How to abolish Exploitation

[Paul Cockshott]

Preamble
In Critique of Gotha Programme and Anti-Dhuring Marx + Engels argue that in the first stage of communism you will have an economy with the following features:


Non monetary economy using labour accounts
Consumer goods allocated by labour credits on an hour for hour basis
No property income
Deductions from labour accounts for social insurance etc
Equal rates of pay for all professions, though income differences may exist due to intensity of labour
Conscious planned allocation of labour

This differs significantly from the Social Democratic/Soviet model in which socialism is characterised by


Retention of money
Consumer goods allocated mainly by money but supplemented by rations
Different rates of pay for different professions



Question for discussion:
What strategy for economic transition between capitalist market economy and the form of economy advocated by Marx should be proposed in 21st century.

In order to restrict the scope of discussion to a manageable level please abstract from questions of political power and address economic forms of transition, topics like: property rights, monetary policy, labour rights.

In order to further restrict scope, please leave issues of transition to 2nd stage of communism with need based distribution for another thread.

[RED DAVE]

The only realistic strategy for ending exploitation is proletarian revolution.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

The only realistic strategy for ending exploitation is proletarian revolution.

RED DAVE

I am not wanting to deny that, what I am asking you and others is something more specific - what has to be the economic programme of such a social revolution.

[zimmerwald1915]

I am not wanting to deny that, what I am asking you and others is something more specific - what has to be the economic programme of such a social revolution.
Are we talking about a period where the world revolution is still ongoing, or after it has triumphed worldwide?

[Paul Cockshott]

Are we talking about a period where the world revolution is still ongoing, or after it has triumphed worldwide?

Well how about you give your account of what you think the economic programme would be in either case.

[zimmerwald1915]

Well how about you give your account of what you think the economic programme would be in either case.
But I'm le tired :(

[Raightning]

{{deleted for being terribly rubbish}}

[Paul Cockshott]

But I'm le tired :(
Well the thread will still be here tomorrow...

[syndicat]

2.
Consumer goods allocated by labour credits on an hour for hour basis

This will lead to inefficiency because goods that take a lot of labor that requires skills requiring long periods of education will be underpriced. Also, "external effects" such as pollution need to be "internalized" by production organizations, and reflected in prices, otherwise it will cause too much demand for ecologically destructive products, which is also an inefficiency.

It's okay to pay an equal hourly rate, if one also tries to re-org work so that some don't have a more dangerous and more onerous form of work.

Exploitation presupposes domination of the immediate producers by some dominating class. So ending exploitation also presupposes workers self-management of the various industries where people work, as a necessary but not sufficient condition. It also presupposes that the state has been gotten rid of, and replaced with some form of popular power, otherwise there will still be a basis for a dominating class, and hence exploitation.

[zimmerwald1915]

Well the thread will still be here tomorrow...
That was the joke...

[The Vegan Marxist]

Preamble
In Critique of Gotha Programme and Anti-Dhuring Marx + Engels argue that in the first stage of communism you will have an economy with the following features:


Non monetary economy using labour accounts
Consumer goods allocated by labour credits on an hour for hour basis
No property income
Deductions from labour accounts for social insurance etc
Equal rates of pay for all professions, though income differences may exist due to intensity of labour
Conscious planned allocation of labour

This differs significantly from the Social Democratic/Soviet model in which socialism is characterised by


Retention of money
Consumer goods allocated mainly by money but supplemented by rations
Different rates of pay for different professions



Question for discussion:
What strategy for economic transition between capitalist market economy and the form of economy advocated by Marx should be proposed in 21st century.

In order to restrict the scope of discussion to a manageable level please abstract from questions of political power and address economic forms of transition, topics like: property rights, monetary policy, labour rights.

In order to further restrict scope, please leave issues of transition to 2nd stage of communism with need based distribution for another thread.

The idea of their being equal pay to each profession could've been reasonable back then during Marx's time, but during these times, there's no way we could hold that down. The future calls for new approaches through a model in which clearly calls for the advancement of scientific life-styles.

[zimmerwald1915]

The idea of their being equal pay to each profession could've been reasonable back then during Marx's time, but during these times, there's no way we could hold that down. The future calls for new approaches through a model in which clearly calls for the advancement of scientific life-styles.
By "advancement" do you mean "promotion"? Please clarify what you meant by that last sentence.

[The Vegan Marxist]

By "advancement" do you mean "promotion"? Please clarify what you meant by that last sentence.

As in, a lifestyle of "trial n error". To learn from mistakes, false theoretical ideas, etc. To build ourselves from the failures of the past, in which would be the gain of our future. Which, as I was pointing out, would be the idea that every profession, during these times, would get an equal wage. Great idea back then, I'm sure, but during these times, we need to "advance" ourselves towards a higher way of learning beyond such an old ideal.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Preamble
In Critique of Gotha Programme and Anti-Dhuring Marx + Engels argue that in the first stage of communism you will have an economy with the following features:


Non monetary economy using labour accounts
Consumer goods allocated by labour credits on an hour for hour basis
No property income
Deductions from labour accounts for social insurance etc
Equal rates of pay for all professions, though income differences may exist due to intensity of labour
Conscious planned allocation of labour

This differs significantly from the Social Democratic/Soviet model in which socialism is characterised by


Retention of money
Consumer goods allocated mainly by money but supplemented by rations
Different rates of pay for different professions



Question for discussion:
What strategy for economic transition between capitalist market economy and the form of economy advocated by Marx should be proposed in 21st century.

In order to restrict the scope of discussion to a manageable level please abstract from questions of political power and address economic forms of transition, topics like: property rights, monetary policy, labour rights.

In order to further restrict scope, please leave issues of transition to 2nd stage of communism with need based distribution for another thread.

Mike Lepore has expressed disagreement with #5 on equality. BTW, isn't #5 the same as #2 on "on an hour for hour" basis, or is that merely referring to central planning?

Also, are you trying to add to your already existing strategy of transition (http://www.revleft.com/vb/european-economic-transition-t129546/index.html) which deliberately avoids the property question as much as possible?

Property

- Apply not some but all economic rent beyond that of the natural environment towards exclusively public purposes. (ttp://www.revleft.com/vb/classical-economic-rent-t103272/index.html) Practically speaking, this means that anything that generates rent in the classical economic sense (land, natural monopolies like utilities and media infrastructure, other monopolies or tight oligopolies) is to be socialized. I would, however, avoid classifying the asset appropriation as a transitional measure.
- Abolish all constitutional guarantees of the rights of private ownership of productive and other non-possessive property. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transformative-critique-directional-t129073/index.html) Macnair's measure was surprisingly missing from the CPGB Draft Program.
- Society should be able to directly establishing limits on non-possessive property ownership and adjust it by democratic means ("Maximum Allowable Wealth" / "Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth").

Money

- Abolish all public debts outright, suppress excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, end the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and preclude all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership.
- Disable the circulation of money. The new "electronic money" is probably more effective than your proposal re. prohibiting civil courts from enforcing the collection of the interest portion of debt payments, or imposing severe criminal penalties on those who use threats of harm to extort interest. I think it also eliminates any possibility of investment strikes (like in response to implementing Minsky's proposal). It may even be more effective than your "industrial democracy" proposal against asset stripping. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/market-clearing-prices-t89237/index.html?p=1250725)



Some recent material on "transitions" got me thinking on an intermediate "currency" between $$$ and the social-abolitionist labour credit. I don't really care much about what to call this "currency" - consumption credits or even socialist credits (since the term "socialism" has, I think, been irreparably associated with the maintenance of wage slavery, from the bourgeois "state socialism" known as "social democracy" to even the prevailing revolutionary interpretation of "socialism") - but this transitional "currency" system would be designed to abolish the formation of money-capital (non-circulation) but not wage slavery (since the "socially necessary labour-time" planning apparatus would still be set up during the transitional period).

