I would like to if you don't mind share an email with you that I got and tell me if y

[tradeunionsupporter]

I would like to if you don't mind share an email with you that I got and tell me if you agree with it and why

Mike: thanks for your question and interest.
We support state ownership in general because that way industries, banks, and other major companies can be run in the public interest instead of for private profit. Profits made by such businesses can be used to pay for public and social services, instead of for supporting the acquisitive desires of and luxuries for the super-rich.
That way, instead of workers being exploited for the private gain of the rich, they can help provide for a better life for all.
Exactly how this would work will vary according to the historical circumstances following a major transformation of the economy. Likely there will be some mix of state ownership of major industries and manufacturing, banks and other financial institutions, and major distribution and retail sales companies, combined with private small enterprise.
Hope this brief response helps answer your question.
Marc Brodine

[Tablo]

Sounds like a normal Capitalist economy with just some state owned companies.

[Widerstand]

This is from the CPUSA Washington State chairman, right? Well I'm not surprised something like this comes from an ex-Officer who was involved in a union for state bureaucrats (correct me if I have a wrong image of the AFSCME).
Most state employees have an anti-privatization fetish (understandably), and here he's really just arguing for less privatization from a, IMO, completely capitalist perspective. Capitalist in that the only thing he sees wrong with wage slavery seems to be where the profits go. So, yeah, I disagree.


Sounds like a normal Capitalist economy with just some state owned companies.

Yeah, somewhat.

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I don't support the state existing. Nor corporations.

[Kotze]

Profits made by [state-owned] businesses can be used to pay for public and social servicesWhy not use state-ownership of monopolists for the benefit of customers and make their profits equal to zero?

A nation finances stuff by printing its currency, taxes are a counter-inflationery measure. Or said in a less snotty way: Think of taxation as putting currency out of circulation to reduce inflation, not as something that you always need to do first in order to spend. We are talking about a sovereign nation that has its own currency, right?

A sovereign nation that issues its own currency can put some additional currency units into circulation without going into debt and without needing to collect the same amount in taxes either (indeed any currency unit that is collected via taxation was put into circulation before). This might be inflationery, but inasmuch as this currency issuing is done in a manner that increases productivity it "pays for itself" — meaning even if zero inflation is a goal taxation only needs to be high enough to cover the gap between the additional amount of currency put into circulation and the productivity increase. (If you want to split hairs you can say that I should also consider changes in saving/spending behaviour by private actors, but whatever.)

If the goal is to make people happy profits are an inefficiency.

[Raúl Duke]

I would like to if you don't mind share an email with you that I got and tell me if you agree with it and why

Mike: thanks for your question and interest.
We support state ownership in general because that way industries, banks, and other major companies can be run in the public interest instead of for private profit. Profits made by such businesses can be used to pay for public and social services, instead of for supporting the acquisitive desires of and luxuries for the super-rich.
That way, instead of workers being exploited for the private gain of the rich, they can help provide for a better life for all.
Exactly how this would work will vary according to the historical circumstances following a major transformation of the economy. Likely there will be some mix of state ownership of major industries and manufacturing, banks and other financial institutions, and major distribution and retail sales companies, combined with private small enterprise.
Hope this brief response helps answer your question.
Marc Brodine

It's all nice and dandy if he's talking about social democracy or something...but he left out the actual socialism.

Like, do the worker's control the means of production? Do they control their workplaces, the nature of the work, etc?

[AK]

Why not use state-ownership of monopolists for the benefit of customers and make their profits equal to zero?
Because that necessarily implies surplus value being extracted from workers' wages, which implies wage labour, which presupposes capital, which implies capitalism.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Social Dems and state capitalists.

Both still capitalists.

[Kotze]

[Setting profits equal to zero for state-owned monopolists] necessarily implies surplus value being extractedNo. However, it doesn't imply the opposite either. The key word in the sentence you quoted is monopolists.

A monopolist can set prices very high, this is true independent of whether it is owned by a capitalist or under control of those who work there. Putting every office, factory etc. into the hands of those who work there and allowing them to set the price without dictate from the outside does not result in products being exchanged in accordance to their labour value, but those working in the monopolist production unit being able to exploit those in other production units.

Whether nationalizing a monopolist and lowering its prices so much that after paying for labour and maintenance costs no profit is left is exploitative for those who work there depends on how well those working there were organized before that.

[AK]

No. However, it doesn't imply the opposite either. The key word in the sentence you quoted is monopolists.

A monopolist can set prices very high, this is true independent of whether it is owned by a capitalist or under control of those who work there. Putting every office, factory etc. into the hands of those who work there and allowing them to set the price without dictate from the outside does not result in products being exchanged in accordance to their labour value, but those working in the monopolist production unit being able to exploit those in other production units.

Whether nationalizing a monopolist and lowering its prices so much that after paying for labour and maintenance costs no profit is left is exploitative for those who work there depends on how well those working there were organized before that.
You do realise that one of the main goals of communism is the abolition of the monetary system, right?

[Kotze]

You do realise that one of the main goals of communism is the abolition of the monetary system, right?Abolition of money won't make monopolies disappear. By the way, Marx did not advocate post-scarcity gift economy voodoo bullshit, but non-circulating labour vouchers. To make sure that people receive labour vouchers based on effort and that consumer goods are priced based on effort, a mechanism is needed that deals with monopolies and oligopolies, otherwise you put an unfair burden on those who work in less oligopolistic environments.

[Thug Lessons]

Abolition of money won't make monopolies disappear. By the way, Marx did not advocate post-scarcity gift economy voodoo bullshit, but non-circulating labour vouchers. To make sure that people receive labour vouchers based on effort and that consumer goods are priced based on effort, a mechanism is needed that deals with monopolies and oligopolies, otherwise you put an unfair burden on those who work in less oligopolistic environments.Good post. By the way, do you happen to remember exactly where Marx suggested this?

[Kotze]

On the top of my head, Marx mentioned labour vouchers in Kritik des Gothaer Programms and chapter 18 of Kapital II. I believe there were also other instances.


In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate.


He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.