Unemployment

[DarkNation]

Been wondering about this. Would it be possible to run out of jobs in a Socialist country? And if so, what do we do about that?

[Oswy]

Been wondering about this. Would it be possible to run out of jobs in a Socialist country? And if so, what do we do about that?

Socialism would certainly transform the meaning of work, given that productive forces would be directed at satisfying all human need, and not merely accumulating wealth for - and satisfying the whims of - a capitalist class. Once work is organised according to the satisfying of everyone's needs rather than a few people's desires, then, thanks to scientific and technological advances which make us hundreds of times more productive than we were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there is a real possibility that work could be undertaken as a 'hobby' in many instances.

Slightly off-topic but I read somewhere recently that if Americans in the 1990s were prepared to live to the material standards of Americans in the 1950s they could all take every other year off, paid. I'm not sure how the calculations were done but it's an interesting illustration of how the constant striving for material advance of itself could also be challenged - especially given how self-reporting seems to show that, beyond a certain level of economic security, 'advancing' material life doesn't make people significantly happier.

[Niccolò Rossi]

A 4 hour day? A 3 day week?

Nic.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I think it's more important to point out as Oswy mentioned, that communism means the total transformation of what we call 'work'. Communism is the abolition of work. The abolition of the division between work and play.

Insofar as we can talk about 'work' in the sense of unpleasant socially necessary functions, these will be reduced to a bare minimum by technological advances and the distribution of said tasks across all of society.

Nic.

[blake 3:17]

Massive reduction in the work week, elimination of useless stupid jobs, full unemployment at living wages.

[Broletariat]

Slightly off-topic but I read somewhere recently that if Americans in the 1990s were prepared to live to the material standards of Americans in the 1950s they could all take every other year off, paid. I'm not sure how the calculations were done but it's an interesting illustration of how the constant striving for material advance of itself could also be challenged - especially given how self-reporting seems to show that, beyond a certain level of economic security, 'advancing' material life doesn't make people significantly happier.
http://users.ipfw.edu/ruflethe/american.html

Was it that?

[gorillafuck]

I think it's more important to point out as Oswy mentioned, that communism means the total transformation of what we call 'work'. Communism is the abolition of work. The abolition of the division between work and play.
Working is never going to be as fun as free time. This is why working hours should be the minimum possible and why unpleasant jobs that aren't deemed necessary should be eliminated.

To the OP: If there are unemployed people, then work hours could be cut for those already working to accommodate more people, so everyone gets shorter hours.

[IronEastBloc]

the goals of marxist economy aren't economic growth, but rather, things such as full employment, maximum distributions of resources, etc.

so technically, it'd be impossible to run out of work under a marxist economy. that's why in many marxist countries, work is a constitutional guarantee.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Working is never going to be as fun as free time. This is why working hours should be the minimum possible and why unpleasant jobs that aren't deemed necessary should be eliminated.

To the OP: If there are unemployed people, then work hours could be cut for those already working to accommodate more people, so everyone gets shorter hours.

I don't think you understand my point. In fact I think this is a very unfortunate vision of communism you have. Communism means the abolition of work (qua wage labour). 'Unemployment' does not exist.

Nic.

[gorillafuck]

I don't think you understand my point. In fact I think this is a very unfortunate vision of communism you have. Communism means the abolition of work (qua wage labour). 'Unemployment' does not exist.

Nic.
This is just semantics. When I say unemployed I mean idle people, and when I say work I mean doing things that need to be done. I thought that was clear enough.

[mattb62]

Hopefully, the new society would transform the way people interact and even those things that must be done, will be done in a spirit of cooperation and not become the pure drudgery they become under capitalism. Also, certain kinds of work will no longer have the low status employment attached to them.

[Psy]

This is just semantics. When I say unemployed I mean idle people, and when I say work I mean doing things that need to be done. I thought that was clear enough.