Could this transitional "currency" system replace all forms of $$$ immediately after the social-proletocratic political revolution?1. Money can be made electronic and personally identifiable (linked to the individual). This can replace 'anonymous cash' quite readily.
2. The ability of money to earn interest can be eliminated.
3. Other structural changes regarding currency could be implemented.
Labour

- Extend litigation rights to include class-action lawsuits and speedy judgements against all non-workers who appropriate surplus value atop any economic rent applied towards exclusively public purposes.
- Match the transnational mobility of labour with the establishment of a transnationally entrenched bill of workers’ political and economic rights, and with the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work, thus allowing real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, and thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants.
- Legally consider all workplaces as being unionized for the purposes of political strikes and even syndicalist strikes, regardless of the presence or absence of formal unionization in each workplace. The general/mass strike strategy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=2432) for the expropriation of the capitalists is more relevant here after the conquest of political power, since the "struggle for socialism" is economic and not political.

Miscellaneous

- Establish an equal obligation on all able-bodied individuals to perform socially productive labour and other socially necessary labour, be it manual or mental.
- Enabling the full replacement of the hiring of labour for small-business profit by cooperative production, and also society’s cooperative production of goods and services to be regulated by cooperatives under their common plans.
- Eliminate information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs.

[Martin Blank]

This differs significantly from the Social Democratic/Soviet model in which socialism is characterised by


Retention of money
Consumer goods allocated mainly by money but supplemented by rations
Different rates of pay for different professions

The Soviet model of "socialism", as it was defined by Moscow in the 1930s, was meant as a distinct mode of production between capitalism and communism. It was not synonymous either with the lower phase of communism or with the proletarian dictatorship.


Question for discussion:
What strategy for economic transition between capitalist market economy and the form of economy advocated by Marx should be proposed in 21st century.

In order to restrict the scope of discussion to a manageable level please abstract from questions of political power and address economic forms of transition, topics like: property rights, monetary policy, labour rights.

For the most part, Jacob has this covered with some of the slogans and platform points he presents. I would add just a couple other things for consideration:

1. We can utilize the technology that exists today to more comprehensively keep track of inventories in real time, and further reduce our control over the economy to mere administration and bookkeeping. The same technology used in linking "membership rewards" cards to product sales and generating specialized coupons can be used to calculate general consumption of staple items for the purposes of planning production levels and schedules.

2. Through a little bit of statistical work, we can calculate out the general needs of a person over the course of their lifetime, and from that calculate out what the average person's lifetime socially-necessary labor would be, which can then be used to set averages for the length of a workday and workweek, vacation and holiday times, etc. This could even be specialized down to specific industries and services (e.g., an autoworker needs to work X hours to meet their LSNL; a chef needs to work Y hours; a teacher needs to work Z hours; and so on).

3. About a year ago, Cult of Reason wrote a paper analyzing from a technical perspective the needs for a sustainable classless society. I think the paper had incredible merit, and many of the points he made in it would have to be taken into consideration during the transition from capitalism to the lower phase of communism. Those needs would necessarily have to be balanced with the practical implications of Points 1 and 2 above.

[vyborg]

THe workers soviet will be the cells of the new production. planning will be the key to the development of productive forces and workers democracy will be how planning and soviet will be put together.

the more rapid the development the quicker the dissolution of the state and of the classes.

this is the general present marxist idea about socialism

[Paul Cockshott]

2.

This will lead to inefficiency because goods that take a lot of labor that requires skills requiring long periods of education will be underpriced.

It is not clear that this is the case, in Marx's view of value it is ultimate socially necessary time that counts. Taking this premise onboard it follows that time spent in training by workers counts towards the labour necessary to make something.

Also, "external effects" such as pollution need to be "internalized" by production organizations, and reflected in prices, otherwise it will cause too much demand for ecologically destructive products, which is also an inefficiency.


I agree that this is a very valid point.

But in fairness to our old uncle Charles, when he talked about labour credits he was specifically addressing the question of exploitation. It is plausible that he realised that conscious planning would have to take into account environmental effects. But you are right to point out that this has implications for the marked costs of things.

Either one would have to have multi-dimensional costs - for example, labour cost and carbon cost, or one would have to allow labour costs of polluting goods to be marked up. I personally favour pricing goods in both labour and carbon for the educational impact this would have-- with all people being given an equal carbon ration.


It's okay to pay an equal hourly rate, if one also tries to re-org work so that some don't have a more dangerous and more onerous form of work.

I agree with this sentiment.


Exploitation presupposes domination of the immediate producers by some dominating class. So ending exploitation also presupposes workers self-management of the various industries where people work, as a necessary but not sufficient condition. It also presupposes that the state has been gotten rid of, and replaced with some form of popular power, otherwise there will still be a basis for a dominating class, and hence exploitation.

I would tend to agree with all this, but what about the orginal question: the economic transition process.

[Paul Cockshott]

The idea of their being equal pay to each profession could've been reasonable back then during Marx's time, but during these times, there's no way we could hold that down.


Why do you believe this?

[mikelepore]

Mike Lepore has expressed disagreement with #5 on equality.

Where there is unequal personal sacrifice per unit time of work, then I believe equal compensation is unequal income. I use the example of social policy that estimates that, as a firefighter, you give of yourself at a rate 2.5 times the rate of a worker with a desk job in an air-conditioned office. In that case, a 2.5 times greater income for the firefighter, which is identical to saying a 2.5 times shorter workweek for the same income, becomes equality of a more complete kind. The product of work time and work intensity is more informative than either factor alone.

De Leon even went so far as to say that the multiplier should be determined empirically by seeing what it takes to attract enough people to sign up for the more strenuous job, and therefore, he said, a classless society should continue to use a form of "the law of supply and demand" in labor allocation. (The pamphlet "Fifteen Questions about Socialism", 1914)

[The Vegan Marxist]

Why do you believe this?

Because the working class deserves to have equal wages to the labor they put in. To have a doctor to earn just as much as a paper boy, that would be incredibly exploitative against the doctor, & wouldn't be much of an advancement away from capitalism.

[Paul Cockshott]

Mike Lepore has expressed disagreement with #5 on equality. BTW, isn't #5 the same as #2 on "on an hour for hour" basis, or is that merely referring to central planning?

I suplemented 2 with 5 since 2 is clear from a number of contexts in Charles and Freds books, 5 comes from Fred's spat with Dhuring.



Also, are you trying to add to your already existing strategy of transition (http://www.revleft.com/vb/european-economic-transition-t129546/index.html) which deliberately avoids the property question as much as possible?

trying to provoke discussion of the issues which I take to be central to practical socialist politics


Property

- Apply not some but all economic rent beyond that of the natural environment towards exclusively public purposes. (ttp://www.revleft.com/vb/classical-economic-rent-t103272/index.html) Practically speaking, this means that anything that generates rent in the classical economic sense (land, natural monopolies like utilities and media infrastructure, other monopolies or tight oligopolies) is to be socialized. I would, however, avoid classifying the asset appropriation as a transitional measure.

That is poorly phrased ; 'beyond that of the natrural environment'?
Here it would be better to cast it as an attack on monopoly rights, say that henceforth there will be no patent or copyright protections, and that there should be a land tax set to capture the greatest part of the revenue that arises solely from control of that land.


- Abolish all constitutional guarantees of the rights of private ownership of productive and other non-possessive property. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transformative-critique-directional-t129073/index.html) Macnair's measure was surprisingly missing from the CPGB Draft Program.


