free and easy access to such a field or possession.

Rich people buy grandoise things, like diamonds, and the reason it doesn't bother us is that we know that those things are beyond our reach. Many are envious of such things, even if they don't outwardly show it. So, if you dispense these 'special' objects 'freely', they become accessible to everyone and what was once out of reach is now within it. Everyone will want it, because it's FREE.And first come first serve is a tactic best left for coyotes, not people.So let us be realistic, it isn't going to be all hugs and parades (in that you are right), not for many generations anyways, and the lingering capialist mentality of the new socialist man/woman is something we must subdue, and taking away some of the old temptations of vanity, elitism and greed is an important step.One last thing, somewhere along the way we have deviated from a truly purposeful and fulfilling existence and we can't discredit socialism due to it's inability to map the way to a balanced, liberated life.It's our job as people, not leftists, to that find out.

[ckaihatsu]

Rich people buy grandoise things, like diamonds, and the reason it doesn't bother us is that we know that those things are beyond our reach. Many are envious of such things, even if they don't outwardly show it.


Yeah, we would be willfully self-denying -- an *internal contradiction*, and a *religious* cultural mindset -- if we said that we aren't materialists, and therefore at least *open* to what the world has to offer.

Moreover, it *should* politically bother us, at least somewhat, that we *don't* have access to more-expensive, more-refined pleasures, since there's no legitimate reason that the world should be set up this way, denying so much to so many.





So, if you dispense these 'special' objects 'freely', they become accessible to everyone and what was once out of reach is now within it. Everyone will want it, because it's FREE.


Sure, and this is *exactly* how things *should* be -- general *availability* is key, and then the trickier part of who gets more-permanent *possession* soon follows. But everyone *should* indulge their whims, as much as they see fit.





And first come first serve is a tactic best left for coyotes, not people.


Well, I mean it in the sense of *orderliness* -- that 'first-come-first-served' could be the *formal*, *official* policy of taking down names on a list so that there's no question or confusion about who gets what and for what reason. (The list could be published with coded names but could provide information of an open venue for people on the list to meet up, for grassroots networking and investigative, or political checks-and-balances, purposes.)

In the case that popular demand far outstripped collectivized supply I think a lottery system would be better -- for one-time music concerts, for example, with limited seating.





So let us be realistic, it isn't going to be all hugs and parades (in that you are right), not for many generations anyways, and the lingering capialist mentality of the new socialist man/woman is something we must subdue, and taking away some of the old temptations of vanity, elitism and greed is an important step.


No, I disagree with you completely here -- I'm *not* a moralist. What matters is the *supply* of what it is that people consider to be *necessary* and *desirable*. To the extent that a non-elitist, collectively planned administration can provide these things for the world's population -- most notably with industrial production -- then that's what *should* be done. This would *require* doing away with the institution of private property -- perhaps that in itself would take care of many of the *excesses* of human material motivations right there, but whether it did or not would be completely irrelevant.

What matters in *politics* is that the basis of agreement is maintained -- as long as the masses continued to want a bottom-up collectivized labor administration over the production process, then that's *all* that would matter. What people do on their own time is / should be of *no* concern to our role as revolutionaries.





One last thing, somewhere along the way we have deviated from a truly purposeful and fulfilling existence and we can't discredit socialism due to it's inability to map the way to a balanced, liberated life.It's our job as people, not leftists, to that find out.


Right -- the political, or general, tells us *nothing* about the personal, or specific. Plenty of people lead fairly self-fulfilled lives *these days*, despite the dehumanization, waste, and inefficiencies of the capitalist mode of production -- we just happen to know that it would be better *overall*, for *more people*, to transcend this mode to one of common control.

The past historical capitulation of socialist-formed nation-states to the larger, world-dominating capitalist control of major industry and finance tells us *nothing* about *socialism* itself, any more than one person committing suicide tells us anything about humanity as a whole. Before we allow *anyone* to tar us with the brush of Stalinist nation-building we need to make them understand that socialism, by definition, hasn't really yet been realized, because it *must* be worldwide and done by the workers themselves.

And, even after the revolution, people may still continue to have personal, existential problems -- it's just that it *won't* be because of stresses *imposed on them* from the larger political arrangement of society.

[hefty_lefty]

We'll agree to disagree.
You have some good points, I don't want to take anything away from you, I just think people's desires have become excessive and these material things, luxuries, add little to quality of life in a purposeful society such as socialism.
I would like to see us get away from distractions and focus on cultivating our human awareness of the things that truly matter to not just us as individuals but to everyone.

[ckaihatsu]

We'll agree to disagree.


I hope you don't mind too much my "disagreeing to disagree" here -- I think the topic is worth pursuing a bit further, if you'd like....





You have some good points, I don't want to take anything away from you, I just think people's desires have become excessive and these material things, luxuries, add little to quality of life in a purposeful society such as socialism.


I think what's *far* more important is getting people to separate their own *individual* interests from their *overall* political conclusions, or "philosophy" / stance about *society as a whole*. People may have to deal with a layer of politics surrounding their work or financial position, but this is not necessarily the same as what they really think about the make-up / structure of society and its economy.

I'm not trying to say that we should particularly court richer people or court poorer people -- people's *individual achievements or happenstances* are entirely *irrelevant* to a politics that is about supporting and advocating working class politics. In short, either people are doing things that add to the momentum for a working class revolution, or they're not, at any given moment in time.

From the realm of politics we can't justifiably *tell* people not to live their lives, or to give up whatever it is that they happen to enjoy while they're alive -- but at the same time, from the realm of politics, we *can* ask what people have been doing lately in terms of the class struggle. If some people are particularly self-absorbed, work-absorbed, or locality-absorbed, perhaps they should think and act more broadly, specifically for the empowerment of the working class.





I would like to see us get away from distractions and focus on cultivating our human awareness of the things that truly matter to not just us as individuals but to everyone.




[T]aking away some of the old temptations of vanity, elitism and greed is an important step.


What *most* troubles me here is that you're on the verge of politicking -- you're speaking in vaguely worded, ill-defined qualities that are directed at people's *individual behavior* -- by focusing on this level you're *not* calling attention to the *overall*, *systemic* problems of *capitalism as whole* -- like Marx's Declining Rate of Profit -- that are the cause of our current recession / depression.





[W]e can't discredit socialism due to it's inability to map the way to a balanced, liberated life.It's our job as people, not leftists, to that find out.


If you're going to speak to life-oriented issues, then that's *not* really being political -- if you stay on the trajectory you seem to be on you'll find yourself soon enough either in religious circles, bourgeois politics, or both.

[hefty_lefty]

Disagree to disagree huh?
I see that I AM being vague...I am either failing to express my opinion clearly or you just disagree with my point of view, or both.

I am accusing capitalism of ballooning our individualistic desires.
There is money to be made from these desires of ours, and the more capitalism produces the more we will wish to have, the more we buy and the more money they take from us.

Many of these luxuries are a waste of material, factories or even the human labor that goes into making them.
To say I am bordering on bourgeouis politics seems off base, you are the one defendind materialism and unfairly distributed personal property.
Lotteries? What a skewed way to reward people. Randomly.

I said agree to disagree because we do not see eye to eye and I wanted to end the convo on a civil note, oh well.

[ckaihatsu]

Disagree to disagree huh?


Uh, yeah, so-to-speak -- I think, using logic, that that means we agree...!

= )





I am accusing capitalism of ballooning our individualistic desires.
There is money to be made from these desires of ours, and the more capitalism produces the more we will wish to have, the more we buy and the more money they take from us.


Yeah, it's a good point, and I am admittedly of two minds about this, because we would not even be *human* without our tool-using facilities / capabilities. But since the productive capacities of capitalism have been so prodigious to-date -- ignoring its monstrous genocidal price in human lives for a moment -- we're more or less *stuck* with *its* mode of production for the varying choices we have around us.

Also, I think you're being a little *presumptuous* about people's sense of their own self-direction and personal sovereignty -- you're being borderline pessimistic about the human condition by implying that people are out of control, *mindlessly* purchasing and consuming just for the sake of shopping. It's kind of simplistic to only focus on the *process* of shopping and consumption itself, and not on the *actual* material items and what they may be used for in personal ways.

Moreover, the overall world's population of nearly 7 billion, including the better-sided standards of living that have resulted for some, are again made possible by capitalism, by default. So the question is more about to what *extent* of our creative and manufacturing abilities we should employ ourselves to, in the overall best societal mode of productive ability.

You're basically raising a *humanities* issue here, which is more *philosophical* than anything else. I'm not drawn to such discussions usually, because, in the political context, I don't think it really makes that much difference -- I acknowledge that time spent preoccupied with a materialistic *obsession* is time *not spent* at working class politics, but there can be a very fine line between what is genuine, materialistic-aided self-development and what is personality-losing whirlwind materialistic obsession. I think you're moreso addressing the latter of the two.





Many of these luxuries are a waste of material, factories or even the human labor that goes into making them.


True.





To say I am bordering on bourgeouis politics seems off base, you are the one defendind materialism and unfairly distributed personal property.


Heh -- I like to think that I am merely noting that there's no accounting for *taste*, and therefore we should *not* strive for the severe collective discipline of a forced-labor agrarian camp as a way of "leveling the field".





Lotteries? What a skewed way to reward people. Randomly.


It may be a preferable *collective* solution over sinking down to a chaotic mode of 'me-first, me-first' for the same.





I said agree to disagree because we do not see eye to eye and I wanted to end the convo on a civil note, oh well.


Again, I think it would have been a premature ending.

Btw, I developed a graphic that puts humanities-oriented activities on a continuum with technological-oriented activities. It may be relevant to what we're discussing here -- it's attached, below.

[29] Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

[farleft]

Reminds me of Bougainville and the coconut revolution, they dont use money but still have electricity, food etc

[h9socialist]

Comrades --
The key words are "free access" -- unless this concept replaces "private property" a socialist mentality will be problematic at best. However, as the information age has progressed we have seen capitalists scrambling to convert products of the information commons into "commodities." This seems to me to be a part of the struggle in microcosm. It does not require a wholesale change of social morality -- but it does require a change in one's concept of social connection.