But idle workers is a good thing in a for use production model, for example if workers have nothing to do then the logical solution would be to just sent them home yet allowing them the same access to the product of society. For example if a team of workers complete their job in half the time the logical reward would be to consume as if their labor was twice its value (as it took twice as long, in other words their wages would be same even though they spent half the time at work).

Lowering the working day is a good response but if work teams prefer to get their tasks finished we should not see it negativity and just have those teams idle at a later time to balance it out.

[Comrade_Stalin]

the goals of marxist economy aren't economic growth, but rather, things such as full employment, maximum distributions of resources, etc.

so technically, it'd be impossible to run out of work under a marxist economy. that's why in many marxist countries, work is a constitutional guarantee.

And this is the reason why we don't " run out of jobs in a Socialist country". It may not be the job you like but you will always have a job. .... Unless that Socialist country is gone, much like for the country of the old USSR.

[Amphictyonis]

Been wondering about this. Would it be possible to run out of jobs in a Socialist country? And if so, what do we do about that?

Well, we could always put the reserve army of labor in prisons as we now do under capitalism. Maybe torture a few of them in room 101? (jk)

There would be no unemployment and everyone would work less hours. One of the main points of communism is to end the limited access people have to the means of production. If resources run out thats a different story.

A strange thought is to think about how fashion and personal taste would manifest under a command economy. Here I tend to side with the anarchists in having a decentralized planned economy so there would be more diversity. I would think our entire conception of consumerism would change. Bookchin wrote a few chapters on our current system and the way in which it creates our wants. I can envision a sort of online voting system or focus groups?

Anyhow Berkman delved into the question in your OP here-

http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/anarchism/berkman_abc_of_anarchism.html

[Psy]

A strange thought is to think about how fashion and personal taste would manifest under a command economy. Here I tend to side with the anarchists in having a decentralized planned economy so there would be more diversity. I would think our entire conception of consumerism would change. Bookchin wrote a few chapters on our current system and the way in which it creates our wants. I can envision a sort of online voting system or focus groups?

Actually I'd rather have free time then diversity of products. I also don't think consumers should be the deciding factor in what is produced as the average consumer is not an enthusiast over the product thus can't make a informed decision. For example how many people that buy A/V equipment are audio/videophiles? So why should the average consumer of A/V equipment dictate A/V equipment? Wouldn't it be better for audio/videophiles and A/V engineers to dictate what A/V equipment is used by everyone in a communist society?

What would be so wrong is there is a central plan deciding on A/V standards that only took the options of A/V engineers and audio/videophiles with the reasoning that if you can make a standard the makes both engineers and enthusiasts happy it should be not only be good enough for the average user but the best choice for the average consumer even they don't know it.

[gorillafuck]

But idle workers is a good thing in a for use production model, for example if workers have nothing to do then the logical solution would be to just sent them home yet allowing them the same access to the product of society. For example if a team of workers complete their job in half the time the logical reward would be to consume as if their labor was twice its value (as it took twice as long, in other words their wages would be same even though they spent half the time at work).

Lowering the working day is a good response but if work teams prefer to get their tasks finished we should not see it negativity and just have those teams idle at a later time to balance it out.
Well there's a difference between being perpetually idle and idle because you finished early.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Well there's a difference between being perpetually idle and idle because you finished early.

Again, I don't like this idea. In a society where every individual has the means and capacity for free creative activity, how can we speak of people being 'idle'?

Again, I think you'll say this is a semantic issue, but I think it's necessary to critique the categories of capitalism.

Nic.

[gorillafuck]

Again, I don't like this idea. In a society where every individual has the means and capacity for free creative activity, how can we speak of people being 'idle'?
Communism doesn't mean there will never be important tasks to fulfill. When I say working I mean fulfilling these tasks. Idle would be not participating in the "work" (now I put that in quotations on purpose) being done to fulfill important tasks.


Again, I think you'll say this is a semantic issue, but I think it's necessary to critique the categories of capitalism.
What's your objection to me referring to the last thing as a semantics issue? That seems like exactly what it was to me. I'd like if you could state your objection rather than just say "you'll say this and that" without saying why I shouldn't. If I think you're right I'll say so.