I think that the above would be a serious political error.
Put that way it will drive the small farmers and independent tradesmen into the arms of reaction.



- Society should be able to directly establishing limits on non-possessive property ownership and adjust it by democratic means ("Maximum Allowable Wealth" / "Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth").

I think this is tinkering, since it does not address the mechanism by which some people are wealthy and others are not.


Money

- Abolish all public debts outright, suppress excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, end the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and preclude all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership.

I think it would be difficult to frame legislation around such vague ends.
How much capital mobility is excessive?


- Disable the circulation of money. The new "electronic money" is probably more effective than your proposal re. prohibiting civil courts from enforcing the collection of the interest portion of debt payments, or imposing severe criminal penalties on those who use threats of harm to extort interest. I think it also eliminates any possibility of investment strikes (like in response to implementing Minsky's proposal). It may even be more effective than your "industrial democracy" proposal against asset stripping. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/market-clearing-prices-t89237/index.html?p=1250725)

I am in full agreement with this as one stage in the transition.
not necessarily the first.

[Paul Cockshott]

[/LIST]
The Soviet model of "socialism", as it was defined by Moscow in the 1930s, was meant as a distinct mode of production between capitalism and communism. It was not synonymous either with the lower phase of communism or with the proletarian dictatorship.

Yes, but they made the lower phase vanish from official dialogue or else identified it with socialism.





3. About a year ago, Cult of Reason wrote a paper analyzing from a technical perspective the needs for a sustainable classless society. I think the paper had incredible merit, and many of the points he made in it would have to be taken into consideration during the transition from capitalism to the lower phase of communism. Those needs would necessarily have to be balanced with the practical implications of Points 1 and 2 above.
Do you have a link?

[mikelepore]

Question for discussion:
What strategy for economic transition between capitalist market economy and the form of economy advocated by Marx should be proposed in 21st century.

I believe there is only one way. A larger workers' organization needs to assemble the new administrative system offline, while capitalism still exists. Everyone needs to know, when the new system is put online, where they will go on the first day, what departments will exist, who the elected office holders will be, what software will perform the accounting. Then as soon as they acquire enough political power to authorize it, the transformation of society will be abrupt.

[Martin Blank]

Yes, but they made the lower phase vanish from official dialogue or else identified it with socialism.

That seems to be something more common outside of the "official Communist" circles than among those who recognized the USSR as "socialism" all the way until its dissolution. Though I suppose there is probably some overlap these days, mostly because of the inherently incestuous nature of the left.

It seems like there are three common definitions of "socialism" these days among self-described Marxist-Leninists: 1) synonymous with the transition between capitalism and communism, the proletarian dictatorship (common among Maoists and Anti-Revisionists); 2) synonymous with the lower phase of communism (common among Trotskyists, some Left Communists and others); 3) a new mode of production between capitalism and communism, distinct from both the proletarian dictatorship and the lower phase of communism (common among "official Communists", some Dengists and others). And these are apart from the definitions given by the other various and sundry socialists, social-democrats, etc. This is why I consider "socialism" to be a meaningless, catch-all phrase.


Do you have a link?

http://www.workers-party.com/members/post-scarcity-society.pdf

I don't know if CoR has done any updates on this paper since he wrote it over a year ago, but I imagine that they would not fundamentally affect the overall thrust of what he says.

[Martin Blank]

Where there is unequal personal sacrifice per unit time of work, then I believe equal compensation is unequal income. I use the example of social policy that estimates that, as a firefighter, you give of yourself at a rate 2.5 times the rate of a worker with a desk job in an air-conditioned office. In that case, a 2.5 times greater income for the firefighter, which is identical to saying a 2.5 times shorter workweek for the same income, becomes equality of a more complete kind. The product of work time and work intensity is more informative than either factor alone.

De Leon even went so far as to say that the multiplier should be determined empirically by seeing what it takes to attract enough people to sign up for the more strenuous job, and therefore, he said, a classless society should continue to use a form of "the law of supply and demand" in labor allocation. (The pamphlet "Fifteen Questions about Socialism", 1914)

I do think De Leon had a valid point about the questions of intensive and extensive labor when it came to compensation over time. However, I would argue that there are ways to account for that while also breaking down income inequality. For example, I mentioned the aggregated Lifetime Socially-Necessary Labor model, which can account for the differences in intensity and extensiveness of different forms of labor. This could be promoted in such a way as to create the outcome of a "supply and demand" system without continuing to treat labor-power as a commodity.

There is another thing that should be considered here, too. Because of the society we are in, too many of us are in the habit of accepting capitalism's rules for what is and is not "important labor". This most often comes out in comparisons between professional and manual labor. I would argue, for example, that a sanitation worker is just as important to society as a doctor, and more important than most other professionals and managers. Their role in a modern society is one we cannot live without, and we should take that into consideration when thinking about and discussing the principles that guide the formulation of socially-necessary labor time.

Within this context, we also have to think about the impact of global production and supply chains. There is often a tendency to conceptualize the transition from capitalism to communism in a largely national context, simply because revolutions often happen one country at a time. However, we are talking about constructing a worldwide system, so we have to think about the impact of, first, the severing of those global systems that would immediately result from a revolution in one country, and, second, the process of reorganization on both a national and, eventually, international level as more countries have revolutions at different stages of development.

[Paul Cockshott]

Where there is unequal personal sacrifice per unit time of work, then I believe equal compensation is unequal income. I use the example of social policy that estimates that, as a firefighter, you give of yourself at a rate 2.5 times the rate of a worker with a desk job in an air-conditioned office. In that case, a 2.5 times greater income for the firefighter, which is identical to saying a 2.5 times shorter workweek for the same income, becomes equality of a more complete kind. The product of work time and work intensity is more informative than either factor alone.

De Leon even went so far as to say that the multiplier should be determined empirically by seeing what it takes to attract enough people to sign up for the more strenuous job, and therefore, he said, a classless society should continue to use a form of "the law of supply and demand" in labor allocation. (The pamphlet "Fifteen Questions about Socialism", 1914)

You have to be very careful with this.


It is tailor made for perpetuating the sexual division in rates of pay. I have seen the effects of this reasoning in Baku during Soviet times when a male oil worker was paid some 425 roubles a month but a girl in a carpet factory making Persian style rugs got only 85 roubles a month. The justification was that the man's work was more intense.
It is the same justification that is currently used to pay footballers and managers sky high salaries : these are needed to attract the right people.
It concedes grounds to the neo-classical subjective valuation school, my experience of arguing with them is that once they see one concession in this way they will argue that you have sold the pass, and that there is no reason not to accept market logic generally.
In the case of firemen and other rescue services it neglects the fact that in current society there are elements of the rescue services that run on community spirit. In Britain the lifeboat service is all volunteer, the Freiwillig Fuerwehr etc. This may indicate that people do not need special pay to risk their lives to save others.
If an occupation is so dangerous that it shortens life, then indeed one hour spent in it counts as more than one hour clock time. The basis of the labour reward idea is that we are all mortal and that one hour of any persons life has the same moral value. If a person is sacrificing more of their life due to the poor health of an activity then indeed that does count for more. But this is something to be determined objectively by actuarial calculations. There is something rather obscene about the idea in capitalism that people will be bribed with danger money to shorten their life. The humane alternative should be to improve the working conditions until the job is safe.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ha sorry allow me to laugh slightly at the title. I didn't realise exploitation was something so tangible that one could simply 'abolish' it. Magic wand, perhaps?:laugh:

No, in all seriousness, I do find the question awkward. I don't think 'abolishment' is the correct term. Moreover, i'd ask 'What are the conditions, in terms of the organisation and leadership of the people, in which the world stands the best chance of being [in absolute, uncompromisingly utopian terms] war, poverty and exploitation-free?'

