A few questions...

[Stephen Colbert]

I consider myself pretty liberal, and maybe even a libertarian socialist.

However, there are 3 questions I posit to any commited revolutionaries.

1) Wouldnt democratization of means of production be inefficient? Would it not take hours for masses of workers to decide on even the most arbitrary things?

2) After the "withering away" of the proletarian dictatorship, isn't anarchism an overly optimistic view about what society could be? Even with decentralized mores I don't think there would be any sort of order

3)What happens when communism is attained. What happens to the societal structure. Does everyone make X dollars? Is there still meritocracy? What makes people not be complacent? Who works the jobs no one wants?

[red cat]

I consider myself pretty liberal, and maybe even a libertarian socialist.

However, there are 3 questions I posit to any commited revolutionaries.

1) Wouldnt democratization of means of production be inefficient? Would it not take hours for masses of workers to decide on even the most arbitrary things?

2) After the "withering away" of the proletarian dictatorship, isn't anarchism an overly optimistic view about what society could be? Even with decentralized mores I don't think there would be any sort of order

3)What happens when communism is attained. What happens to the societal structure. Does everyone make X dollars? Is there still meritocracy? What makes people not be complacent? Who works the jobs no one wants?

1) Even if it takes even days or weeks for the working class to decide things, it is much better than the danger of capitalism coming back through a bureaucracy.

2) The withering away of the state implies that the working class as a whole has developed equally so that they don't need a complex stratified structure to govern and can take turns to constitute whatever remains of the government.

3) Money won't be used in communism. Since everyone will get equal access to everything, there will be equal development in every field. Due to this, there will be only very few who will stand out in terms of merit. And there will be no job as such that nobody will want. If there is any, then everyone will take turns to do it.

[ZeroNowhere]

1) Wouldnt democratization of means of production be inefficient? Would it not take hours for masses of workers to decide on even the most arbitrary things?What things are you referring to? It's not much use just stating that there will be problems without naming what you think will be problematic, so that discussion can take place on how what is mentioned could be made unproblematic. For example, the use of elected and recallable delegates for administrative purposes and communication between industries, some technologies, and so on, could well prevent some problems, but it's not much use just naming factors without any specificity. Though it will certainly be nice to have things under human control again.


2) After the "withering away" of the proletarian dictatorship, isn't anarchism an overly optimistic view about what society could be? Even with decentralized mores I don't think there would be any sort of orderYou'll have to define your terms here. 'Proletarian dictatorship' and 'decentralized' have as many meanings as people who use them.


3)What happens when communism is attained. What happens to the societal structure. Does everyone make X dollars? Is there still meritocracy? What makes people not be complacent? Who works the jobs no one wants?There is not and never has been 'meritocracy'. And it would be hard to set up an ill-defined concept anyway. Nothing makes people not be complacent, socialism does not prevent people from having character flaws. When it comes to jobs that nobody especially wants to do, but are necessary, it would probably make sense to circulate the job, though different jobs may allow for different approaches, perhaps, and unpleasant jobs could perhaps be given a higher rate of compensation. As regards compensation, as RC pointed out above, there would be no money. Marx, De Leon and such did, however, propose that labour credits could be used during the first phase of communism.


Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force. All the characteristics of Robinson [Crusoe]'s labour are repeated here, but with the difference that they are social instead of individual. All Robinson's products were exclusively the result of his own personal labour and they were therefore directly objects of utility for him personally. The total product of our imagined association is a social product. One part of this product serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another part is consumed by the members of the association as means of subsistence. This part must therefore be divided amongst them. The way in which this division is made will vary with the particular kind of social organization of production and the corresponding level of social development attained by the producers. We shall assume, but only for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities that the share of each individual in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time. Labour-time would in that case play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the correct proportion between the different functions of labour and the various needs of the associations. On the other hand, labour-time also serves as a measure of the part taken by each individual product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, both towards their labour and the products of their labour, are here transparent in their simplicity, in production as well as in distribution.-Capital, Fowkes translation.


What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.

Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.-Critique of the Gotha Program.


It's worth noting that these do not circulate. That is, when they are given in for goods, they cease to function. Also, some basic necessities would probably be available free up to a certain amount.