[DarkNation]

I thought I replied earlier, but I guess not. I didn't mean "unemployment" in the capitalist sense, and I had forgotten about the lowering of work hours and whatnot.

I find all this other discussion interesting though, so I can't say I'm not learning.

[Niccolò Rossi]

What's your objection to me referring to the last thing as a semantics issue? That seems like exactly what it was to me. I'd like if you could state your objection rather than just say "you'll say this and that" without saying why I shouldn't. If I think you're right I'll say so.

I already answered you above. Communism is not just a matter of reproducing the capitalist economy under workers control. In order to transcend the categories of capitalism it is necessary to provide a critique of these categories.

Nic.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

How would that happen? The total amount of socially necessary labor time will be divided by the total number of workers.

[Ovi]

Socialism would certainly transform the meaning of work, given that productive forces would be directed at satisfying all human need, and not merely accumulating wealth for - and satisfying the whims of - a capitalist class. Once work is organised according to the satisfying of everyone's needs rather than a few people's desires, then, thanks to scientific and technological advances which make us hundreds of times more productive than we were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there is a real possibility that work could be undertaken as a 'hobby' in many instances.

We are hundreds of times more productive, but we work just as much. There are plenty of socialists though who claim this is a good thing and in socialism we should increase production so we can all have big houses and high performance cars. The amount of necessary labor would not decrease in that case, regardless of productivity.


Slightly off-topic but I read somewhere recently that if Americans in the 1990s were prepared to live to the material standards of Americans in the 1950s they could all take every other year off, paid. I'm not sure how the calculations were done but it's an interesting illustration of how the constant striving for material advance of itself could also be challenged - especially given how self-reporting seems to show that, beyond a certain level of economic security, 'advancing' material life doesn't make people significantly happier.
Indeed, it's called the Easterlin paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox)

[Psy]

Well there's a difference between being perpetually idle and idle because you finished early.
Well if there is perpetual overproduction in communism there would be perpetual idle labor as there would be perpetual surplus of industrial capacity. Yet what is wrong with idle labor? Idle labor means production if need be can ramp up far more easily by having idle workers on stand by just encase their labor is needed for if there is a disruptive snow storm there is a army or idle labor to rapidly deploy to deal with it quickly without having to disrupt labor already assigned to production. The difference is the idle labor has no disadvantage for being idle, they can consume the same amount of products if their labor is used by society or not and of course they would be rotated into assigned production.

[gorillafuck]

I already answered you above. Communism is not just a matter of reproducing the capitalist economy under workers control.
I know that. I'm confused if your problem is with my words or my vision. Because I haven't disagreed with the overall vision of anything you have said, I just use different wordings. If that's a problem then I'll try to not use words like "work", "idle", etc.

I was unaware that that's a problem.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, the overall tone for my following comments is "Yes, but..." -- these are the *finer* points, for an "internal" audience....





Socialism would certainly transform the meaning of work, given that productive forces would be directed at satisfying all human need, and not merely accumulating wealth for - and satisfying the whims of - a capitalist class. Once work is organised according to the satisfying of everyone's needs rather than a few people's desires, then, thanks to scientific and technological advances which make us hundreds of times more productive than we were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there is a real possibility that work could be undertaken as a 'hobby' in many instances.


I'm all for both making work obsolete *and* for encouraging the individual's journey into individual creative exploration, as your line here would enable, but I also can't help but wonder what the individual's *socialized* role might be, even *after* all material duress has been banished.

I probably won't score any points with this, but I do want to raise the concern that since everyone's liberated labor power would be collectivized there would always be the issue of *how* to collectively determine the ongoing usage of that labor, from everyone. For many this formulation is already bringing to mind the forced labor camps of the 20th century, but, given current and future technological advances, combined with the now-mainstream mass online culture, such petty despotism and its strategies of isolating sub-populations from the larger world may very well already be a thing of the past forever.