And the logical and undeniably truthful answer to that question, to anyone of any ideological persuasion (aside from Fascists, most probably), is the abolishment of Capitalism. We know that Capitalism at best (Social-Democracy) can pass through reforms to stave off the biggest inequalities and the most terrible squalor, but that it cannot take human devlopment beyond this. If you factor in that this is only a best case scenario which, aside from a few Latin American countries, is probably more of a footnote in Capitalist history anyway now, then the conclusion must be arrived upon that Capitalism has had its chance, had many chances in fact, and failed in too many ways. Its failing are irredeemable.

Now in terms of answering the question, what economic order should exist post-Capitalism, relating to, as the OP says, property, money and labour?

I will start by asking some questions of my own for discussion.

Housing - if there aren't enough good homes for people right now, who decides where/what/for whom new property is built? 'The people', during the transitionary stage relating to property rights, will obviously not be completely united on such an issue. Is this a 'state' issue? (as much as i'm not a fan of State Capitalism, or post-WW2 'social democracy')

Money - I'm a personal proponent of the abolishment of money to be replaced by 'give and take'-type principles relating to normal goods, and perhaps a 'credit' system relating to luxury goods, perhaps related to work done in the community, voluntarily, overtime at work etc. Now, in the event of the failure of world revolution to materialise, or in the event that it occurs in a staggered nature, what is the transitionary phase between a monetary economy and a non-monetary one going to look like?

In terms of labour rights - who has the final say on labour rights in a post-Capitalist system? It is going to be the case that people have disagreements, who would mediate? Who would decide, for either side? Again, can this be done without the evil 'state' acting as judge, jury and executioner?

I look forward to a positive discussion here, Paul's economic threads are normally particularly good.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That is poorly phrased ; 'beyond that of the natural environment'?
Here it would be better to cast it as an attack on monopoly rights, say that henceforth there will be no patent or copyright protections, and that there should be a land tax set to capture the greatest part of the revenue that arises solely from control of that land.

Actually, what is implied here and in my commentary link provided is that economic rent can be extended to cover "industrial" and "fictitious" surplus value. I read a Moscow Times article which confirms this:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/careercenter/employment/article/401887.html


Capital is a complex word whose meaning has changed over history. Until the 18th century, the most important asset or capital to own — one that generated an income or rent for the owner — was land. The 19th century saw the emergence of industrial capital, where the capitalist was owner of the means of production. The 20th century allowed more fluidity between industrial capital and financial capital, and vice versa. However, fundamentally there was nothing new, since the owners of capital were still the beneficiaries of the “rent.”

The notion of human capital emerged at the end of the 20th century, and it is only now that a different allocation of the rent is beginning to emerge. The owners of rare skills or capital — the Talent themselves — are able to extract more and more of the economic rent generated by the economic activity.


Of course, I have issues with the reificative notion of "human capital."



- Abolish all constitutional guarantees of the rights of private ownership of productive and other non-possessive property. Macnair's measure was surprisingly missing from the CPGB Draft Program.
I think that the above would be a serious political error.
Put that way it will drive the small farmers and independent tradesmen into the arms of reaction.

Self-employed jocks like Joe the Plumber are already on the side of ultra-reaction, not just ordinary reaction. The bulk of the Tea Party hacks are self-employed, as opposed to proper small business owners, who don't have the time to go away from their "entrepreneurial" ways to air their political views.

As for small farmers, I prefer the aggressive development of vertical farming on sovkhoz (not kolkhoz) lines. Such development would be seen as a threat to small-scale farming (except recreational farming, of course).

Besides, what if workers in small businesses decide to expropriate their workplaces to form coops?


I think this is tinkering, since it does not address the mechanism by which some people are wealthy and others are not.

But it does flow from the previous measure, since there would be no hallowed-art-thou constitutional guarantees.


I think it would be difficult to frame legislation around such vague ends.
How much capital mobility is excessive?

How can the "single transnational bank under absolute public ownership" be vague?

It is a means through which those ends can be achieved. You can wipe out public debts with such control in an instant. You can nullify any attempt at capital flight (which then flows into the anti-circulation measure).

A single world bank challenges the relative financial power and "sovereignty" of each imperialist nation-state, even the US.

That last part refers to excessive bank fees, loan sharking, and the like.


I am in full agreement with this as one stage in the transition.
not necessarily the first.

This should be discussed more at some point.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That seems to be something more common outside of the "official Communist" circles than among those who recognized the USSR as "socialism" all the way until its dissolution. Though I suppose there is probably some overlap these days, mostly because of the inherently incestuous nature of the left.

It seems like there are three common definitions of "socialism" these days among self-described Marxist-Leninists: 1) synonymous with the transition between capitalism and communism, the proletarian dictatorship (common among Maoists and Anti-Revisionists); 2) synonymous with the lower phase of communism (common among Trotskyists, some Left Communists and others); 3) a new mode of production between capitalism and communism, distinct from both the proletarian dictatorship and the lower phase of communism (common among "official Communists", some Dengists and others). And these are apart from the definitions given by the other various and sundry socialists, social-democrats, etc. This is why I consider "socialism" to be a meaningless, catch-all phrase.

Bordiga was the only Marxist to have his cake and eat it too, having written about both phases of communism as well as a separate stage identical to planned "socialism," or what could be called the "state commodity" mode of production. I think I quoted this in my theoretical pamphlet.

[Paul Cockshott]

Quote:

I think it would be difficult to frame legislation around such vague ends.
How much capital mobility is excessive? How can the "single transnational bank under absolute public ownership" be vague?

It is a means through which those ends can be achieved. You can wipe out public debts with such control in an instant. You can nullify any attempt at capital flight (which then flows into the anti-circulation measure).Sorry, your sentence was so long that the sting in the tail became semantically disconnected from the preamble.

In the Eu context your proposal would imply that the ECB was to take over all other banks - that may be a good idea.

But why do you limit yourself to proposing the abolition of the public debt?
That seems both statist, and designed to minimise the appeal of the proposal. Why not the abolition of all debts including mortgage and credit card ones?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think I posted my convergence with your position on the debt issue before:

http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/03/02/a-truly-keynesian-response-to-public-debt/#comments


The more you post this kind of stuff, the more I am indeed inclined to agree with your “nuclear” solution to debt instead of just state debt.

My only objection to including it in a political program is the (perhaps seemingly) one-time nature of this measure. With state debt, you know that when it’s abolished, the state can quickly rake new deficits, start up a new debt balance, and then abolish it.

I should add "then abolish it like states did in the 18th and 19th centuries."

[Paul Cockshott]

I think I posted my convergence with your position on the debt issue before:

http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/03/02/a-truly-keynesian-response-to-public-debt/#comments



I should add "then abolish it like states did in the 18th and 19th centuries."

I favour a call for the general abolition of debt for 3 reasons


Immediate political calulations -- more people stand to benefit than loose from it so it could be popular
The overaccumulation of debt is the immediate cause of the current economic crisis ( though obviously there are other long term causes0
Abolishing debt generally also abolishes the liabilities of the banks to there customers, hence the money holdings of the capitalist class -- which are their immediate source of power would be wiped out.

[Paul Cockshott]

Ha sorry allow me to laugh slightly at the title. I didn't realise exploitation was something so tangible that one could simply 'abolish' it. Magic wand, perhaps?:laugh:



I think your response is perhaps understandable, but I raise the question because it seems to me that the abolition of exploitation was originally a key aim of the socialist labour movement, but it is one which has been so sidelined that today you can have a CP programme that does not even state it as a goal.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I favour a call for the general abolition of debt for 3 reasons


Immediate political calulations -- more people stand to benefit than loose from it so it could be popular
The overaccumulation of debt is the immediate cause of the current economic crisis ( though obviously there are other long term causes0
Abolishing debt generally also abolishes the liabilities of the banks to there customers, hence the money holdings of the capitalist class -- which are their immediate source of power would be wiped out.