Second, we may not be able to establish a fully altruisitic society. However, I think it it in the realm of realism to replace bourgeois selfishness with a sense of common empathy. That means that people understand that a denial to one is a denial to all. Indeed empathy is well developed in socialist and social democratic nations today.

These may not equate to the ultimate goal of inscribing pRoudhon's famous phrase on our banner. But they are realistic goals for socialism on a global scale in this century.

[h9socialist]

Comrades --
The key words are "free access" -- unless this concept replaces "private property" a socialist mentality will be problematic at best. However, as the information age has progressed we have seen capitalists scrambling to convert products of the information commons into "commodities." This seems to me to be a part of the struggle in microcosm. It does not require a wholesale change of social morality -- but it does require a change in one's concept of social connection.

Second, we may not be able to establish a fully altruisitic society. However, I think it it in the realm of realism to replace bourgeois selfishness with a sense of common empathy. That means that people understand that a denial to one is a denial to all. Indeed empathy is well developed in socialist and social democratic nations today.

These may not equate to the ultimate goal of inscribing pRoudhon's famous phrase on our banner. But they are realistic goals for socialism on a global scale in this century.

[hefty_lefty]

ckhaitsu, I am focusing more on the humanity aspect because I feel a socialist society must do just that. I think that one of the main problems with socialism/communism is that it continues to use politics to solve the problems of exploitation of man by man.
It seems very difficult to do this while avoiding beaurocracy and the degradation of the governing bodies connection to the people's voices.

And yeah, I am somewhat pessimistic when it comes to people's lack of understanding of the real issues facing humanity. Obviously there are those in touch with these issues, many in fact, but still not nearly enough.

I am no expert, if for some reason you thought otherwise :P.
I am more of a philosophical socialist, at least until I get a better grasp on communist theory, but I am game for discussion.

[ckaihatsu]

ckhaitsu,


* Hey * -- is it *so* tough to spell my name right??? It *is* my name, and *not* a pseudonym.... Regardless....





I am no expert, if for some reason you thought otherwise :P.
I am more of a philosophical socialist, at least until I get a better grasp on communist theory, but I am game for discussion.


Well, that's cool -- I would only ask you to consider the philosophical issues, like "How much of my life should be involved with material things?" and "What is worth doing?", to be *separate* from the overarching politics of it all. This is because politics is all about *Who gets what*, so that means it's fundamentally different from *one person's* concerns, or life-path-oriented concerns in the abstract.





I am focusing more on the humanity aspect because I feel a socialist society must do just that. I think that one of the main problems with socialism/communism is that it continues to use politics to solve the problems of exploitation of man by man.


Well, that's fine and everything, but I think something that people miss out on -- even revolutionaries sometimes -- is that just about *everything* has political (and material / economic) underpinnings. Even in a post-capitalist society there will be politics -- it's just that it will be of a kind that puts *economic* issues on the table in front of workers, instead of hiding them away from them and then stealing the products of their labor, as is *currently* the case today with capitalism's elitist respect for private property.





It seems very difficult to do this while avoiding beaurocracy and the degradation of the governing bodies connection to the people's voices.


Certainly -- I can appreciate this anti-elitist political instinct of yours, and it's correct. No genuine revolutionary wants to limit the revolution to only *one country*, as the Stalinists did in their turn towards national development in the 20th century. In doing so they abandoned the *genuine* revolutionary aim of universal workers' power. For that matter, no one should want to limit a revolution to allowing an arbitrary, top-down authority -- like a bureaucracy or a governing body (a standing legislature, etc.) -- to decide policy separate from the workers and the ongoing labor of the production process itself.





And yeah, I am somewhat pessimistic when it comes to people's lack of understanding of the real issues facing humanity. Obviously there are those in touch with these issues, many in fact, but still not nearly enough.


Sure -- it's understandable. I guess that's why we're here, so that we can at least keep tabs on the real world and hash out our understandings on our side of things -- that's a *very* good first step before then relating our politics to others who may not otherwise have the benefit of access to RevLeft.

[hefty_lefty]

I stumbled into something interesting while reading one of Che's speeches, this one pertaining to the budgetary system of financing.
Che talks about the young Marx, when Marx was still a philosopher rather than the social scientist he would later become, and Che goes on to say this:

"The mechanics of production relationships and their consequence, the class struggle, to a certain extent obscure the objective fact that it is men who are the actors on the stage of history. Right now we are interested in man..."

Then Che goes on to quote young Marx on the same subject, that of humanism.
I'll save that one for later.

ckaihatsu, the answer is neither here nor there, it lies somewhere inbetween. We should not focus on the ends of the spectrum, but rather the middle, where perhaps you and I could discuss rather than argue.
Especially when it comes to money, this problem cannot be fixed with scientific thought and process alone, we must also liberate the people's minds from the habits and disfunctions of imperialism.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, the answer is neither here nor there, it lies somewhere inbetween. We should not focus on the ends of the spectrum, but rather the middle, where perhaps you and I could discuss rather than argue.


Hey -- I ain't stopping ya.

*My* motivation for participation here at RevLeft has been to flesh out some political discussions around revolutionary topics that just weren't possible when I first became politicized -- around revolutionary socialism -- in the early and mid '90s. In particular I think it's been useful to *model* what it is we *would* want, given the overcoming of capitalism by world proletariat forces. This (potentially) helps us to "be focused", "have vision", "be on the same page", "keep our eyes on the prize", and so on.





Especially when it comes to money, this problem cannot be fixed with scientific thought and process alone, we must also liberate the people's minds from the habits and disfunctions of imperialism.


Absolutely. But instead of trying to counteract a negative it may be more constructive to advance a positive -- hence my approach. Also please keep in mind that, unless we're talking specifics, we're talking in *generalities*, and it's (sometimes / often) difficult to speak in generalities and still make some kind of sense -- *especially* in the social sciences. The hazards lie in *over-*generalizing, or being imprecise (or wrong), in which case one winds up just talking in vague abstractions and the utility of it all just becomes too dubious.

[coda]

money/exchange/value/ect.. is part of the capitalist system. communism at it's core is based on free/gift/mutal aid-cooperation/ect. There should be no bookeepers and accountants in a communist society. If there are you can be sure it's not communism. The solutions of free distribution aren't really that hard to fathom.

[ckaihatsu]

money/exchange/value/ect.. is part of the capitalist system. communism at it's core is based on free/gift/mutal aid-cooperation/ect. There should be no bookeepers and accountants in a communist society. If there are you can be sure it's not communism. The solutions of free distribution aren't really that hard too fathom.


This is a relatively minor point, and I don't mean to bicker, but what if *all* communist production and distribution was coordinated through the Internet, thus leaving a "paper trail" that anyone could check back at, at any time, going forward in perpetuity? There wouldn't necessarily have to be bookkeepers or accountants, *per se*, but there *would* be bookkeeping and accounting, or recordkeeping.

[coda]

yes.. recordkeeping perhaps, (to what purpose?) but bookkeeping and accounting is based on plus and minuses-- profit and loss. which is anti-communist.

[ckaihatsu]

yes.. recordkeeping perhaps, (to what purpose?)


Well, I'd say for the sake of planning (logistics), accuracy, and history.





but bookkeeping and accounting is based on plus and minuses-- profit and loss. which is anti-communist.


Pluses and minuses can simply be *material*, and *not necessarily* the profit and loss of exchange-value accounting. A communist society may want to keep track of what it has, in terms of assets and resources, so that it can generalize to broader areas and, in so doing, make use of the economies of scale that these days only major capitalists have access to (through greater amassed wealth).

This is implicitly an argument for some kind of bottom-up centralized planning.

[coda]

back up ckaihatsu, my comments relate to the original post ie. the abolishment of money,individual enumerations, individual distribution, ect. ---- not the large scale economic planning of a communist society. Can't we try to keep it reigned in on topic? Obviously any knucklehead knows there will be recordkeeping and accountability in large scale planning of a society. bottom up centralization does not equal hippie commune.

[ckaihatsu]

back up ckaihatsu, my comments relate to the original post ie. the abolishment of money,individual enumerations, individual distribution, ect. ---- not the large scale economic planning of a communist society. Can't we try to keep it reigned in on topic? Obviously any knucklehead knows there will be recordkeeping and accountability in large scale planning of a society. bottom up centralization does not equal hippie commune.


Ohhhhhh................okay...............

Well, glad *that's* settled -- I was addressing your comment here,





yes.. recordkeeping perhaps, (to what purpose?) but bookkeeping and accounting is based on plus and minuses-- profit and loss. which is anti-communist.


...in which you're specifically specifying a *capitalist* economic system, so I noted the *alternative* material recordkeeping to that, which you're now saying is "obvious".

I'd say that specifying an alternative material system of recordkeeping is filling in the blank as to how to keep records for a bottom-up centralized communist society. This entire thread contains more of the *mechanics* of how a communist society could be collectively run and administered, including the abolishing of money, providing compensation for labor to the individual, and distributing the products of the economy's collectivized production.

[coda]

I'm sure everybody has their own ideas of how things can best be distributed, as do I.. but I'll reiterate --- if someone is keeping track of people/workers based upon labor credits, sliding scale wages, luxuries based on numbers of years worked, rewards, -- all of these which were mentioned in this thread.. than it's not operating in a communist society. A Communist society would not be keeping books/accounts such as that.

[ckaihatsu]

labor credits





Currently production requires [1] labor, and [2] capital, right? Without the abstracted, bullshit capital-market-pricing valuation at play we would have to have a *political economy* that *collectively, consciously* assumes mass control and planning over society's productive capacities, right?

But this *political* aspect doesn't speak to the *labor* component in a post-capitalist political economy -- sure no one could be blackmailed into work roles against their basic human living needs, but how would the potential, willing labor *supply* be treated by the *larger*, *overarching* political society -- the "demand" -- ?

This is where *past work completed*, quantified into labor credits, would confer a kind of *seniority* or *labor social status* in organizing the (numerically smaller) supply of labor to potentially meet the (numerically larger) population's requests ("demand") for production runs.

