"Higher phase" of communism: if not free access, then what?

[Die Neue Zeit]

For those not in the know, Marx was very sarcastic when he used Louis Blanc's famous or infamous slogan of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." He listed specific conditions before the slightest possibility of that slogan could be realized.

That being said:

[Huge debate on energy accounting vs. labour credits] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/building-socialism-vs-t100833/index.html?p=1558635)

The way I see it is this:

1) Because energy is finite, and especially because efficiency in transforming one form of energy to another is never 100%, free access to everything is a dead end. [As noted below, individual ability to consume is nevertheless limited by time and space, among other things.]

2) I don't think today's technology can measure all energy associated with economic activity, from the very different forms of energy to even the lost energy that becomes thermal energy.

3) Identical goods with identical costs may not have the same energy input.

If not free access, then what?

[Technocrat]

1) Because energy is finite, and especially because efficiency in transforming one form of energy to another is never 100%, free access to everything is a dead end.

Even though resources are limited (Technocracy has never claimed otherwise), the ability of a human being to physically consume is limited. Therefore there is only so much of anything that can be consumed in a 24 hour period. We are also talking about physical consumption, not ownership. The concept of 'use values' is useful here.

If the above is the case, then it becomes theoretically possible to meet all the consumption requirements (defined as both 'needs' and 'wants') of an entire population. The questions that have to be answered to determine whether or not this is possible are: 1) does the area in question have access to sufficient natural resources? 2) does the area in question have sufficient installed technology (factories, power plants, transportation infrastructure, etc)? 3) does the area in question have sufficient trained personal to operate and maintain the physical apparatus (factories, power plants, etc)?


2) I don't think today's technology can measure all energy associated with economic activity, from the very different forms of energy to even the lost energy that becomes thermal energy.Actually it is already done, along with other forms of resource accounting. How else would a producer know how many raw materials to order? They keep inventories and records of how much is used.


3) Identical goods with identical costs may not have the same energy input.This is because cost is an entirely subjective measurement and isn't reflective of anything physical. A certain type of car could be worth a certain amount of money one year, but less (or more) money the next year, depending on demand - even though it still takes the same amount of energy to produce - 'everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it'. Anyway, this is the reason why Technocrats reject money in favor of direct resource accounting (which includes energy accounting). It is really the only way of accurately matching production with consumption. Since the monetary value of an item can change with demand (as has already been explained) or because the value of money itself can change, looking at the amount of cars sold in cash doesn't help us very much if we want to know the exact number of cars sold. It's easier to simply keep a record of the number of cars sold in the first place, which they do. Then you look in the changes in the number of cars sold year to year to know how much to produce. This is a much simpler and more direct way of estimating demand than the 'price signal' of the market system.

It wouldn't be 'free access', except in a practical sense. There would be limits on consumption but they would be set higher than an individual's ability to physically consume, so no one would need to worry about it really. The limit would just be there to prevent someone from doing something deliberately wasteful, like build a mountain out of shoes or something.

[A.R.Amistad]

Wait a minute, so "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" was sarcasm on Marx's part?

[robbo203]

For those not in the know, Marx was very sarcastic when he used Louis Blanc's famous or infamous slogan of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." He listed specific conditions before the slightest possibility of that slogan could be realized.

?

I dont follow this. How was Marx being saracastic when he said this

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

The higher phase of communism means the elimination of the need to ration goods and therefore, the introduction of free universal access to goods. Its not a question of an alternative to free access. Free access is what is meant by the higher phase of communism - whatever you views on the feasibility of this.

[Zapatas Guns]

I don't understand how free access to everything is a dead end. Yes there are finite resources but there is also a finite number of people. I believe this can already be done, today, with technology if the world really wanted to do it. Of course free access does not mean unlimited access. If you need it it should be yours.

Today's technology doesn't need to measure all the energy used. All the energy needed can be created with solar, wind, and geothermal. It is the businessman that do not want this societal infrastructure of sustainable energy developed. They want us using oil, coal, and natural gas.

[robbo203]

I don't understand how free access to everything is a dead end. Yes there are finite resources but there is also a finite number of people. I believe this can already be done, today, with technology if the world really wanted to do it. Of course free access does not mean unlimited access. If you need it it should be yours.
.


Exactly. Lurking behind the criticism of communist free access is the old bourgeois bogeyman of "insatiable demand". Given the opportunity, workers will plunge their snouts into the trough of plenty until it is utterly depleted. Its as if there is no such thing as modest and reasonable demands and that we are not social animals at all, sensitive to the needs of others and aware of our mutual interdependence , but machines whose purpose is simply to devour and consume without limit.

[A.R.Amistad]

Exactly. Lurking behind the criticism of communist free access is the old bourgeois bogeyman of "insatiable demand". Given the opportunity, workers will plunge their snouts into the trough of plenty until it is utterly depleted. Its as if there is no such thing as modest and reasonable demands and that we are not social animals at all, sensitive to the needs of others and aware of our mutual interdependence , but machines whose purpose is simply to devour and consume without limit.