The question is: when should all debt be abolished? On the one hand, your Czech preface had this just before the introduction of the lower phase of communism (which I'm OK with, btw). On the other hand, some of your commentaries in the recent economic crisis place this measure in a more immediate sense, which means that during the transition there would have to be periodic abolitions of all debt or a prevention of accruing such liabilities.

[Lynx]

3. No property income
I think this might be the first goal to achieve. This would involve nationalization of medium to large size businesses. 'Rights of ownership' would transfer to the state (the public). This forms the basis for a more benevolent exercise of ownership, or towards market models (Parecon, Economic Democracy). In addition, nationalization of land and commercial buildings to eliminate rental income and speculation by the private sector might also be necessary.

I don't posses the technical knowledge necessary to describe these changes in greater detail. As far as I know, it is legalistic in nature.

In simple terms, control of the economy is transferred from private ownership to the public. Further reforms can ensure that economic control is exercised in real terms by its participants. Consider this the 'democratization of the economy' if you will.

During this process, owners who are active managers of their businesses may have to be mollified.

Money
The replacement of anonymous physical currency by an electronic equivalent is long overdue in my opinion. Allow "cash" to be the preserve of criminals and the black market. Laws against the counterfeiting of physical currency can be dropped.

Once the electronic payments and accounting system is required for all participants, you can change how 'money' functions. Removing its ability to generate interest turns it purely into a means of exchange. Calculating it on the basis of labor-time makes it a measure of work performed. Redeeming it prevents speculation.

Debt takes on a new meaning if the above changes to money are made.

Electronic currency can provide whichever set of functions we choose for it. If we are considering 'socialism in one country', then additional rules governing external trade are required.

Excellent thread :) I like seeing ideas being fleshed out. I wish I had the knowledge to contribute more effectively.

[Paul Cockshott]

The question is: when should all debt be abolished? On the one hand, your Czech preface had this just before the introduction of the lower phase of communism (which I'm OK with, btw). On the other hand, some of your commentaries in the recent economic crisis place this measure in a more immediate sense, which means that during the transition there would have to be periodic abolitions of all debt or a prevention of accruing such liabilities.


I am of the opinion that you would have to have debt cancellation either before or almost simultaneous with a law entitling workers to the full value added. If you abolish direct capitalist exploitation in that way you will have an attempted flight of money capital. If debts are abolished directly before or simulataneously then such a flight is not possible. You would still have a flight just before the election of a party with a serious socialist programme which would be likely to foment a banking crisis anyway. This would provide the pretext for a debt cancellation scheme.

[Paul Cockshott]

The question is: when should all debt be abolished? On the one hand, your Czech preface had this just before the introduction of the lower phase of communism (which I'm OK with, btw). On the other hand, some of your commentaries in the recent economic crisis place this measure in a more immediate sense, which means that during the transition there would have to be periodic abolitions of all debt or a prevention of accruing such liabilities.

These are difficult questions that in the end depend upon political judgement in the immediate situation.
If debts are not cancelled at the same time as the right to the full value of labour is legally established, then the problem of capital flight could to some extent be dealt with by exchange controls. But the advantage of debt cancellation -- appart from its populist appeal is that it stops flight dead.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This forms the basis for a more benevolent exercise of ownership, or towards market models (Parecon, Economic Democracy). In addition, nationalization of land and commercial buildings to eliminate rental income and speculation by the private sector might also be necessary.

I don't recall parecon being a market model (syndicat should feel free to chime in here), but this comradely accommodation of alternative models (albeit on a lower rung) is a nice way to reach out to advocates of such. :)


Allow "cash" to be the preserve of criminals and the black market. Laws against the counterfeiting of physical currency can be dropped.

I would be more inclined towards modifying the counterfeiting laws so as to enable crackdowns against any form of black market currency. At this point, my proposal for "unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money" would have to be dropped except for communities that would suffer from having to get rid of their currencies and adopt the new "currency."

Paul said this here as a reply to my re-posting that reform demand:

http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/03/24/paticipatory-budgeting/


I can see the virtue of some of this, but the creation of local currencies is only something that makes sense in the context of communes which are both economic and political entities as the rural ones in China were. Then the local time credits issued can entitle the recipient to a share in the communal product. If there is no communal product, only communal services, local time credits only make sense if the services have to be paid for.

Not every local currency alternative to government money is time-based. In my work, I mentioned Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).

Also, the point behind this reform demand is to facilitate why cyu called a labour-based "currency strike" in an old thread you and I participated in:


Anyway, what is a currency strike? When the population has been divided into one group that has a lot of currency (or gold) and another group that actually has to work for a living, a currency strike is when the second group stops accepting the existing currency (or gold) as legal tender.

In effect, this renders the first group broke. The result? The second group has more to share among themselves because the first group is no longer living off them. How does the second group decide who gets what? That depends on their policies - maybe they barter, maybe they share equally, maybe they just establish a new currency to use.

Although this scenario describes inflation with respect to the existing currency (or gold), it does not affect any new currencies the second group decides to establish.

If the second group is not particularly leftist, then in the future, there may emerge yet another group with vast amounts of the new currency, while everyone else does the real work... nothing another currency strike can't cure - it could conceivably keep going in cycles until the selfish give up on the notion that they should keep trying to accumulate more stuff.

With the new "currency" and subsequent labour credits, such currency strikes would no longer be necessary.


Once the electronic payments and accounting system is required for all participants, you can change how 'money' functions. Removing its ability to generate interest turns it purely into a means of exchange.

Just a question: isn't the generation of interest dependent on circulation in the first place? :confused:


Calculating it on the basis of labor-time makes it a measure of work performed.

Actually, I thought about Paul's other measure this weekend (which I plan to pose as a reform against fiat currency and bogus fetishes for gold and other physical commodities (http://www.revleft.com/vb/austrian-and-other-t123221/index.html)). I'm not sure tying the new "currency" to labour hours would immediately yield labour credits.

This is mainly because of the productive/unproductive labour divide, plus calculations of socially necessary labour time under the new mode of production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am of the opinion that you would have to have debt cancellation either before or almost simultaneous with a law entitling workers to the full value added. If you abolish direct capitalist exploitation in that way you will have an attempted flight of money capital. If debts are abolished directly before or simulataneously then such a flight is not possible.


These are difficult questions that in the end depend upon political judgement in the immediate situation.
If debts are not cancelled at the same time as the right to the full value of labour is legally established, then the problem of capital flight could to some extent be dealt with by exchange controls. But the advantage of debt cancellation -- appart from its populist appeal is that it stops flight dead.

Do I get the feeling here that my "disabling the circulation of money" and your nuclear option re. debt cancellation are in fact one and the same thing? :confused:

Both are, after all, quite direct measures for quelling any attempt to move money capital around ("It may even be more effective than your 'industrial democracy" proposal against asset stripping').


You would still have a flight just before the election of a party with a serious socialist programme which would be likely to foment a banking crisis anyway. This would provide the pretext for a debt cancellation scheme.

I don't know about that last sentence. We could probably have a debate at some point (whether soon or later) about which of the two measures is better in the immediate transition. :ninja: ;)

I don't know of any well-off, debt-free, but not bourgeois doctors who'd like to see their bank accounts wiped out because of a nuclear free-for-all debt cancellation.

[Paul Cockshott]

Actually, I thought about Paul's other measure this weekend (which I plan to pose as a reform against fiat currency and bogus fetishes for gold and other physical commodities). I'm not sure tying the new "currency" to labour hours would immediately yield labour credits.