[...]

The workers who work on any given production run do *not necessarily* have to be the *consumers* of the resulting products -- they could even be *traveling* / *itinerant* laborers who are not *from* the locality -- *this* is another good reason for introducing a labor-hours credits system, so that a locality has the *flexibility* of finding suitable labor without being *tied down* to geographical constraints, or a labor workforce's *personal* interests and *personal* voluntarism.


---





sliding scale wages


*Not* wages --




So, in other words, more-consistently-active workers would be rewarded with relatively greater labor-organizing power *within* a locality's requested project or production run. Possession of more labor credits corresponds to being able to *select* more workers for more hours of work, since *those* *incoming* workers have to be *paid* somehow, right? Upon completion of the new work the labor-credit-possessing workers would *hand over* the labor credits to the new workforce that just put in the labor hours for completing the production run.

This would be akin to a syndicalism of sorts, though one gauged to actual track records of past work effort put in. With more labor credits comes more coordinating, labor-executive-like political power over future locality-planned projects. The transfer of labor credits also functions as a *formal material fulfillment* of rewards for work completed, because many (most?)(all?) of the labor-credit-possessing workers would *also* be residents of the same local locality, so their *putting up* of the labor-credit "funding" would be a further demonstration and representation of the locality's political intention.


---





luxuries based on numbers of years worked, rewards





[M]aterial proceeds would be a *pre-planned*, political "demand" on the part of a locality's general population. No commodity values, or exchange "prices", would be necessary.

[coda]

sorry, still not buying the labor-credits. and speaking of buying.. that's where we differ. I envision a post-capitalist post-"Ipod" post cheap-disposable-consumer-fetish society based on free voluntary worthwhile non-waste quality producing labor.

[ckaihatsu]

I envision a post-capitalist post-"Ipod" post cheap-disposable-consumer-fetish society based on free voluntary worthwhile non-waste quality producing labor.


Well, do elaborate -- what do you think would be the key industrially produced items that would be distributed the most?

[hefty_lefty]

However much we would love to see the communist state appear from the ashes of capitalism, this will not be the case. It is unfortunate, but true, there will be a place for capitalism, state capitalism, in the early stages of a socialist society.Capitalism is king when it comes to production, they have it down to a tee, while socialism lacks in organisation and planning, therefore lacking in timely action. So we must see capitalist production as a model we can use to get socialist production on its feet, so that it may learn to walk before it is expected to run.Some say that production and morality or conscience are opposing values, when one increases the other decreases. This can be seen by production 'quotas' and the rewards or punishments that apply for their fulfillments or the lack thereof. Only through efficiency can production and morality grow side by side, and as has been witnessed so far, the early stages of socialism are grossly inefficient.Solidarity, we must see the benefits of capitalism and use them to our benefits and not destroy everything it has achieved just because it was controlled by imperialist swine :P

[h9socialist]

Comrade Hefty Lefty, I tend to agree with you. But don't get hung up on efficiency -- part of getting rid of capitalism means getting that little yolk off the working class. Marx wrote a "Critique of Political Economy" not an embrace of it.

[Tribune]

However much we would love to see the communist state appear from the ashes of capitalism, this will not be the case.

Not sure I understand why you chose the royal we. Could you explain the usage? Thank you.


It is unfortunate, but true, there will be a place for capitalism, state capitalism, in the early stages of a socialist society.Is this a tenet of faith? An assertion with proof yet undisclosed? But what standard of reference (including that by which we measure time, and periods of time) do you describe the "early stages of a socialist society"? How long will these stages last, and why do they of themselves necessitate "a place for capitalism"?


Capitalism is king when it comes to production,...Are you suggesting that capitalism is itself an entity, a person which does, acts, decides, communicates?

How do you know "capitalism is king"? Is this also a faith assertion? Is this a starting premise, from which you backtrack to proof, or historical argument? Or is it trope, used only to establish the conditions of the following assertion?

...they have it down to a tee, while socialism lacks in organisation and planning, therefore lacking in timely action. First - is capitalism a being, as your formerly assert, or is it a they? I personally reject relational assertions, such as function only as grammatical sorcery, but I don't want to assume your intentions, meanings, or framework.

If it is a being, such that it acts - how so?

If it is not an entity, but instead the model of a set of behaviors, then again, how so?

Further, why do you assume that socialists must necessarily remain disorganized, at the advent of capitalist decline, should such species of event occur?

Secondary to that question, why must socialists organize in a manner which mirrors, echoes or re-establishes the functional efficiencies and potencies of capitalist production?

Is this emphasis on organization perhaps a memory transmitted remnant of bourgeois (and feudal, as can be found still in corporate hierarchies) emphasis on managerial control of production, with class distinction concealed by divisions of function, but not in truth abolished, or abandoned?


So we must see capitalist production as a model we can use to get socialist production on its feet, so that it may learn to walk before it is expected to run.We must? Says who? On what terms? On whose terms? To what end?


Some say that production and morality or conscience are opposing values, when one increases the other decreases.Which persons say this, particularly?


This can be seen by production 'quotas' and the rewards or punishments that apply for their fulfillments or the lack thereof. Why can it be seen this way? Why the assertions of inevitability?


Only through efficiency can production and morality grow side by side, and as has been witnessed so far, the early stages of socialism are grossly inefficient.Solidarity, we must see the benefits of capitalism and use them to our benefits and not destroy everything it has achieved just because it was controlled by imperialist swine :PWho says?

And are you really asserting that we can only develop moral understanding of the self-experience of others through Taylorized production efficiencies?

Are you, perhaps, still very much the bourgeois theorist, and not very much at all an experiencing prole?

[ckaihatsu]

I'd like to remind everyone that, as revolutionaries, we don't need to be merely *academic*, feeling *apart* and *catering to* a historical tradition, whatever that may be.

Socialism hasn't actually existed in the past, nor does it exist in the present. This means that it is something we can *consciously*, *actively* work at for the *future*. This fact also means that socialism doesn't *have* to be "this way" or "that way" -- what's more to the point is how to best bring it about given current conditions and likely near-future conditions.

We also don't need to continue to be haunted by the specter of 20th century Stalinism, with all of the dictatorial bureaucratic measures that you keep alluding to, hefty_lefty.

*Measurement* itself doesn't *have* to be a *bad* thing -- I think we're used to getting a bad feel from technical areas, like mathematics, simply because it's currently wielded by the capitalist ruling class -- one probably instinctively thinks of Taylorism, and it's a reasonable reflex to have.

But if the working class could self-govern then work hours would be something of a *societal* accomplishment -- as the culmination of education, training, collective worker planning and preparation, and finally execution. Think of a community garden but at an inter-municipality, industrial scale, with all product outputs staying under the factory's workers' control, for cross-distributions with other like-run factories.

In this sort of societal construction a workers administration would want to keep track of labor inputs, just as in any other era of human history -- but it would not suffer from the extraction of profit (work hours) into the hands of private capital.

The *inefficient* part of a world socialist revolution would the part in which much effort would have to go into the fierce political clash with the forces of capital -- obviously this would be time that could *not* go into actual production. But with the class enemy defeated efficiency and production could go way up, as techniques of automation and computerization deemed too "cost-ineffective" under capitalism could actually be developed over longer periods of time and implemented so as to eliminate *anyone's* necessity to do the tasks *manually*, forever more.

Automation and computerization could be put on the fast track, under workers' control, in a socialist world economy -- after all, why should *anyone*, especially workers, put up with *inefficient* ways of doing production, *especially* since they would have complete sovereignty -- direct decision-making power over their own work practices and work output? Better collective planning would mean that everyone gets to home earlier, with the same return on labor.

This workers-collectives planning would have to take various *material logistics* into account:




My concern with your insistence on a leveling of labor rates across the board is that it might very well be too top-down, or bureaucratic, and miss out on the particulars of this-or-that local economy. Perhaps being a firefighter in a city is a much more demanding position than being one in the suburbs. Production of shoes at one plant may be much more efficient than the same shoes at a smaller, less advanced factory with resources spread further out.

I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I do think that we might want to have a floating system of labor rates, *after* the world's assets have been collectivized and put under workers' control (no private property). Keep in mind that in this kind of economy all of labor's claims to certain labor rates would implicitly be political demands against the communist state, so it would play out politically anyway.

If one particular city seemed to have extraordinarily high labor rates, due to successful political demands, that might play at the local level, but when it came to larger projects that city might get passed over by central planning in favor of a group with relatively lower labor rates. (This *is* still materialism, after all...!)

The overall administration (central planning) would be bottom-up, in terms of pooling workers' political initiatives together into an overarching, societal policy.

The overall *execution* of that administration would be top-down, in terms of coordinating among the industries into a single network of social planning, by project, tapping local assets in a rational manner to effect policy.

[hefty_lefty]

Says who? Says me!
It's my opinion as to how I see it at this time, but I am not backing it up with much fact, this is true. I am short for time these days and I can't write a lengthy post.
Next time I post, it'll be clear, and as to who says conscience and production are in oposition, it is Marx himself.
I'll give you the reference next time I'm on.

I do not see things your way ckaihatsu, I am not so firm in my belief because, like you said, communism has not been achieved and I don't even know if communism will work, and maybe none of us can say that we do.
I don't even think 'complete' solidarity can exist...but I am a bit of a pessimist.

I have bounced around here in RevLeft trying to piece together my philosophies with a politico-economic process that will create the utopia that I read about when I was first learning what socialism was and I can't seem to do it...I think we just aren't ready for it, 'we' as the people that inhabit this world, together but seperate, at this point in time.

In my eyes, the age of individualism has only just blossomed, at least here in north america, and that makes it difficult for a socialist attitude to spread among the people who it needs to affect, our youth. I am glad to see so many young socialists here, and very learned at that, more than I in this matter, but it is not just knowledge or the cataloguing of information that is important to the cause.
It is also very necessary to know the status of the people that one wishes to liberate, like what it is they actually want their lives to be like. Personally I am so overwhelmed with this form of capitalist living that sometimes I desire to destroy everything I own and have nothing, and feel the freedom of that. Truth is I don't even know what would make me and keep me truly happy, communism sometimes seems like just another form of productionism, a system that focuses once again on economics rather than radical change.