So my *point* here is that while socialism may look like a "finish line" to us here in the present, such a post-capitalist society would undoubtedly find itself *far* more productive and capable than divided, wage-exploited workers are today -- that greatly expanded capacity for productivity would *not* give way to a Garden-of-Eden-revisited social environment of relaxation and newfound innocence. Rather it could very well enable a mass-collective planning that would strive for new achievements on a much broader base of cooperation and productivity....





Slightly off-topic but I read somewhere recently that if Americans in the 1990s were prepared to live to the material standards of Americans in the 1950s they could all take every other year off, paid. I'm not sure how the calculations were done but it's an interesting illustration of how the constant striving for material advance of itself could also be challenged - especially given how self-reporting seems to show that, beyond a certain level of economic security, 'advancing' material life doesn't make people significantly happier.


Likewise, I have to question the premise here -- U.S. propaganda aside, I don't think that the "pursuit of happiness" is what has given rise to the wonders from industrial production in the past few centuries. Rather we should acknowledge that, with industrial production, society had *already* quasi-collectivized its abilities to a large extent, so that it would be more accurate to talk in terms of privileged, plutocratic motives to get an edge over their rivals, out-innovating and out-producing for the sake of demonstrated dominance, and creating consumer markets along the way.

Satisfying any individual "pursuit of happiness" has *always* been tangential to industry's main goals, culminating in the production of potentially world-destroying nuclear munitions atop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

So -- despite the imposed corporate culture of consumerism, the underlying reality is more in line with simply seeing work as the norm. People do their 9-to-5 not with salesman-like material goals in mind, *or* with the mindset of "pursuing happiness", but moreso because it's simply *what's done*. While we may breezily take the bird's-eye view to discuss the human condition and its foundational political order, many (most?) simply don't need the headache.

If we as political people could do our part to "upgrade" the mode of production to one that is more inclusive and more meaningful for the workers of the world, then all the better. It may not even *have* to free up lackadaisical leisure time for juvenile pursuits of material pleasures -- in restructuring and improving the *agency* of everyday work the proletarian revolution could advance the *labor* of human civilization as we know it.





the goals of marxist economy aren't economic growth, but rather, things such as full employment, maximum distributions of resources, etc.

so technically, it'd be impossible to run out of work under a marxist economy. that's why in many marxist countries, work is a constitutional guarantee.


I'm going to play devil's advocate here and note that we wouldn't want a statist-style "busywork" regime, either.... No matter how "healthy" a work schedule may be for the individual, it would be just as meaningless as profit-generating exploitative wage-labor to have a society in which a bureaucratic layer hastily cobbles together work projects on-the-fly just so that it can say it provides full employment to everyone.





I don't think you understand my point. In fact I think this is a very unfortunate vision of communism you have. Communism means the abolition of work (qua wage labour). 'Unemployment' does not exist.

Nic.


In line with what I've written above, I think that communism means the *redefinition* of work, so that it's actually fully politicized, by those who are the ones doing it.





But idle workers is a good thing in a for use production model, for example if workers have nothing to do then the logical solution would be to just sent them home yet allowing them the same access to the product of society. For example if a team of workers complete their job in half the time the logical reward would be to consume as if their labor was twice its value (as it took twice as long, in other words their wages would be same even though they spent half the time at work).


This is an excellent point, Psy, that illustrates how *currently* the cart is put before the horse, in a backwards-ass (heh) way, regarding the relation of exchange value to use value.





Lowering the working day is a good response but if work teams prefer to get their tasks finished we should not see it negativity and just have those teams idle at a later time to balance it out.


The implications of this statement alone are far-ranging -- it's really a whole other discussion entirely, on how a liberated labor *might* actually be abstractly valued, if at all.... (In other words, what would be the quantifiable basis for the calculation of material value based on liberated labor power? My answer is at my blog entry.)