This is mainly because of the productive/unproductive labour divide, plus calculations of socially necessary labour time under the new mode of production.

No - tying a currency to labour leaves it as a currency, but it does defetishise economic relations and create the conditions for the demand for payment of full value added since it makes all this transparent.
Full labour vouchers require both the right to full value added and a planning system to substitute for the market. You can not have non transferable currency till the latter condition is met

[jmlima]

Preamble
...Equal rates of pay for all professions, though income differences may exist due to intensity of labour...

What do you define as intensity of labour? Mental intensity? Physical intensity? Amount produced (measured by what scale?)?

[Die Neue Zeit]

No - tying a currency to labour leaves it as a currency, but it does defetishise economic relations and create the conditions for the demand for payment of full value added since it makes all this transparent.
Full labour vouchers require both the right to full value added and a planning system to substitute for the market.

Ah, so a new "electronic currency" that doesn't circulate (transitional), that has already been indexed to labour hours (reform), but issued before planned labour, isn't full-scale labour credits then?

[I think that was what I was trying to say in the first place. "Non-circulable social labour-indexed consumption credits" /= non-circulable labour credits.]


You can not have non transferable currency till the latter condition is met

Care to elaborate? My idea was to have the labour indexing first, and then stop "money circulation" by modifying electronic money to prevent capital flight. Leaving aside the continued development of the planning system: Is this not already non-transferrable?

[Paul Cockshott]

What do you define as intensity of labour? Mental intensity? Physical intensity? Amount produced (measured by what scale?)?
Well what old Karl said was :

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.
The logic here is that 'duration or intensity' must be the criterion. This is almost certainly a slight mistake it should be 'duration times intensity'.
You can measure duration directly, you can only measure intensity by measuring the effect - how long does it take someone to complete a specified task as compared to the average person working on that task.
This is I think logically implied by the the last sentence I quoted, where the unequal endowment is equated to unequal productive capacity.
This becomes more evident if we read this in conjunction with the analysis of the intensity of labour in Chapter 15 of volume 1 or capital, where intensity increases are always associated with an increase in the final product.

[Paul Cockshott]

Ah, so a new "electronic currency" that doesn't circulate (transitional), that has already been indexed to labour hours (reform), but issued before planned labour, isn't full-scale labour credits then?

[I think that was what I was trying to say in the first place. "Non-circulable social labour-indexed consumption credits" /= non-circulable labour credits.]



Care to elaborate? My idea was to have the labour indexing first, and then stop "money circulation" by modifying electronic money to prevent capital flight. Leaving aside the continued development of the planning system: Is this not already non-transferrable?

The point is that until you have effective detail planning allocating intermediate products in kind, you have to have the purchase of raw materials and other means of production by work places. If they can purchase them then they need a transferable means of payment.

It is only possible to have non-transferable labour credits if the allocation of intermediate products is done by in-natura calculaions between units of production that are part of a system of common ownership.

[jmlima]

Well what old Karl said was :
...
You can measure duration directly, you can only measure intensity by measuring the effect - how long does it take someone to complete a specified task as compared to the average person working on that task.
This is I think logically implied by the the last sentence I quoted, where the unequal endowment is equated to unequal productive capacity.
This becomes more evident if we read this in conjunction with the analysis of the intensity of labour in Chapter 15 of volume 1 or capital, where intensity increases are always associated with an increase in the final product.

Then intensity is not how long it takes, but the net effect of that time, measured as units produced.

I can see it working gingerly when you measure actual items produced, but , how do you measure the net produce of a lawyers work? Or a doctor? Heck, how do you measure the net production (or intensity) of an artist?

[Paul Cockshott]

Then intensity is not how long it takes, but the net effect of that time, measured as units produced.

I can see it working gingerly when you measure actual items produced, but , how do you measure the net produce of a lawyers work? Or a doctor? Heck, how do you measure the net production (or intensity) of an artist?


Doctors do defined tasks and do them at particular rate, there may be slight differences in speed. One has to question how many lawyers would still be needed, but today law firms have no problem giving you costs in terms of lawyers hours, which they then translate to money with a big markup.

[jmlima]

...One has to question how many lawyers would still be needed, but today law firms have no problem giving you costs in terms of lawyers hours, which they then translate to money with a big markup.

Hopefully none. :D

But, the gist of the thing is that cost in terms of hours does not measure production, much less intensity, hence cannot be a reliable unit of measure. It was not an innocent question. Specially the bit about artists. How do you measure an artist's intensity?

Quite honestly, I think this one of those concepts that Marx threw around with his mind on a very specific issue, and people tend to generalize them, specially applying them to today's world, and we come up with all sorts of incongruencies.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The point is that until you have effective detail planning allocating intermediate products in kind, you have to have the purchase of raw materials and other means of production by work places. If they can purchase them then they need a transferable means of payment.

It is only possible to have non-transferable labour credits if the allocation of intermediate products is done by in-natura calculaions between units of production that are part of a system of common ownership.

So in other words, the "non-circulation" measure can only really apply to the individual at the "end consumer" end?

Example:

Worker A works at Public Enterprise A and receives non-circulable (at least on his end), personally identifiable "electronic money." He decides to keep the "money" for a week.

A week later, Worker A then goes to Public Enterprise B to fill his own consumption bundle, redeeming his "electronic money."

The "electronic money" now belongs to Public Enterprise B. This can be used to pay some other worker, purchase office supplies, or make a payment on some capital expenditure. This, however, cannot be used to "earn" any form of interest.

In other words, is this example exactly the same as with the Soviet ruble, but without any interest or anonymous cash? [It seems I may have overlooked the role of circulation in intermediate goods and services.]

[Lynx]

I would be more inclined towards modifying the counterfeiting laws so as to enable crackdowns against any form of black market currency. At this point, my proposal for "unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money" would have to be dropped except for communities that would suffer from having to get rid of their currencies and adopt the new "currency."

Paul said this here as a reply to my re-posting that reform demand:

http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/03/24/paticipatory-budgeting/



Not every local currency alternative to government money is time-based. In my work, I mentioned Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS).

Also, the point behind this reform demand is to facilitate why cyu called a labour-based "currency strike" in an old thread you and I participated in:
Could LETS be created as electronic currencies, assuming everyone who wished to participate had access?

Just a question: isn't the generation of interest dependent on circulation in the first place? :confused:
Yes, except in a deflationary situation where money can accrue in value just by staying put.

[Lynx]

If Worker A buys a product or a service, the credit is redeemed. For each service provided by another worker, a credit is created.

The "electronic money" now belongs to Public Enterprise B. This can be used to pay some other worker, purchase office supplies, or make a payment on some capital expenditure. This, however, cannot be used to "earn" any form of interest.
Why would Enterprise B 'need' the money redeemed from Worker A? To pay their workers, credits are created. To 'pay' for office supplies, an accounting entry is made, as part of the calculation determining price. Best analogy is 'transfer'.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Could LETS be created as electronic currencies, assuming everyone who wished to participate had access?

I think LETS is already an electronic currency:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money




Once the electronic payments and accounting system is required for all participants, you can change how 'money' functions. Removing its ability to generate interest turns it purely into a means of exchange. Just a question: isn't the generation of interest dependent on circulation in the first place?Yes, except in a deflationary situation where money can accrue in value just by staying put.

I didn't think about that one, actually. :blushing:

[LETSFIGHTBACK]

I do not want to deviate away from the topic comrades, but I'm wondering how this taking of power which will enable people to reorganize society take place. workers militias, new red army, recruit from existing military, all of the above.or should I post a new thread.

http://www.letsfightback.podomatic.com

[Paul Cockshott]

Hopefully none. :D

But, the gist of the thing is that cost in terms of hours does not measure production, much less intensity, hence cannot be a reliable unit of measure. It was not an innocent question. Specially the bit about artists. How do you measure an artist's intensity?