I think communism, in its highest phase, will have brought the human individual to a point where they no longer base their happiness on material goods, but instead on the fruits and value of their own labor. Im not saying that people won't enjoy having material goods in a communist society, but in capitalist society, everything is turned into an object which is meant to alienate the individual from themselves. People want to buy more and more cars not because they actually are passionate or even all that interested in cars, but because it is a sign of their social standing and therefore their "individuality." People consume products today not so much to gratify natural needs, but also to fullfill personal and social desires that are not their own. Under communism the social stress to overconsume, which is what exists under capitalism, will be eliminated because mankind will have the opportunity to live a life where labor and passion become one and the same, not separate objects in our lives which have to be hoarded in excess to fullfill the alienated gap within our individuality.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Today's technology doesn't need to measure all the energy used. All the energy needed can be created with solar, wind, and geothermal. It is the businessman that do not want this societal infrastructure of sustainable energy developed. They want us using oil, coal, and natural gas.

I agree with your last two sentences, but I think you're a wee bit too optimistic about energy usage and efficiency. Solar, wind, and geothermal energy pale in comparison to fusion:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100128-nuclear-fusion-power-lasers-science/


Using the most powerful laser system ever built, scientists have brought us one step closer to nuclear fusion power, a new study says.

The same process that powers our sun and other stars, nuclear fusion has the potential to be an efficient, carbon-free energy source—with none of the radioactive waste associated with the nuclear fission method used in current nuclear plants.

Thanks to the new achievement, a prototype nuclear fusion power plant could be operating within a decade, speculated study leader Siegfried Glenzer, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Glenzer and colleagues used the world's largest laser array—the Livermore lab's National Ignition Facility—to heat a BB-size fuel pellet to millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

"These lasers are pulsed, and for a very short amount of time"—one ten-billionth of a second—"the power they produce is more than all the power generated by the entire electrical grid of the United States" at any given moment, Glenzer said.

The test confirmed that a technique called inertial fusion ignition could be used to trigger nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—which can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

The laser demonstration means scientists are now much closer to triggering nuclear fusion in a controlled setting—something that's never been done before and which is necessary if fusion is to be harnessed for energy.

Nuclear's Nice Side?

Performing nuclear fusion in the lab requires enormous amounts of laser power, but if perfected, controlled fusion should generate ten to a hundred times more electrical energy than is used to spark the nuclear reactions. Nuclear fusion, after all, is what allows stars to burn for billions of years.

And fusion could be not only powerful but clean and green as well.

Not only does nuclear fusion not produce long-lasting nuclear waste, but fusion could potentially be used to chemically neutralize radioactive pollutants and has been "proposed as a cure to our nuclear waste problem," Glenzer said. Simply put, neutrons released by fusion could rearrange radioactive atoms so they aren't radioactive anymore.

Nuclear fusion energy is also potentially carbon free, meaning it could be used to generate power without creating any more carbon dioxide gas, which contributes to global warming.

And while fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, and nuclear fission fuels, such as uranium, are limited resources, there's enough nuclear fusion fuel on, in, and around our planet "to power the Earth longer than the lifetime of the sun," Glenzer said.

Gold Fusion

During the laser experiment, the fuel pellet was placed inside a solid-gold cylinder about the size of a pencil eraser, which was hit by multiple laser beams.

The gold cylinder absorbed the laser energy and converted it into thermal x-ray energy.

The x-rays then ricocheted inside the cylinder and struck the fuel pellet from all sides. As the pellet absorbed the x-rays, it heated up—eventually reaching about 60 million degrees Fahrenheit (33 million degrees Celsius)—then collapsed in on itself.

The experiment was designed only to test the lasers' ability to heat the cylinder efficiently. Made largely of plastics and helium, the fuel pellet was not filled with enough actual fuel—chemical variants of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium—to actually trigger nuclear fusion.

Actual fusion, Glenzer said, will occur sometime this year.

With a fully loaded fuel pellet, "the implosion will be like squeezing a soccer ball to the size of a pinhead," he added. "The center of that spherical ball will get so hot that nuclear fusion starts."

Nuclear Fusion Plant by 2020?

If successful, the upcoming nuclear fusion experiment will create two classes of energetic particles: alpha particles and neutrons.

"The neutrons escape and can be used to do things like heat up water"—which could potentially be used to produce steam to drive turbines in an electrical plant, Glenzer said.

"The alpha particles remain trapped [in the burning sphere] and continue to heat the fuel and make it burn," as happens in a star.

Scientists estimate that if they can get to the point where they can burn about five fuel pellets a second, a power plant could continuously generate up to a gigawatt of energy—about what the city of San Francisco is consuming at any given moment.

A working prototype of a such a plant could be built in a decade, Glenzer said.

Cheaper to Burn Cash?

Nuclear fusion researcher Michael Mauel is "very excited" about the recent experiment and said it shows the ignition method works as expected.

But "whether or not we'll have lasers imploding pellets to make fusion energy—it's way too early to tell," said Mauel, who was not involved in the study, which will be published in the journal Science tomorrow.

In addition to the considerable engineering challenges involved in ramping up the laser systems for wide-scale use, the cost of the fuel pellets will also have to come down, said Mauel, a Columbia University physicist.

"Each one of these costs between ten [thousand] and a hundred thousand dollars," Mauel said. To use the pellet method to generate nuclear fusion power, "they'll have to cost less than ten cents a piece."

[28350]

Would democratically choosing one and trying it be a bad idea?
Could we switch?

[Crusade]

Would democratically choosing one and trying it be a bad idea?
Could we switch?

Perhaps we can have "free access" to things like food and shelter but have other things be left up to labor time?

[Technocrat]

Perhaps we can have "free access" to things like food and shelter but have other things be left up to labor time?

Works fine for a scarcity-based system, but if you tried to apply such a system in an area with an abundance of resources, the result would be artificial scarcity, leading to shortages and waste of resources.