[Psy]

This is an excellent point, Psy, that illustrates how *currently* the cart is put before the horse, in a backwards-ass (heh) way, regarding the relation of exchange value to use value.





The implications of this statement alone are far-ranging -- it's really a whole other discussion entirely, on how a liberated labor *might* actually be abstractly valued, if at all.... (In other words, what would be the quantifiable basis for the calculation of material value based on liberated labor power? My answer is at my blog entry.)

Well I just don't see idle labor as an issue in communism just like idle capacity is not a issue when it comes to machines. For example would under communism we want all shows to be sold out so we are not wasting seats? So what would the point of putting to use 100% of the labor power?

Labor power just a capacity if we don't fully use it nothing is lost, just like nothing is lost if a movie theater has some empty seats.

[ckaihatsu]

Well I just don't see idle labor as an issue in communism just like idle capacity is not a issue when it comes to machines. For example would under communism we want all shows to be sold out so we are not wasting seats? So what would the point of putting to use 100% of the labor power?

Labor power just a capacity if we don't fully use it nothing is lost, just like nothing is lost if a movie theater has some empty seats.


Certainly -- I hear ya.

I think I just may have a slight political philosophical difference with you, though, on the extents and purposes of a liberated labor. In a post-capitalist political arena I would probably be advocating for some kind of large-scale mass public works project, as long as it was not frivolous and could enjoy sufficient buy-in....





Well if there is perpetual overproduction in communism there would be perpetual idle labor as there would be perpetual surplus of industrial capacity. Yet what is wrong with idle labor? Idle labor means production if need be can ramp up far more easily by having idle workers on stand by just encase their labor is needed for if there is a disruptive snow storm there is a army or idle labor to rapidly deploy to deal with it quickly without having to disrupt labor already assigned to production. The difference is the idle labor has no disadvantage for being idle, they can consume the same amount of products if their labor is used by society or not and of course they would be rotated into assigned production.


On the issue of "idle" labor, of course there's nothing *intrinsically* wrong with it, but the part where I find some material issues arising is on *logistical* grounds, where we would have to make a judgment as to what *idling* labor is "worth" -- should a liberated labor force initially be tasked to something, say in the wake of your disruptive snow storm, but then with a significant portion of that labor subsequently told that they are extraneous and not needed, and thus idled -- ?

Any such workers could be justifiably chagrined, and they would be correct to make a political issue out of such an occasion, inquiring in a public way as to who's running the show, and what the reasoning was behind the initial staffing decision. Your scenario actually seems to be a *statist* one, and I would wonder if this group of public service workers was truly liberated and self-organizing.

Finally, if these suddenly-idled workers' down-time *was* given due consideration, in what form would that consideration be, exactly? You're saying that they would be credited for their time inconvenienced, but then I have to circle the question back to the administrative component, again -- by what apparatus or process would formal liberated labor time be assigned in the first place, against the overall material guarantees of the greater society and its output?

[Psy]

Certainly -- I hear ya.

I think I just may have a slight political philosophical difference with you, though, on the extents and purposes of a liberated labor. In a post-capitalist political arena I would probably be advocating for some kind of large-scale mass public works project, as long as it was not frivolous and could enjoy sufficient buy-in....

Yhea then you'd be taking more advantage of the labor capacity but there is not point in seeking using 100% of the labor potential.

Also if durable products are engineered to last to reduce reproduction then necessary production would fall.




On the issue of "idle" labor, of course there's nothing *intrinsically* wrong with it, but the part where I find some material issues arising is on *logistical* grounds, where we would have to make a judgment as to what *idling* labor is "worth" -- should a liberated labor force initially be tasked to something, say in the wake of your disruptive snow storm, but then with a significant portion of that labor subsequently told that they are extraneous and not needed, and thus idled -- ?

Any such workers could be justifiably chagrined, and they would be correct to make a political issue out of such an occasion, inquiring in a public way as to who's running the show, and what the reasoning was behind the initial staffing decision. Your scenario actually seems to be a *statist* one, and I would wonder if this group of public service workers was truly liberated and self-organizing.