Quite honestly, I think this one of those concepts that Marx threw around with his mind on a very specific issue, and people tend to generalize them, specially applying them to today's world, and we come up with all sorts of incongruencies.


The key point, is that there is no-overriding reason why intensity matters unless it obviously matters. If there are types of work for which it is difficult to say whether one person works more intensely than another, then the assumption would be that their hour was equivalent to the social average hour, so there is no problem.

[Paul Cockshott]

So in other words, the "non-circulation" measure can only really apply to the individual at the "end consumer" end?

Example:

Worker A works at Public Enterprise A and receives non-circulable (at least on his end), personally identifiable "electronic money." He decides to keep the "money" for a week.

A week later, Worker A then goes to Public Enterprise B to fill his own consumption bundle, redeeming his "electronic money."

The "electronic money" now belongs to Public Enterprise B. This can be used to pay some other worker, purchase office supplies, or make a payment on some capital expenditure. This, however, cannot be used to "earn" any form of interest.

In other words, is this example exactly the same as with the Soviet rouble, but without any interest or anonymous cash? [It seems I may have overlooked the role of circulation in intermediate goods and services.]

Yes you have overlooked circulation of intermediate goods and services. So long as these are regulated via a market you need transferable money.

[Paul Cockshott]

I do not want to deviate away from the topic comrades, but I'm wondering how this taking of power which will enable people to reorganize society take place. workers militias, new red army, recruit from existing military, all of the above.or should I post a new thread.

http://www.letsfightback.podomatic.com
You probably should start a distinct thread.

More generally though, I do not think you can win public support for socialism unless you have a credible economic programme. Unless you can win significant public support then the questions you address will not arise since nobody will be willing to take up arms for a cause that they do not believe to be either feasible nor beneficial.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In other words, is this example exactly the same as with the Soviet rouble, but without any interest or anonymous cash? [It seems I may have overlooked the role of circulation in intermediate goods and services.]Yes you have overlooked circulation of intermediate goods and services. So long as these are regulated via a market you need transferable money.

Maybe here's where you can critique Duhring or something. :confused:

[al8]

Yes you have overlooked circulation of intermediate goods and services. So long as these are regulated via a market you need transferable money.

I don't understand. What are examples of intermediate goods and services?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Raw materials and means of production (most notably those related to "production of the means of production")

[Lynx]

Primary industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_industry)
You can read about secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy as well.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think your response is perhaps understandable, but I raise the question because it seems to me that the abolition of exploitation was originally a key aim of the socialist labour movement, but it is one which has been so sidelined that today you can have a CP programme that does not even state it as a goal.

Just to clarify very quickly, my beef wasn't with the stated aim of ridding the world of exploitation completely. That is something I wholly agree with and support, and i'd reject the reformist notion that this is somehow too utopian an ideal to support.

My actual problem was with the epistemological problem of assigning this process the epithet 'the abolition of exploitation'. Surely 'eradication' would be a more suitable noun to ascribe here.

I realise i'm being pathetically pedantic, it was just bothering me:laugh:

[syndicat]

Non monetary economy using labour accounts
Consumer goods allocated by labour credits on an hour for hour basis
No property income
Deductions from labour accounts for social insurance etc
Equal rates of pay for all professions, though income differences may exist due to intensity of labour
Conscious planned allocation of labour


I think it is necessary to have a means of social accounting that can take account of all social costs, including environmental costs. Hours of work is not sufficient for this.

A necessary condition of working class liberation has to be direct worker self-management of the various industries.

To have an effective system of social planning also presupposes doing away with the state and replacing it with a more directly democratic, participatory means of the population giving their input or requests for production, both of social goods as well as private consumption goods.

[Paul Cockshott]

I am posting this on this thread, it is a letter I have written to the CPGB relating to their programme and touches directly on what is being discussed in this thread.

I am sympathetic to many of the points made by Nick Rogers in his article last week. I would however be grateful if you would give me the space to clarify
certain of my own arguments which he seems to have misunderstood. Nick wrote

"Paul Cockshott, however, is wrong to suggest that exploitation can be legislated away. His proposal that all workers should legally receive the full value of their labour-power encounters a number of problems. First, this cannot be calculated on the basis of individual workers or individual enterprises, but only across the whole of society (and globally for that matter)."

My suggestion is not that workers should have a right to the full value of their labour power, since this, according to Marx is already the normal situation under capitalism. Instead I am suggesting that either a socialist government, or a citizens initiative should pass a law saying that
a) labour is legally recognised as the source of added value, and
b) as a collective, the workers in a firm are entitled to the full value added by their labour.

I agree that this can not be computed on the basis of individual workers, but it can be easily calculated for
all the workers employed in a firm. Firms already have to prepare accounts of value added for VAT, so the
amount of value created by the workes is known. How this would be distributed between employees would be
a matter for collective bargaining.

Nick then says "Second, the whole of the value of production cannot be distributed for consumption. There is a need to make provision for all sorts of collective needs and to invest in future production."

This of course true, and Nick is echoing Marx's remarks in CGP, with which I am obviously familiar. But remember Marx was
writting in the 19th century before PAYE or National Insurance. He was pointing out to his fellow German Socialists that a socialist
economy would have what we now call a welfare system and that there would have to be a levy on earnings to pay for this.
Well in the 20th century the welfare system was won, largely as a result of working class political action, and
the sort of levy Marx envisaged was introduced to pay for it. Nowadays everyone is familar with the difference between
pre and post tax income, in the 1870s it was a novel idea.

If workers in this century collectively won the right to be paid the full value added by their labour,
that would not excuse them from paying National Insurance or Income Tax. The aim of a right
to full added value is to end capitalist exploitation. Tax avoidance is not the aim. Pre tax wages would rise
perhaps 30% to 40%, and a share of that would obviously go in income tax.

Finaly Nick adds
" Third, no capitalist enterprise could continue to operate without extracting surplus value. To abolish exploitation without recognising that this would involve the abolition of capitalism - and without making prior provision for running the economy on an entirely non-capitalist basis - would be economically disastrous."

Clearly the firms that existed after such a law was passed would no longer be capitalist. They would in essence be like workers cooperatives,
and the experience shows that there is nothing disastrous about worker coops. Obviously there would long term issues of providing
investment funding for modernisation etc. This can be provided in two ways: voluntary levies on wages for an accumulation fund, or
loans from a state bank. Both were used in Jugoslavian enterprises.

Note that what I am essentially arguing for is a Jugoslav style transitional phase as a first step on the way to a socialist economy.
It would not yet be Marx's first phase of communism because money would still exist, as it did in Jugoslavia. In order to reach Marx's first phase, money would have to be replaced by non-transferable labour credits. But this is only possible within the context of a comprehensive in-natura planning system that would replace the inter-enterprise markets of the kind that
existed in Jugoslavia.

[Paul Cockshott]

I think it is necessary to have a means of social accounting that can take account of all social costs, including environmental costs. Hours of work is not sufficient for this.

A necessary condition of working class liberation has to be direct worker self-management of the various industries.

To have an effective system of social planning also presupposes doing away with the state and replacing it with a more directly democratic, participatory means of the population giving their input or requests for production, both of social goods as well as private consumption goods.

This is a very important point, but is it correct to talk about environmental 'costs', since to do so is already to use the conceptual framework of money.

There are environmental constraints, but I doubt that these are best represented as 'costs'.