I might not be a true communist, but I do hate capitalism.

[h9socialist]

The age of individualism blossomed a long time ago and the fruit is rotting. The problem is that most people have yet to find other orchards, and tend to get nostalgic for the days when the leaves were green.

[Tribune]

Says who? Says me!
It's my opinion as to how I see it at this time, but I am not backing it up with much fact, this is true. I am short for time these days and I can't write a lengthy post.
Next time I post, it'll be clear, and as to who says conscience and production are in oposition, it is Marx himself.
I'll give you the reference next time I'm on.

I do not see things your way ckaihatsu, I am not so firm in my belief because, like you said, communism has not been achieved and I don't even know if communism will work, and maybe none of us can say that we do.
I don't even think 'complete' solidarity can exist...but I am a bit of a pessimist.

I have bounced around here in RevLeft trying to piece together my philosophies with a politico-economic process that will create the utopia that I read about when I was first learning what socialism was and I can't seem to do it...I think we just aren't ready for it, 'we' as the people that inhabit this world, together but seperate, at this point in time.

In my eyes, the age of individualism has only just blossomed, at least here in north america, and that makes it difficult for a socialist attitude to spread among the people who it needs to affect, our youth. I am glad to see so many young socialists here, and very learned at that, more than I in this matter, but it is not just knowledge or the cataloguing of information that is important to the cause.
It is also very necessary to know the status of the people that one wishes to liberate, like what it is they actually want their lives to be like. Personally I am so overwhelmed with this form of capitalist living that sometimes I desire to destroy everything I own and have nothing, and feel the freedom of that. Truth is I don't even know what would make me and keep me truly happy, communism sometimes seems like just another form of productionism, a system that focuses once again on economics rather than radical change.

I might not be a true communist, but I do hate capitalism.

Why does a communist society have to become a utopia, a fixed and lifeless state of affairs echoing Christian heaven, in order for you to consider it?

Could it be possible that your inability to envision communist commitments is related to your construction of the future as a mere utopia, as an end state, stripped of human relevance?

Could it also follow that the linkage between this conception of an end state, and your happiness (as ego fulfillment), is part of the problem you endure, in envisioning a communist future?

[hefty_lefty]

Ok H9, then individualism just blooms anew with every new generation of youth, though when I think about it maybe individualism isn't a even a real issue. One's personality, tastes, and talents are what makes one an individual, along with physical appearance, health and mindset. I suppose communism doesn't discourage these things, but it does require a certain mindset. A mindset of acceptance of one's social duty.

ckaihatsu, I am mistaken again, it was Che who questioned the relationship between production and conscience, and here it is:
"If material incentives are opposed to the development of conscience, but are a great force for achieving improvements in production, are we to understand that preferential attention to the development of conscience retards production?"

Really the issue Che is talking about is material incentives...I'm reading several books and sometimes I forget who said what and what exactly was said, for this I do apologize.

Tribune, I have this crazy dream, and it is crazy, that one day humanity will not have to work so damn much. That one day life will not be about producing goods or commodities, one day people will understand that the more man-made 'stuff' they have around them, the less of the natural world they see and the further they stray from the fundamental truths of natural law. 'They', as in the people living in the developed countries.
A utopia for me is not fixed, lifeless, it does not resemble any religious ideology, nor is it stripped of human relevance. If that's what your idea of utopia is then you do not understand the word.

I'll say it again, socialism should and must replace capitalism, but once communism is reached will we not strive for further improvement? Or will communism be the end-state, our utopia?

[h9socialist]

Che also said that he was not interested in "dry economic socialism" -- that the goal was to end individualism as a societal motivation. Without this goal, he said, communism can never be a revolutionary way of life.

[h9socialist]

Capitalism begins with the Hobbesian notion of granulated humanity in a war of all against all. The state exists to give direction and protect private property. In this, the individual is crushed by the needs of property.

Under socialism, we assume than human beings are social creatures, and establishing a functional base of social relationships allows individuals to "blossom" from that base.

[Tribune]

(snip)

Tribune, I have this crazy dream, and it is crazy, that one day humanity will not have to work so damn much. That one day life will not be about producing goods or commodities, one day people will understand that the more man-made 'stuff' they have around them, the less of the natural world they see and the further they stray from the fundamental truths of natural law. 'They', as in the people living in the developed countries.
A utopia for me is not fixed, lifeless, it does not resemble any religious ideology, nor is it stripped of human relevance. If that's what your idea of utopia is then you do not understand the word.

I'll say it again, socialism should and must replace capitalism, but once communism is reached will we not strive for further improvement? Or will communism be the end-state, our utopia?

We are to seize and create the means of our production, without mediation from a ruling class which siphons off the bulk of our labor as profit, in order to stop producing goods and learn to see the "fundamental truths of natural law"?

Typing only for myself, I'm not really interested in a classless society where money is abolished if we do and share this near unbearable work of revolution, to end up navel gazing.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I am mistaken again, it was Che who questioned the relationship between production and conscience, and here it is:
"If material incentives are opposed to the development of conscience, but are a great force for achieving improvements in production, are we to understand that preferential attention to the development of conscience retards production?"

Really the issue Che is talking about is material incentives...I'm reading several books and sometimes I forget who said what and what exactly was said, for this I do apologize.


If you'll notice, I do not have *any* kind of "leadership" incentives whatsoever in the model I've developed and which I advocate.

There *is* a mechanism of rolling labor credits which is meant to serve as a method of measuring actual labor-time-times-difficulty, while the possession of earned labor credits confers a kind of labor-based seniority, guild-like political organizing power for the selection of future labor input on planned communist-administration-selected (*not* labor-selected) projects / production runs.

This is *strictly* a model to deal with the material factors that would likely arise in a post-capitalist societal makeup. It *is not* prescriptive in the least, nor could it be, since it is only a model meant as a suggestion for possible future consideration.

[ckaihatsu]

Che also said that he was not interested in "dry economic socialism" -- that the goal was to end individualism as a societal motivation. Without this goal, he said, communism can never be a revolutionary way of life.


---





Upon the other hand, Socialism itself will be of value simply
because it will lead to Individualism.

Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by
converting private property into public wealth, and substituting
co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper
condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material
well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give
Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full
development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something
more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. If the Socialism
is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic
power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are
to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be
worse than the first. At present, in consequence of the existence
of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a
certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either
under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to
choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and
gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the
men of science, the men of culture--in a word, the real men, the
men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a
partial realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many
people who, having no private property of their own, and being
always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the
work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to
them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory, unreasonable,
degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor, and amongst them
there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation,
or culture, or refinement in pleasures, or joy of life. From their
collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But
it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is
poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is merely the
infinitesimal atom of a force that, so far from regarding him,
crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is
far more obedient.

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/slman10.txt

[hefty_lefty]

"Of course it might be said that the Individualism generated under private property is not always, or even as a rule, of a fine or wonderful type..."

The first book on Socialism that I read, it was very moving. Maybe I'll read it again.

[ckaihatsu]

The first book on Socialism that I read, it was very moving. Maybe I'll read it again.


Lucky you -- all other works on the topic pale in comparison.

[h9socialist]

Try "Socialism" by Michael Harrington (1972). It's long out of print, but if you can find it, it's worth your time.

[hefty_lefty]

Navel gazing?

Tribune, one concern I have with socialism, being a system based of production, and not only production but a heightened level of production, is that issues like the environment are once again pushed aside to allow for uninterrupted growth of the socialist state.
Take China for example, it is a country in environmental crisis and it has had ample time to establish "communism", 70 years now?

I am no hippie, and I dislike being called so, but having concern for the planet that supplies us with not only raw materials, or renewable resources, but the very opportunity to exist, is nothing to be discriminated for. A balance must be struck with nature.

I am all for creating a better existence for human beings, but we must not think only of ourselves.

[robbo203]

Talking of a world wihout money, heres an interesting and down to earth response I came across on the WSM forum

Re: A Question About Achieving Socialism

Hi cokbuyukadam

>because even if your brain controls the arm to throw a
> punch; without arms you can`t throw a punch.

It wouldn't take much to "throw a punch" at capitalism, and it wouldn't take
money either. The working class far outnumber the capitalist class throughout
the world, so they have a hell of a lot more muscle. Just as important, they're
essential to the productive process, whereas the minority capitalist class are
not. (The working class could keep production going whatever happened to the
capitalists: the capitalist class on their own are able to produce nothing and
feed nobody.) In other words, the productive power of society rests in the hands
of the people who do all the work.

At the moment, working people choose to labour on behalf of the capitalist
class. I think that's largely because they are uncertain of the fact of their
own exploitation and unaware that they have a viable alternative. To establish
socialism, all they need is to become aware of what is happening to them under
capitalism and to take control of the productive process and, temporarily, the
state (after which they can get rid of it). Once again, that doesn't require
money, it requires a wider awareness of what is going on around them and
understanding.

Money is just a smokescreen that obscures the reality of what economic activity
is all about. Think of it this way. What would happen if all the money in the
world were to suddenly to disappear. What would we have lost? And what would
we have left? First of all, not one single item of human wealth would have
disappeared. All the existing goods that we need to lead a decent life (food,
shelter, clothing, entertainment, etc) would still be there and the capacity to
produce more would still be there too.

If money were destroyed, the world's raw materials would still be available; we
would still have our continued capacity to work on those raw materials to turn
them into the goods we need; and we would still have the existing machinery to
make that task easier and more efficient, as well as the capacity to renew it
when it wears out.

In other words, the only thing that human beings need to bring to the productive
process to create everything they need for themselves is labour - mental and
physical labour.

Money plays no essential part in this. Money is only needed within capitalism
to oil the process by which the capitalist class exploits the working class.
When the working class decide to take control of their own lives they won't need
money, they will need to destory it, to abolish it for good.