Finally, if these suddenly-idled workers' down-time *was* given due consideration, in what form would that consideration be, exactly? You're saying that they would be credited for their time inconvenienced, but then I have to circle the question back to the administrative component, again -- by what apparatus or process would formal liberated labor time be assigned in the first place, against the overall material guarantees of the greater society and its output?

They would be idled because all workplace soviets have enough labor so workers turn to the community to put in a reserve pool of labor so workplaces can more easily find labor when they need it and the community itself has labor at its disposal.

The other way workers would have to exert labor to finding opening and have to investigate what each of these soviets want to do with their labor. Pooling reserve labor means reserve workers have their pick of labor demands from a centralized job database that would also give these workers information on what their labor would be going towards.

[ckaihatsu]

Yhea then you'd be taking more advantage of the labor capacity but there is not point in seeking using 100% of the labor potential.

Also if durable products are engineered to last to reduce reproduction then necessary production would fall.


But can you confidently say that a post-capitalist society would 100% *not* be able to imagine a collective works project that could utilize 100% of the liberated-labor potential, in a very practical and meaningful way for the entire society -- ?





They would be idled because all workplace soviets have enough labor so workers turn to the community to put in a reserve pool of labor so workplaces can more easily find labor when they need it and the community itself has labor at its disposal.

The other way workers would have to exert labor to finding opening and have to investigate what each of these soviets want to do with their labor. Pooling reserve labor means reserve workers have their pick of labor demands from a centralized job database that would also give these workers information on what their labor would be going towards.


Okay, fair enough -- I don't mean to quibble....

[Psy]

But can you confidently say that a post-capitalist society would 100% *not* be able to imagine a collective works project that could utilize 100% of the liberated-labor potential, in a very practical and meaningful way for the entire society -- ?

This is not done in engineering so why would it be done in production planning? Also how would you predict 100% labor potential with 100% accuracy? Wouldn't this led to any delay that crops up resulting in the plan not being met due to no surplus labor potential to draw on?

[ckaihatsu]

But can you confidently say that a post-capitalist society would 100% *not* be able to imagine a collective works project that could utilize 100% of the liberated-labor potential, in a very practical and meaningful way for the entire society -- ?





This is not done in engineering so why would it be done in production planning? Also how would you predict 100% labor potential with 100% accuracy? Wouldn't this led to any delay that crops up resulting in the plan not being met due to no surplus labor potential to draw on?


Okay, if you want to argue on *technical* grounds instead of addressing the *issue*, that's your prerogative....

[Psy]

Okay, if you want to argue on *technical* grounds instead of addressing the *issue*, that's your prerogative....
That was the second part. Even if you did assign 100% labor potential there would be no reserve labor to smooth over setbacks. For example if a worker gets sick then there will be delays as that worker getting sick wasn't factored into the plan, where would be no replacement worker and the plan wouldn't factor in less labor power being used.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

In a socialist society we will try to abolish the differences betwen manual and intellectual labor. I know many people who happily would use much of theire freetime to educate or making reasearches and also academics needs to participate in the production and help cleaning the toilets.

[ckaihatsu]

That was the second part. Even if you did assign 100% labor potential there would be no reserve labor to smooth over setbacks. For example if a worker gets sick then there will be delays as that worker getting sick wasn't factored into the plan, where would be no replacement worker and the plan wouldn't factor in less labor power being used.


Yes, I *understand* your *technical* concern, but you're not addressing my *main point* -- not that you have to, of course.

You seem to be of the general position that, beyond providing for the human needs of everyone, it wouldn't matter much whether a liberated labor was using its potential work capacity or not. I accept this position, if it is yours, and I would not be against such a position. However, I myself would be more interested in how unused work capacity *could* be used, given suitable and beneficial public works projects that would garner support from liberated laborers.