I would argue that Kantorovich's method allows environmental constraints to be dealt with in a non-monetary way.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'll just wait until somebody comes in here to start yet another energy accounting debate. ;)


Note that what I am essentially arguing for is a Jugoslav style transitional phase as a first step on the way to a socialist economy.
It would not yet be Marx's first phase of communism because money would still exist, as it did in Jugoslavia. In order to reach Marx's first phase, money would have to be replaced by non-transferable labour credits. But this is only possible within the context of a comprehensive in-natura planning system that would replace the inter-enterprise markets of the kind that
existed in Jugoslavia.

That kind of phase should be achievable in one country with enough geographic size and natural resources. I'm not talking about outfits like the formerly Indonesian East Timor, of course.

[Paul Cockshott]

I'll just wait until somebody comes in here to start yet another energy accounting debate. ;)



That kind of phase should be achievable in one country with enough geographic size and natural resources. I'm not talking about outfits like the formerly Indonesian East Timor, of course.
Yes, for example in the EU in the perspective of the CPGB.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'd like to return to one aspect of the discussion because something hit my head this afternoon:



I am of the opinion that you would have to have debt cancellation either before or almost simultaneous with a law entitling workers to the full value added. If you abolish direct capitalist exploitation in that way you will have an attempted flight of money capital. If debts are abolished directly before or simulataneously then such a flight is not possible.


These are difficult questions that in the end depend upon political judgement in the immediate situation.
If debts are not cancelled at the same time as the right to the full value of labour is legally established, then the problem of capital flight could to some extent be dealt with by exchange controls. But the advantage of debt cancellation -- appart from its populist appeal is that it stops flight dead.

Do I get the feeling here that my "disabling the circulation of money" and your nuclear option re. debt cancellation are in fact one and the same thing? :confused:

Both are, after all, quite direct measures for quelling any attempt to move money capital around ("It may even be more effective than your 'industrial democracy" proposal against asset stripping').


You would still have a flight just before the election of a party with a serious socialist programme which would be likely to foment a banking crisis anyway. This would provide the pretext for a debt cancellation scheme.

I don't know about that last sentence. We could probably have a debate at some point (whether soon or later) about which of the two measures is better in the immediate transition. :ninja: ;)

I don't know of any well-off, debt-free, but not bourgeois doctors who'd like to see their bank accounts wiped out because of a nuclear free-for-all debt cancellation.

I see programmatic parallels here between a nuclear free-for-all debt cancellation and "abolition of the police," especially now that you posted stuff on working capital and liquidity:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/giving-up-some-t129907/index2.html

If all debts are abolished - state, consumer, and business - those affected would include enterprises with working capital-related receivables and payables that would be wiped out, since they all have bank accounts.

Likewise, even the CPGB when discussing the Marxist minimum program don't venture into "abolition of the police" for a very practical reason, and resort instead to local control like Marx and Guesde did in 1880.

[Paul Cockshott]

The abolition of debt greatly increases the liquidity of the banking system as its liquid asset to liability ratio rises. The banks would thus have no difficulty providing working credit to firms.

[Paul Cockshott]

Just gave a short talk on this via video-link to the Lenin Conference in Moscow organized by Buzghalin. Got the usual question about whether the right to full value of labour was not contradicted by Marx in critique of gotha programme, corrected them to point out that this was prior to Income Tax - workers not exempted from income tax just because of the right to full labour value added.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I have edited my 11-point directional program in the first page based on this commentary:



Critique for Direction Towards Cooperative Production

"Cooperative productions [...] were defeated not only by British corporations, but by a larger force: the mammoth German state capitalism. In fact, even English corporations declined during the process of heavy industrialization, defeated by the same force [...] Observing this, Engels as well as the Germany Social-Democratic Party came to appreciate mammoth corporations and conceived that socialization (state ownership) of them would necessarily lead to socialism, ignoring cooperative production." (Kojin Karatani)

Again in his usage of the philosopher Immanuel Kant to read Marx and vice versa, Kojin Karatani put into context how the so-called “nationalization” question achieved its historically disproportionate programmatic standing relative to other, more disparate economic demands raised by the class-strugglist left. This disproportion expressed itself fullest in the Programme of the Communist International. Here, co-authors Bukharin and Stalin himself outdid Trotsky in outlining an almost maximalist transitional program for “the revolutionary transformation of the property relations of capitalism into relationships of the socialist mode of production” based almost exclusively on “the expropriation of the landlords and capitalists, i.e., the conversion of the monopolist property of the bourgeoisie into the property of the proletarian State” in industry, transport and communication services, land estates, wholesale and retail trade, finance, housing, and “means of ideological influence” (the mass media).

Nowadays, the class-strugglist left is quite divided on this question, and would probably remain so after the introduction of “national-democratization” even on the level of reforms. Consider the Weekly Worker’s Draft Program for a revived Communist Party of Great Britain:

The historic task of the working class is to fully socialise the giant transnational corporations, not break them up into inefficient national units. Our starting point is the most advanced achievements of capitalism. Globalised production needs global social control […] However, specific acts of nationalisation can serve the interests of workers. We support the nationalisation of the land, banks and financial services, along with basic infrastructure such as public transport, electricity, gas and water supplies.

There is still too much discussion on nationalization, too little on the festering problem of small-scale production and the continued hiring of labour for profit at that level, and now too much vacillating on the huge grey area filled by “medium enterprises” in between small-scale production and the commanding heights.

On the other hand, the long-lived cooperative movement itself is far from blameless. Instead of adopting and improving upon one of the earlier “Socialist” political economies like “Ricardian Socialism” (the basis of economic republicanism), it spawned class-conciliationist distractions: consumer cooperatives such as The Co-operative Group in the UK, housing cooperatives, mutual insurance, and all forms of cooperative banking (since employee-owned cooperative banks still extract from society economic rent in the classical sense). It is no accident that the cooperative movement has avoided and continues to avoid political struggles!

This programmatic thesis has attempted to accommodate cooperative solutions within a rent-free and class-strugglist framework by listing three immediate reforms, one threshold reform, and one directional measure – all of which emphasize cooperative production:

1) The redistribution as cooperative property of not some but all productive property where the related business has contract or formally hired labour, and where such property would otherwise be immediately inherited through legal will or through gifting and other loopholes;
2) The non-selective encouragement of, usage of eminent domain for, and unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for, pre-cooperative worker buyouts of existing enterprises and enterprise operations;
3) The heavy appropriation of economic rent in the broadcast spectrum, unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for independent mass media cooperative startups – especially at more local levels, for purposes of media decentralization – and anti-inheritance transformation of all the relevant mass media properties under private ownership into cooperative property;
4) The protection of workers’ cooperatives from degenerating into mere business partnerships by means of prohibiting all subcontracting of labour, including whereby at least one contractual party is a workers’ cooperative; and
5) The enabling of society's cooperative production of goods and services to be regulated by cooperatives under their common plans.

The festering problem of small-scale production and the continued hiring of labour for profit at that level could be addressed by modifying the directional measure:

The full replacement of the hiring of labour for small-business profit by cooperative production, and also the enabling of society’s cooperative production of goods and services to be regulated by cooperatives under their common plans.

Should there be agreement upon and not mere acceptance of this directional measure, it can facilitate the nationalization debate but in a way such that private property is altogether outside the boundaries of debate; there can be no advocacy on the class-strugglist left for a combination of small-scale cooperative production with “medium enterprises” still under private ownership.



REFERENCES



Transcritique: On Kant and Marx by Kojin Karatani [http://books.google.com/books?id=mR1HIJVoy6wC]

Programme of the Communist International by Nikolai Bukharin and Joseph Stalin [http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/6th-congress/index.htm]

Draft Programme of the Communist Party of Great Britain by the Provisional Central Committee [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1002562]