More fundamentaly, though, they will need to abolish the role of the capitalist
class within society. And once they have made that decision, there is not much
in the long run that the capitalist class can do to stop them.

The disappearance of the capitalist class would be like the disappearance of
money. Nothing of value would have been lost because the production of social
wealth would go on as before. The capitalist class are a non-productive class
and society could function perfectly well without them.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/41586

[ckaihatsu]

hefty_lefty,

You're continuing to persist in *mischaracterizing* present-day countries that *claim* to be socialist. I'd like to point out that a *government's* advertising and characterizing of their own rulership is *no different* than a *corporation's* advertising and characterizing of its *own products* that it sells -- in both cases there is a *material interest* for the policymakers to sugar-coat their actions so as to hide the real dangers from the public.

You would do the project of genuine socialist revolution a service by *not confusing* Stalinism (elite bureaucratic rule over the state machinery) -- as in Mao's China, or the former U.S.S.R. -- with *any* claims that these are in the direction of real socialism.





Take China for example, it is a country in environmental crisis and it has had ample time to establish "communism", 70 years now?


If you'll acquaint yourself with China's political history you'll see that there has *never* been a *genuine* inclination towards the establishment of mass workers' rule, *ever*, from China's leadership:





http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/pers-o01.shtml


Sixty years after the Chinese Revolution: Lessons for the working class


1 October 2009

Today marks 60 years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong seized power and proclaimed the Peoples Republic of China.

The revolutionary upheaval in China was part of a worldwide upsurge of the working class and oppressed masses that followed the end of World War II. As in other parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa, millions of workers and peasants were determined to throw off the shackles of colonial rule, which in China in the 1930s had taken the form of a brutal Japanese military occupation. Despite the immense scale of the struggle, however, the 1949 revolution was not socialist or communist. It did not bring the working class to power, but the peasant armies of Mao.

It is obvious today that China, in spite of its “communist” pretensions, is fully integrated into the global capitalist economy as its premier cheap labour platform. How else can one explain the congratulations sent to Beijing from two conservative American presidents—Bush senior and Bush junior—on the 60th anniversary of the Chinese revolution, or the decoration of New York’s Empire State Building with red and yellow lights—China’s revolutionary colours—to mark the event? Wall Street greatly appreciates the contribution of the Chinese police state in marshalling millions of workers to labour for global corporations, not to mention its huge purchases of US bonds.

These celebrations are not at variance with Maoism and the 1949 Chinese Revolution, but rather their logical outcome.

[...]

[hefty_lefty]

Chris, you found the mistakes of my post but did not reply to the content of it.
Is there consideration, in the socialist platform, for the environment, or is production first priority?

And I understand China, or the U.S.S.R is and wasn't truly communist or socialist...but is any country following the true path of socialism then?

[ckaihatsu]

Chris, you found the mistakes of my post but did not reply to the content of it.
Is there consideration, in the socialist platform, for the environment, or is production first priority?


Certainly. You (and others) might find revolutionary Marxism often addresses environmental concerns -- like also human aid relief -- only at tangents, and only at times. It may feel as if environmental issues are "passed over" in favor of seemingly more technical, abstracted, esoteric descriptions of political machinations, particularly if you are coming to Marxism from the more-general left or even further rightward.

This isn't simply a matter of "prioritizing production" -- this very formulation *also* smacks of a Stalinistic, top-down work-quota mandate. I hope you didn't mean it that way intentionally.

Marxism recognizes that environmental concerns -- similarly to human health -- can only be adequately addressed and resolved for good once the rapacious, inhumane world system of capitalism has been overthrown once and for all. This isn't merely wishful thinking, either, since there have been precedents in history for successful working class struggle.





And I understand China, or the U.S.S.R is and wasn't truly communist or socialist...but is any country following the true path of socialism then?


No.

Whenever examining a country's politics just ask yourself if its developments are heading in a straight line towards its working class displacing all of the business that the country does with other nations, while at the same time taking control of the nation's industrial implements and domestic policies.

[hefty_lefty]

It is not Stalinistic to focus on production while transitioning from a capitalist system, you said it quite well actually...the aim is for the "working class displacing all of the business that the country does with other nations".
This includes the business of imported goods from unfriendly countries, and with these ties severed, the socialist state has to manufacture these goods on it's own.
I suppose for under-developed countries this circumstance leads to large scale industrial construction with the intent of providing the necessary goods to the people as quickly as possible...shoes for example.
In this case, environmental issues are temporarily dismissed.

This said, in a country like America, if ever it was to choose socialism, having all the industry in place, could focus on the environment, or humanitarianism, etc.
America might be the key to achieving true socialism, the imperialists have done all the hard work, the American people just have to find a way to take control.

[ckaihatsu]

This said, in a country like America, if ever it was to choose socialism, having all the industry in place, could focus on the environment, or humanitarianism, etc.


Yeah, absolutely -- at the same time its working class could also quickly reach out to the international workers of the world to liberate all of the technologies and equipment that's been hoarded away here.





America might be the key to achieving true socialism, the imperialists have done all the hard work, the American people just have to find a way to take control.


Well, I wouldn't say that it's been the *imperialists* who have done all of the hard work, but I understand what you mean here.

[hefty_lefty]

Not the best way to word it, you are right.
The American people did the hard work, and they should take what is rightly theirs.

[ckaihatsu]

Not the best way to word it, you are right.
The American people did the hard work, and they should take what is rightly theirs.


Sorry -- I hope you won't think I'm splitting hairs here, but since we have an internationalist orientation -- (and even if we didn't) -- it would be more accurate to say that the workers of the rest of the world, along with U.S. workers, were the ones who did the work that is the basis for the country's infrastructure and wealth.

Since Third World workers are paid far less (in U.S. dollars) than domestic workers that means that they're being exploited to much greater extents than workers here. That doesn't necessarily mean that U.S. workers are directly *receiving* the proceeds from their hyper-exploitation, but it does mean that there's a substantial differential, or tier, between the two groups of workers.

So, since the U.S. economy has been international since even before the founding of the republic, we can say that *all kinds of labor*, from *all parts of the globe* have been squeezed into the production of U.S. goods and services.

[ckaihatsu]

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

[Ben Seattle]

Hi everyone,

I hope it is not too presumptuous of me to post here without having first spent more time reading the 101 posts that preceeded this.

I am a theorist and one of my areas of focus is what I have called the self-organizing moneyless gift economy. This economy will not have a supreme central authority that tells everyone what to do. Nor will it run on the basis of money, capital, prices or wages.

The essence of the moneyless gift economy is that it will operate on the basis of "pay it forward" rather than "pay it back" (as under capitalism). For example, I may grow peaches and give you some peaches and you will not give me anything in exchange for the peach. Your only obligation, so to speak, is to eat the peach and use the strength it gives you to do something good for someone down the road--and so on.

I have written about the transition to this economy here:

(1) "Politics, Economics & the Mass Media when the Working Class Runs the Show" (see link in my sig)

and how it may function here:

(2) The self-organizing Moneyless Economy at: (http, etc) Leninism.org/some/

Featuring brief sketches of the organization of political, cultural and economic life in a future where all authority flows from principles that have been distributed universally and are part of everyone's internal compass rather than institutions which are external to the individual and which use one or another form of carrot or stick.

and

(3) an essay speculating, in more detail, on some of the ways that the self-organzing moneyless economy may unfold as it overtakes and overwhelms the commodity economy in the period following the overthrow of bourgeois rule:

The ascendency of the self-organizing moneyless economy
(http, etc) struggle.net/alds/part_7_F.htm

and also

(4) in my essay dealing with the gift economy as it exists, for example, at Burning Man

[Schrödinger's Cat]

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

I have a hard time believing communities across the globe will be abiding by the same mechanics during the communist phase of development. Surely different worker collectives and federations will decide for themselves what works best instead of having a homogeneous structure?

[ckaihatsu]

I have a hard time believing communities across the globe will be abiding by the same mechanics during the communist phase of development. Surely different worker collectives and federations will decide for themselves what works best instead of having a homogeneous structure?


Gene, the problem with your approach, and with Ben Seattle's as well, is that you both underestimate the importance of the *political* struggle. Just as the gift economy has the potential, through its raised quality of *social relations*, to enlighten and humanize the world's population, so too does an aggressively explicit political *class consciousness* build the collective social understanding and attitudes necessary to direct the world's population against the capitalist enemy in order to defeat them once and for all.

Should we allow the multitude of disparate communities to re-hash the colonial-like resettlement of North America (and anywhere else) through isolated, "independent" efforts at autonomy-building, or should we prioritize the *political* struggle by which we could more quickly realize the collectivist workers' state and use its superior strength and integration (over the weaker, commodity-exchange-based relationships of the capitalists) to decisively *crush* oppression and exploitation once and for all -- ?

I'm going to proceed to address Ben Seattle's political missteps in the paragraphs that follow. I'd like to note that I am in complete agreement *in spirit* with his politics, so anything that I *don't* explicitly address can be taken as *implicit* political *support*.





From theoretical grounds, I have concluded that the gift economy (ie: the self-organizing moneyless economy) represents humanity's future. An economy without any kind of exchange is the only way to achieve final liberation from the laws of commodity production and create an economy on the basis of Marx's principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".


An economy that supersedes the convoluted middle step of exchange would, by definition, have to be run in such a way that the products of production are distributed *directly* to those with the most urgent human needs -- what kind of working class organization (or configuration) would enable this?

This principle of excluding exchange-value exchange relationships should be kept in mind for the remainder of this essay, because Ben Seattle later *contradicts* this principle in the class-collaborative scenario that he advances further along into the article.





1. Information sector likely to emerge as working class fortress

Even under bourgeois rule there will be a lot of information-based projects that will be very successful. The success of Linux against against Microsoft's Windows will be followed by the success of progressive, democratically-run interactive news networks against those of the mainstream corporate media. I would expect that, even under bourgeois rule--there will be many successes in the entertainment sector--as the revolution in communications brings us cheap, unlimited bandwidth and small, cheap, portable and easy-to-use devices of every description.