[Psy]

Yes, I *understand* your *technical* concern, but you're not addressing my *main point* -- not that you have to, of course.

You seem to be of the general position that, beyond providing for the human needs of everyone, it wouldn't matter much whether a liberated labor was using its potential work capacity or not. I accept this position, if it is yours, and I would not be against such a position. However, I myself would be more interested in how unused work capacity *could* be used, given suitable and beneficial public works projects that would garner support from liberated laborers.
It is more that I see maximizing labor potential as dangerous just like how it is dangerous in engineering for example if you really never want a electrical grid to even get near 100% capacity since as you approach 100% capacity you lose your safety margin and risk brown outs or worse widespread system failure since without a reserve capacity failures can have more of a widespread effect.

Same idea with labor, if there is no labor in reserve it means labor can't be replaced easily. For example it means if a female worker gets pregnant there would no worker in reserve to take their place, meaning planners would have to have a plan to redistribute labor mid production cycle to minimize utility shortages from labor shortages. So having labor in reserve encase they are needed reduces distributions in production making production output far more predictable.

[ckaihatsu]

Psy, this is now the *third* time you've stated this technical concern of yours, and it's entirely redundant (speaking of technical issues).

I guess, come the revolution, we won't be in the same political planning faction...!


= )

[Psy]

Psy, this is now the *third* time you've stated this technical concern of yours, and it's entirely redundant (speaking of technical issues).

I guess, come the revolution, we won't be in the same political planning faction...!


= )

Well outside a technical concern what benefit would no labor reverse provide? It is true that more labor power can be funneled towards providing utility but at what cost? You'd reach a point of diminishing returns where workers are exerting more effort for less extra utility produced. Okay yes this is also a technical concern but it raises the question of what hold more value to society leisure or utility and it is not strait forward since of course it will be different depending on the utility already in society.

[ckaihatsu]

Well outside a technical concern what benefit would no labor reverse provide? It is true that more labor power can be funneled towards providing utility but at what cost? You'd reach a point of diminishing returns where workers are exerting more effort for less extra utility produced.


Yes, of course you're correct on the strictly *technical* parts -- about no wiggle room and diminishing returns....





Okay yes this is also a technical concern but it raises the question of what hold more value to society leisure or utility and it is not strait forward since of course it will be different depending on the utility already in society.


Yes, exactly -- we've reached the furthest limits of what we can surmise, here in the present, when it comes to a discussion of the *details* of a potential post-capitalist future society. Using *generalities* we can do a fair amount of extrapolation, given certain known general trajectories and parameters, but there's no way for us to know *exactly* what might be considered 'leisure' or 'utility' in such a world....

[Zanthorus]

Communism is the abolition of work.

I should point out that although in The German Ideology Marx saw 'labour' as one of the categories of capitalism which would be ended by the Communist revolution, by the time he came to write Das Kapital it's clear that he no longer saw 'labour' as such as one of capitalism's historically transient forms, in chapter seven he remarks that it "is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence, and therefore is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is common to every such phase." Although for evidence we could just as easily turn to the fact that he even bothered to write a chapter on the labour-process in general as a process of the production of use-values and the specifically capitalist character of the labour-process as the process of production of surplus-value. In his later years he regarded specifically the abolition of wage-labour, the social form which labour appears under within capitalist production, as the goal of Communist revolution. So I do think Zeekloid's statement is perfectly consistent with Marx's critique of the categories of bourgeois economy, and that rephrasing it in your terms would be an essentially pointless exercise in pedantry.

And speaking of people who are still hung up on some of Marx's peculiar turns of phrase in his early works, including The German Ideology, you might do well to recall the following passage from said work: "This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation. The Young-Hegelian ideologists, in spite of their allegedly “world-shattering" statements, are the staunchest conservatives. The most recent of them have found the correct expression for their activity when they declare they are only fighting against “phrases.” They forget, however, that to these phrases they themselves are only opposing other phrases, and that they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world."