There being no "commodities" in the future society, neither can there be any money. Money appears as the antithesis of the commodity, but it is a commodity itself. Yet money, even though itself a commodity, is at the same time the social equivalent, the measure of value for all other commodities. The future society will not produce commodities but only articles for the satisfaction of needs, use values, whose production requires a definite amount of social labour time. The average labour time required for the production of an article is the only measure by which its social usefulness can be measured. Ten minutes of social labour time spent on an article are equal to ten minutes of social labour time spent on another article, no more no less. Society does not want to "profit", it only wants to organise among its members the exchange of articles of equal quality, equal use value, and ultimately it does not even need to establish a use value - it simply produces what it needs. If society should find that for the production of all necessary products it needs a three-hour working day, it will introduce one. Should methods of production so improve that requirements can be covered in two hours, a two-hour working day will be introduced. Should society conversely require the satisfaction of higher wants which, despite the increase in the labour force and higher labour productivity, cannot be satisfied in two or three hours, a longer working day is introduced. Its will is its kingdom of Heaven.

The amount of social labour time required for the production of every single article is easily calculated. The ratio of the part to the whole of the working time is measured accordingly. Some sort of a certificate, a piece of printed paper, gold or tin testifies to the number of hours worked and enables the owner to exchange this token for all manner of articles. Should he find that his wants come to smaller total than he has received for his efforts, he correspondingly works a shorter time. Should he want to give away what he has not consumed himself, there is nobody to stop him from doing so; should he wish to work for somebody else to enable that person to indulge in dolce far niente, or should he wish to share his title to the social products with him, there is nobody to prevent him from doing so. But no one can compel him to work for another's advantage, no one can withhold from him any part of his title to the social products he has earned.
Presently they could probably be digital, however. Also relevant is this (http://deleonism.org/v1.htm).

[mikelepore]

1) Wouldnt democratization of means of production be inefficient? Would it not take hours for masses of workers to decide on even the most arbitrary things?

It's not necessary to do that. Even if the workers spend five minutes per year to democratically elect their managers and supervisors, they will have signficant advantages of workplace democracy. If they want to allocate additional time to exert more direct control, they can choose how much time they want to allocate.


2) After the "withering away" of the proletarian dictatorship, isn't anarchism an overly optimistic view about what society could be? Even with decentralized mores I don't think there would be any sort of order

Since I'm a Marxist and not an anarchist, I believe that a high degree of centralization IS the ultimate freedom that we need.

Decentralize that which is purely local, like the question of what hours to keep the town library open, or where to place the benches in the park. Centralize the issues that matter to the human race as a whole.

As for the notion of a proletarian dictatorship, as well as it's withering away, I consider this to be the brainstorming of Marx in his 20s, when his ideas were more flighty and random than the thoughts of the 60-year-old Marx.


3)What happens when communism is attained. What happens to the societal structure. Does everyone make X dollars?

Be warned that this question causes many people to act as though there were a single correct answer, but there isn't. There are numerous preferences being proposed, but it's customary for the supporters of each preference to exaggerate the fundamentality of their opinion, and to say that their own preference is "part of the very definition" of a classless society, which is false.

Personally, I believe it will be necessary in a classless society for individual workers to earn their incomes by hourly rates of work, and to spend those incomes to acquire products. If this isn't done then there would be no reason for the individual to show up at work, and then there wouldn't be any products.


Is there still meritocracy? What makes people not be complacent?

I believe the correct method is to compensate work at a higher rate than average when that work is more strenuous, more uncomfortable, etc., in the way that a firefighter performs more of an exertion than someone who sits at a desk. However, there should be no evaluation that some jobs are "more important."


Who works the jobs no one wants?

If no one wants the job (or very few people want it), that means the performance of that kind of work is more of a personal sacrifice than other kinds of work. Therefore, compensating that type of work at a higher rate is a form of equality itself. That is, if the person who volunteered to perform four times the personal sacrifice receives four times the compensation, that's not unequal distribution, but rather a more authentic kind of equal distribution.

[ZeroNowhere]

As for the notion of a proletarian dictatorship, as well as it's withering away, I consider this to be the brainstorming of Marx in his 20s, when his ideas were more flighty and random than the thoughts of the 60-year-old Marx.Technically, his best known expression of it was when he was 57, I believe. Though that is valid inasmuch as he developed his analysis of the state in the '40s through his Critique of Hegel, On the Jewish Question, and The German Ideology, as was well pointed out by Lucio Colletti (http://libcom.org/library/intro-Marx-early-writings-Colletti), though he was generally quite eager to revise his views, so the fact that he was propounding this view in his work on the Paris Commune, and the Critique of the Gotha Program, shows that he still considered it valid. And there's not much reason for him to have done otherwise.