The problem here is the ready *abandonment* of worker-sided class consciousness in favor of a *consumer*-minded orientation -- what good is a "communications revolution" with cheap, unlimited bandwidth and portable devices, if the ownership and management of the same remains unperturbed?

Yeah, sure it's more convenient and leveraged to take care of *our* side of political matters through the digital medium, but at the same time we're relatively *ghettoized* on the Internet, compared to the user-friendly, Orwellian tele-screens that continue to be the capitalists' friendly face to their bitter foe, us, the working class.

While we kibbitz among ourselves we should also recognize that the mainstream bourgeois communications -- propaganda -- will *not* just go belly-up because more people are writing and blogging than ever before. What counts is the kind of *configuration* in which workers will realize their full organized strength -- or at least to a level that's sufficient to defeat the capitalist ruling class.





2. Funding levels--will start small

But most of the goods and servives that we need are not based on software or information alone. After the overthrow of bourgeois rule the workers' state will fund numerous experimental projects that create material goods and services.

What will the level of funding for support or subsidy be? My guess is that in the first decade or two it might be somewhere between 5% and 20% of the national budget (ie: the budget of the workers' state--derived from tax revenue).


Here the dependence on the *economic* side of things reveals a skewed, diverging political path that can only lead to a dead-end. My question: What would be the basis of value for a money-like currency after the capitalist system of valuation has gone bankrupt and is widely recognized as meaningless?

If a workers' state that's in the clear decides to maintain a quantitatively valued, currency-like medium for the measurement of value in the post-capitalist production of goods and services, just what exactly is the basis of that value? Why would a collectivized workers' world even *need* to rely on abstracted, quantitative measurements for assessing their (collectively controlled) assets and resources? Wouldn't it just be easier to say, "There's that factory there that makes water pumps and it's being run by the workers nearby." -- ?





7. Gift economy projects will outcompete commercial rivals

Just as Linux is destined to win against Windows--so too will various gift economy projects, with their higher productivity of labor, outcompete commercial enterprizes and drive commercial rivals into the ground. At this point the gift economy may absorb workers and equipment and "customers" (more on that in a bit) from the defeated commercial enterprizes which will have served their economic and historical purpose.


It is fatuous to compare the digital goods and services sector to *any* other, *especially* fully commercial (capitalist), industrial enterprises. With less than a hundred dollars these days a person can equip themselves as a fully capable artisan-type producer of programming code, writer, web designer, print designer, multimedia artist, executive / planner, trader, consultant, or home worker. While this low cost of entry can be a boon for anyone with the right stuff to make it in their respective industry, leveraging the microchip and the Internet's infrastructure, it is *nowhere near* the same beast as industrial production itself.

Could labor, with its Linux-equipped higher productivity, build its own tanks, airplanes, and armaments and take on the capitalists' military might in a bid of brute force to win over the world's civilization? Will a grassroots effort displace the likes of Lockheed Martin, Cargill, CSX, Pfizer, and so on?

I'll remind the reader that it's been difficult enough for people of a certain proclivity to simply get by with growing a certain kind of easily growing *weed*, in the face of decades of ongoing prohibition and prosecution from the capitalist state. Would the politics and logistics of a web-enabled "alternate economy" be that much easier to pass through under the carpet if it started with a dispersed, participatory movement by the ones and twos?





(Now, we should note that, by this time, any company of Boeing's size and strategic importance would certainly have been expropriated by the workers' state. However, from the point of view of theory, even if owned by the state, the company would still be part of the commodity economy because it would be creating jets in exchange for money.)


Here you're harboring the illusion that a competitive threat to the likes of Boeing would be looked upon as a mere curiosity, like a circus freak show. We ought to know that the bourgeoisie likes its perch very well and will readily dispel the *slightest* of serious threats to its hegemony with the most brutal and genocidal of methods.

This formulation contains a built-in contradiction, too: If Boeing is "expropriated" -- or, more precisely, 'collectivized' -- by a sufficiently large workers' state, it would no longer *be allowed* to engage in commodity production. The seizure of mass productive industries by a workers' state would transform those productive facilities into parts of the overall 'gift economy', if you like.





The solution (ie: the way to defend against the powerful effects of the laws of commodity production) would be for the gift economy to conduct its relations with the commodity economy in the form of a single, unified entity. From the point of view of the companies in the commodity economy--the gift economsy as a whole--would assume the form of a single giant corporation.


I would hope that we've already the learned the lesson of trying to *compete* with the capitalists at their own game -- the Stalinist U.S.S.R. did exactly that through the postwar ("Cold War") decades and look what happened -- their empirically superior, more-collectivized mode of production, albeit bureaucratically corrupt, hit a dead end in the face of the U.S.-led international capitalist financialization and militarization.

The *point* of a worldwide revolutionary upheaval is to *supersede* the capitalist mode of production altogether -- *not* to *compete* with it on its home turf.





The gift economy as a whole will be large enough and powerful enough that it would be able to accept the loss and dissolution of Project Landing Gear knowing that, in the long term, it will be able to build its abilities--and eventually drive Boeing out of business by building entire jets with fewer social resources than Boeing.


This approach, besides being incredibly naive, is too economics-oriented, at the expense of ignoring the *political* struggle that would have to be incessantly waged in order to maintain a widespread base of support for the functioning of the gift economy. In fact, the *slightest* concession to the status-quo *economy of trade*, as by doing business with them, would be a major *political* concession as well and would readily be perceived as a sign of weakness.

Why bother at all with competition? It would be *far* more effective to concentrate on expanding the active revolutionary struggle, with the gift economy proper being a mere *technicality* -- *not* a motivation -- within the rapidly growing workers' state. Once the revolution has won over the vast majority of the world's population the combined forces of the global bourgeoisie -- a tiny fraction of humanity, in numbers -- would be rendered politically naked and powerless to lift a finger against the revolutionary tide.

[h9socialist]

Dear Comrade BenSeattle --
I have to tell you I find the term "moneyless gift economy" a bit demeaning. It sounds like a term thought up by a petty-bourgeois economist to put down the welfare state.

A "moneyless economy" would not be an "economy" in the bourgeois sense of the word. The "moneyless" economy would be characterized by the ascension of "the commons" over the market. Most importantly, there would be NO GIFT involved -- the workers would only be freely appropriating their own product.

[temp acct for Ben Seattle]

(I am temporarily using another account while my PC is offline--Ben)

Hi there Ckaihatsu,

First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read "The ascendency of the self-organizing moneyless economy" and contributing your thoughts. Very few activists read my articles and I am glad to see that you took this on.

You raise a number of good points and ask some thoughtful questions.

Rather than reply to all of the points and questions you raised I thought it might be better if I were to simply focus on two.

The "Ascendency" article describes how the gift economy will, over the course of time, out-compete the commodity economy in the period after bourgeois rule is overthrown and the working class runs society.

1) You appear to ask, why, during this period, money will be used at all.

2) You also appear to ask why the gift economy would compete with the commodity economy at all and suggest that the workers might instead simply expropriate the entire commodity economy all in one bite.

Let's take a look at this:

Ckaihatsu:

My question: What would be the basis of value for a money-like currency after the capitalist system of valuation has gone bankrupt and is widely recognized as meaningless? ...


The answer here is simple: because it more or less works. The commodity economy (ie: based on the circulation of money and capital) evolved over centuries of experimentation and is fairly sophisticated. This method of organizing economic activity has demonstrated the ability to coordinate the activity of hundreds of millions of workers and keep food in grocery stores and gas in gas stations. This is important.

If a workers' state simply eliminated the old methods and tried to organize the activity of hundreds of millions using entirely new methods without a lengthy period of trial and error--then, eventually, there would be no food in grocery stores and no gas in gas stations. Workers would not be able to eat or get to work and would conclude that the revolutionary government is made up of people who have good intentions but do not understand how to get anything done. Workers' would conclude that the bourgeoisie exploited them--but also was able to do a better job at running society--and before too long the bourgeoisie would be running everything again. That is my view at any rate.

I wrote a lengthy essay (about 9 thousand words) on this topic, as part of the anarcho-leninist debate:

"Finding the Confidence to Build the Future:
How will the working class keep supply chains running and bourgeois apologists from flooding the airwaves on the morning after bourgeois rule is broken?"

Ckaihatsu:


If Boeing is "expropriated" -- or, more precisely, 'collectivized' -- by a sufficiently large workers' state, it would no longer *be allowed* to engage in commodity production. The seizure of mass productive industries by a workers' state would transform those productive facilities into parts of the overall 'gift economy'

Well, that is your view, of course.

Ckaihatsu:

I would hope that we've already the learned the lesson of trying to *compete* with the capitalists at their own game -- the Stalinist U.S.S.R. did exactly that through the postwar ("Cold War") decades and look what happened ... The *point* of a worldwide revolutionary upheaval is to *supersede* the capitalist mode of production altogether -- *not* to *compete* with it on its home turf.

My conclusion is that competition, under the rules of the workers' state -- would be the _form_ of expropriation that would give workers the necessary time and opportunity to experiment and gain experience with what works and what does not. I do not believe there is any substitute for experiment. Something may look good on paper. But the reality is often otherwise. Often you need to try something a hundred different ways to gain the necessary experience of how to do it right.

Your comparison with the experience of the Soviet Union is not applicable. The working class did not run Soviet society. This makes all the difference in the world.

sincerely,
Ben Seattle

[ckaihatsu]

1) You appear to ask, why, during this period, money will be used at all.




The answer here is simple: because it more or less works. The commodity economy (ie: based on the circulation of money and capital) evolved over centuries of experimentation and is fairly sophisticated. This method of organizing economic activity has demonstrated the ability to coordinate the activity of hundreds of millions of workers and keep food in grocery stores and gas in gas stations. This is important.

If a workers' state simply eliminated the old methods and tried to organize the activity of hundreds of millions using entirely new methods without a lengthy period of trial and error--then, eventually, there would be no food in grocery stores and no gas in gas stations. Workers would not be able to eat or get to work and would conclude that the revolutionary government is made up of people who have good intentions but do not understand how to get anything done. Workers' would conclude that the bourgeoisie exploited them--but also was able to do a better job at running society--and before too long the bourgeoisie would be running everything again. That is my view at any rate.


Hi, Ben,

I'm sorry, but the line you're advancing is equivalent to a vote of no-confidence in the ability of the working class to effectively coordinate its own labor, outside of capitalist control.

I'll remind you that *presently* we have ubiquitous examples of "socialism" and "central planning" in practice, in *every* corporation's *internal structure*. Managers do whatever it takes to *integrate* the budgeting, planning, and operations *within* their divisions and departments, all *without* wasteful competition.

The use of money is *not* sophisticated at all -- if it were then it would *work*, and there wouldn't be the rolling financial crises that we've seen throughout the past decade, since the dotcom crash. Everything since has been nothing but the rise of financial-casino speculation and gambling at taxpayer expense. Right now the bubble is not far from having moved past mortgages but is certainly boosting the banking sector, thanks to the ongoing U.S. government bailout (hand-out), with the blue chip stock market showing the results.

I hope you'll revisit your assumptions about what it takes for the working class to coordinate itself, around industrial production or *any* workplace concern. Please consider the feeling that a group of workers gets when the boss is away for an extended period of time. They'll quickly realize that they were the ones keeping the place running anyway and that the company's operations are well-established within a networked workflow that pulses through several other interconnected workplaces.

Many workers have come to the conclusion that managers are glorified babysitters, not unlike the local equivalents of politicians. Without the social-control bullshit that goes along with the oppressive infrastructure of capitalism workers would be free to really put their brains into creative motion for the sake of using available productive assets to their greatest socialized potential.





2) You also appear to ask why the gift economy would compete with the commodity economy at all and suggest that the workers might instead simply expropriate the entire commodity economy all in one bite.




My conclusion is that competition, under the rules of the workers' state -- would be the _form_ of expropriation that would give workers the necessary time and opportunity to experiment and gain experience with what works and what does not. I do not believe there is any substitute for experiment. Something may look good on paper. But the reality is often otherwise. Often you need to try something a hundred different ways to gain the necessary experience of how to do it right.


Ben, I have to put you on the spot here: *Do* you, or *don't* you, advocate the gift economy? If you do, then wouldn't you have *full confidence* in it over the exchange-based machinations of the capitalist market function, as you've stated in your essay? You *do* appreciate, don't you, that the two are absolutely incompatible and unmixable, right? (Because if someone is participating in a *competitive* mode then the point is to *leverage* private assets and resources in the practice of making *private* returns on investments, or profits. If someone is participating in a gift economy then the point is to *spread things around* in the mode of making assets and resources flow freely with the aim of achieving greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts emergent collective dynamics.)

To state that a workers' state should "experiment" is really to *backtrack* on your assertion that the gift economy is *better*. What, exactly, should be "experimented" about? Certainly not the principle of "pay it forward", as you've seemingly committed to...?

I think what's at the heart of this is that you have an abiding concern about *flexibility* in function and that you wouldn't want to see a top-down, bureaucratic *stiffening* of work roles and individual worker agency. If this is the case, then I certainly understand and appreciate the point -- it's politically instinctively valid.

In my attached document, 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors', at post #101, you'll see that I advocate a system of rolling valuations of recently active workers, through a system of labor credits that apply to *work hours* only, and not to tangible material properties of any sort. This acknowledges that a fully collectivized, or gift, economy, would have *no need or function fulfilled* by assigning quantitative valuations to material products, since everything *could be* coordinated through a *political* economy of collective intention by the society and workers themselves.

The labor credits would serve to take the place of private collections of capital, which today function as the means of coordinating workers in a workforce, through the labor markets. The replacement for today's professionalized managerial staff would be the locality's daily prioritized political demands, aggregated and sorted for the consideration of all liberated workers who would seek to gain labor credits (and to be close to the point of production).





The working class did not run Soviet society. This makes all the difference in the world.


I absolutely appreciate this point, as you are correct. I would *not* presume to ever say that the U.S.S.R. *was* a workers' state -- merely that the composition of its *economy* was far more integrated and coordinated as a whole, especially during its period of industrialization, than its counterparts in the capitalist Western countries.





Your comparison with the experience of the Soviet Union is not applicable.


I'm not *trying* to compare our plans for worker liberation to the functioning of the U.S.S.R. -- I *was* making a point about history, namely that the Stalinist mode of production was empirically superior to that of capitalist management. In saying that I don't mean to *glorify* it in the least, or to *recommend* the adoption of an elitist bureaucratic caste for the running of society.

*However*, since it performed *far beyond* the rates of industrialization of *any* other country in the world I think we can accept a certain lesson, or conclusion, from it, that being that it is *preferable* to have *more* cross-currents of economic integration and cooperation within a society than not, meaning preferring collectivized assets and resources over a size-equivalent mode of *private* accumulations.

We should *not* shy away from announcing this conclusion, especially if we are to fully advocate and advance the backing of a gift economy solution to the problem of economics and material production.

[temp acct for Ben Seattle]

Hi there Ckaihatsu,

I may to able to make another post either later today or in the next few days days. In the meantime I will reply to your question:


Ben, I have to put you on the spot here: *Do* you, or *don't* you, advocate the gift economy? If you do, then wouldn't you have *full confidence* in it over the exchange-based machinations of the capitalist market function, as you've stated in your essay?

We have a saying out here in the West: "Never mistake a clear view for a short distance".

That mountain you see on the horizon may sure _look_ close on a clear day. But you could spend a long time walking toward it--and it may look just the same.

More (hopefully) later,
Ben Seattle

[hefty_lefty]

Just as the gift economy has the potential, through its raised quality of *social relations*, to enlighten and humanize the world's population, so too does an aggressively explicit political *class consciousness* build the collective social understanding and attitudes necessary to direct the world's population against the capitalist enemy in order to defeat them once and for all.

Well, I couldn't let this one go ckaihatsu :D

This statement reeks of assumption, and what does an aggresively explicit political class consciousness mean exactly?

I don't mean to nitpick, but...isn't a class consciousness another term for collective social understanding, and so how can one help create the other if they are the same thing?

[ckaihatsu]

We have a saying out here in the West: "Never mistake a clear view for a short distance".

That mountain you see on the horizon may sure _look_ close on a clear day. But you could spend a long time walking toward it--and it may look just the same.


Ben, to extend your metaphor here -- are you sure that you even know what *direction* you're going in?

[ckaihatsu]

This statement reeks of assumption, and what does an aggresively explicit political class consciousness mean exactly?

I don't mean to nitpick, but...isn't a class consciousness another term for collective social understanding, and so how can one help create the other if they are the same thing?


It just means that there's no point in being political if we're not being *explicitly* political. As revolutionaries we don't have the benefit of being "above it all" so that means it's basically up to us -- we're the ones who have to make it happen because those in power could care less.

Class consciousness is something that each one of us has and can exercise if we so choose -- just like muscles in the body. In groups we can provide reinforcement and encouragement, like here at RevLeft, since this is a *social* (political) thing that's going on, the class struggle.

[temp acct for Ben Seattle]

Hi there Ckaihatsu,

After reading your most recent post and looking at your "communist supply and demand - model of material factors" I am in a better position to reply to you.

It turns out that you and I are using the term "gift economy" to mean entirely different things.

In your view, people will work, at least in part, in exchange for labor credits. What people will consume seems to be based on a lot of factors--but one of these factors appears to be the labor credits.

But since labor credits play a significant role in distribution, this also means that consummer items are created, at least in part, so that they can be *exchanged* for labor credits. But this also means that these consummer items are commodities--because that is what commodities are. A commodity is anything that is created for the purpose of sale or exchange. It also means that, in your scheme, labor will be a commodity.

So what you call the gift economy is part of what I would call the commodity economy. And it means that your proposal would be subject to all of the well-known laws of commodity production.

I did look at your chart--and it appears to combine features of both commodity production and supreme centralized control. In my view a gift economy will contain elements of neither.

In my view, labor in the gift economy will be voluntary labor, People will eat and consume the same whether or not they work. When they work, they will not work for credits of any kind but rather will work for free. Of course they will work with interesting people on interesting projects and receive knowledge and appreciation.

Some aspects of your particular scheme look like they might be suitable as part of an economic experiment in the period after bourgeois rule is overthrown. I believe, as I have noted, that there will be a lot of experimentation. There will be experimentation not only within the gift economy but also within sections of the commodity economy (which is where your scheme should be categorized if we want to maintain the definition of "commodity" that is used by the rest of humankind).

While some aspects of your chart/scheme appear to be original, the basic idea (ie: adding a layer of social control to ordinary economic relations) has been around since the 1800's. Your scheme has its strengths and its weaknesses but I should probably tell you that it is not a gift economy and it is not original.

I wish I had better news for you since I know you have put a lot of work and thought and enthusiasm into this chart. But humility requires that we struggle to see things with clarity.

You may (or may not) find some of the many articles I have written on the gift economy to be interesting. It is probably best for me to conclude my participation on this thread.

sincerely,
Ben Seattle

[ckaihatsu]

It turns out that you and I are using the term "gift economy" to mean entirely different things.


No, actually, you're misunderstanding my model, Ben -- there is *no* exchange of labor credits for tangible material products.





In your view, people will work, at least in part, in exchange for labor credits. What people will consume seems to be based on a lot of factors--but one of these factors appears to be the labor credits.


Yes, this part is correct -- the system of labor credits would be confined to labor hours *only*, and would *not* extend to tangible material products.





In my attached document, 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors', at post #101, you'll see that I advocate a system of rolling valuations of recently active workers, through a system of labor credits that apply to *work hours* only, and not to tangible material properties of any sort. This acknowledges that a fully collectivized, or gift, economy, would have *no need or function fulfilled* by assigning quantitative valuations to material products, since everything *could be* coordinated through a *political* economy of collective intention by the society and workers themselves.

The labor credits would serve to take the place of private collections of capital, which today function as the means of coordinating workers in a workforce, through the labor markets. The replacement for today's professionalized managerial staff would be the locality's daily prioritized political demands, aggregated and sorted for the consideration of all liberated workers who would seek to gain labor credits (and to be close to the point of production).





But since labor credits play a significant role in distribution, this also means that consummer items are created, at least in part, so that they can be *exchanged* for labor credits. But this also means that these consummer items are commodities--because that is what commodities are. A commodity is anything that is created for the purpose of sale or exchange. It also means that, in your scheme, labor will be a commodity.


No -- to clarify, Ben, what I've modeled is a system that clearly *separates* supply (labor, assets, resources) from demand (consumption of goods and services). If you'll read carefully you'll see that at no point would there be a handing over of labor credits for tangible goods. Rather, those who have worked in the past will have accumulations of labor credits that represent the actual work hours that they worked (times a multiplier that reflects hazard / difficulty, to yield a rate of labor credits per hour). Those caches of labor credits represent the *quantitatively measured* empowerment of actual laborers, in the realm of labor selection for the fulfillment of society's needs and wants.

So, in short, this is a way for labor to take care of its own, with a yardstick that defines everyone's labor status as objectively as possible.

With this model labor would call the shots, but *only* regarding supplies of *labor* (including the production process). While active workers and prospective workers may have had relevant inputs into the selection of policy, through the common (daily iterated) list of aggregated political priorities from all individuals, their potential role in shaping the locality's policy of mass demands would be on par with *anyone else's* potential for participation in the political process, because each individual, regardless of work status, would have *equivalently weighted* individual political priority lists that are aggregated together for the locality.

To explain it further, this model states that each individual, regardless of work status, has a slot #1 for their *most* important political demand of the day. Everyone has a slot #1 of their own. Everyone has a slot #2 of their own, and so on. When these individual lists are aggregated the cumulative #1 slots will be prioritized ahead of *all* #2 slots. This objectively reflected accounting of mass demands will be the formal societal mirror mechanism that drives the political process.

If, for example, people look at this cumulative list and notice that there happen to be hundreds of people all with "better transportation" in their top ten slots, this would be a sound basis for a mass politicization of demand for labor for some public transportation construction projects. Several highly motivated residents could become political "movers and shakers" around this policy initiative, drawing up specific plans that they would like to see acted upon. At the same time, *others* might have *different* ideas that *they* would like to see implemented as far as public transportation goes. *They* would develop an *alternate* policy proposal, with *differing* specifics. Even *others* might draw up *still other* plans of *their* own for addressing this mass demand for public transportation.

As these various policy proposals are fleshed in, they become available for public consideration, and could very well be picked up and put into people's daily prioritized political demand lists. Perhaps policy proposal "Yellow" pops up on 867 people's top ten slots the day after it is published. The next day the "Orange" policy alternative is published and the day after *that* it registers 902 top-ten placements, while the "Yellow" proposal has slipped to 851 for the same day.

Meanwhile the backers of "Yellow" have also been organizing among the people in the locality who have accumulated labor credits. According to their estimates the "Yellow" plan would require 500,000 labor hours at a multiplier rate of 10 -- they've put the word out around labor circles that their policy would create work positions totaling 25,000 work weeks at 20 hours per week (25,000 x 20 = 500,000 labor hours). Based on this they would recommend 250 laborers to work 100 weeks (250 x 100 = 25,000 work weeks), but, since the "Yellow" people aren't actually workers they wouldn't be able to *tell* the workers how to schedule the work.

The proposal is well-received by labor circles and soon the "Yellow" people have signed up well over 200 prospective workers for the project.

The "Orange" plan backers don't miss a beat, however, and *their* plan has estimated 600,000 labor hours needed, but they could do it with *less-skilled* labor at a multiplier rate of 8 -- that's 4,800,000 labor credits needed for the "Orange" plan. They *also* begin to get the word out to solicit workers who *have worked in the past* and *could contribute* portions of the required 4,800,000 labor credits towards hiring labor for the "Yellow" plan.

In this scenario a funny thing happens -- the "Orange" people wind up being *very good* at fund-raising, and within days they have rounded up the *entire* funding (of 4,800,000 labor credits) needed for the "Orange" plan. But they haven't been nearly as good at finding a pool of workers who want to work at the rate of 8 labor credits per hour. On the flipside, the "Yellow" backers have practically nailed down a labor force, but they've been far slower at soliciting labor-credit backers with which to *fund* their policy package -- they would *need* 5,000,000 labor credits altogether (500,000 labor hours x 10 labor credits per hour), but they've gotten commitments for barely *half* of that, only 2,000,000 so far.

The local media reports on this and the locality's population hears about the slightly more popular "Orange" plan which has also secured the full amount of its estimate's funding. The scheduled start date for both plans are similar, and so, from the reporting, some prospective laborers come out of the woodwork and they contact the "Orange" team to let them know that they would be available for the project. The "Orange" camp instantly gains commitments for labor from 200 people, out of a needed 300 (300 x 100 work weeks x 20 hours per week = 600,000 labor hours).

With the start date still fairly far off both policies look to be able to secure the necessary labor in time, while the "Yellow" team is only half-finished with fundraising -- the "Orange" team has raised its full amount from workers who have a combined 4,800,000 labor credits.

The daily political prioritization lists continue to reflect a slight favoring of the "Orange" plan, based on its benefits to the population as a whole, but labor circles in particular are somewhat disgruntled at the lower rate provided -- only 8 labor credits per hour compared with "Yellow"'s 10 per hour. Several TV stories and newspaper articles cover the story, describing a "cold shoulder" movement that's taken hold within circles of veteran laborers against the "Orange" plan for this reason, and it continues to stagnate in finding additional commitments of laborers to reach its target number of 300.


Here's the data in a table format:

_________________________LABOR_|_WORK__|_HOURS____ |_LABOR___|_PROSPECTIVE_|
POLICY_|_DAY 1_|_DAY 3_|_HOURS_|_WEEKS_|_PER WEEK_|_CREDITS_|_WORKERS_____|_FUNDING

Yellow___871_____851____500,000_25,000___20_______ _5,000,000__200 / 250___|_2,000,000

Orange____-______902____600,000_30,000___20________4,800,000_ _200 / 300___|_4,800,000


I've chosen public transportation as an example because it's a clear case in which there would be *no* tangible products yielded anyway, regardless of the economic accounting. Once the infrastructure is built it yields a mass service as long as it is staffed, fueled, and maintained.





[...]

In my view, labor in the gift economy will be voluntary labor, People will eat and consume the same whether or not they work. When they work, they will not work for credits of any kind but rather will work for free. Of course they will work with interesting people on interesting projects and receive knowledge and appreciation.

Some aspects of your particular scheme look like they might be suitable as part of an economic experiment in the period after bourgeois rule is overthrown. I believe, as I have noted, that there will be a lot of experimentation.

[...]

While some aspects of your chart/scheme appear to be original, the basic idea (ie: adding a layer of social control to ordinary economic relations) has been around since the 1800's. Your scheme has its strengths and its weaknesses but I should probably tell you that it is not a gift economy and it is not original.


It *is* a gift economy, but only inasmuch as the locality's population *demands* the gifts *and* supplies the funding, actual labor (and collectivized assets and resources) for producing those gifts. Ideally these three factors would be present in the same locality, yielding a condition of self-sufficiency which would also allow the locality to grow politically and reach out to network with *other* localities for more complex arrangements of planning and coordination.

If a locality lacked, say, the funding of labor credits, then it would have to create them out of debt and that would be transparent to the world. The locality could pay up its debt by sending as many people from its environs as necessary to do the work hours *elsewhere*, for other localities (at certain multiplier rates), to bring back the needed number of labor credits to erase the debt.

Any localities that repeatedly tried to just issue additional debt without attempting to work off existing outstanding debt would wind up being looked upon unfavorably by its neighbors (and beyond) since it had, as an entire local population, decided to *use* others' labor time for its own local projects without having the means to pay for it.

All of this is *independent* of collectivized assets and resources, like factories and oil deposits. If a locality became *very* debt-ridden it certainly wouldn't be in a position to *utilize* any of its "own" (nearby) assets or resources, and so other localities would be able to prioritize *their* use of the assets and resources for actual, *funded*, *labor-ready* project plans for *their* localities.

This would mean nothing more than what it sounds like at face value -- since there would be no private property anyway there would be no *drastic* consequences to any of these scenarios. No one in the debt-ridden locality would be allowed to *starve* or go homeless or without electricity -- it's just that they would be politically at a standstill until they resolved their locality's problem in a *collective* way, the same way that got them into the mess.

Alternatively, workers from other areas who have built up their own personal accumulations of labor credits from past work done might hear about the debt-ridden locality and could offer to come together to put up their *own* stores of labor credits, in order to either pay off the debt and/or fund new projects or production runs. There would be no "in return", because there would be no power-brokering, outside of any arbitrary collection of those with accumulated labor credits, and there could be no *tangible material compensation* in return, either, because there would be no commodity production and thus no exchange value for anything. Any societal surplus around -- even factories and oil deposits -- could just be *taken* by *anyone*, but only for personal use, not for leveraging in any kind of "ownership" or private-accumulation kind of way.

Perhaps those workers who put up their own labor credits from outside might decide to move to the locality they helped out -- maybe to be closer to the implementation around their funding, as in selecting *specific* laborers, in proportion to the funding they're putting up -- or they may *not* move -- it wouldn't matter. *Anyone* could move *anywhere* for *any* reasons because such an action would *necessarily* be personal, while transportation would be readily available and new accomodations elsewhere would simply be first-come-first-served, and *not* dependent on any kind of personal wealth, not even labor credits. Political matters could always be taken care of from anywhere, anyway, over the Internet.

Finally, personal consumption would be premised on the planned political economy, but not necessarily limited to it, since any outstanding surpluses of *anything* would be openly available on a first-come-first-served basis. No matter what a person's political or work status they would *always* have a daily political prioritization list available to them, so as to make formal requests / demands from the larger society, including demands for labor, provided that labor is available and willing.