Questions about Communism....

[Pravda Soyuz]

I am a new member and i'm really into the idea of communism, but before i can fully commit myself, i have a few questions, please give me a non-dogmatic answer! I really want to believe in communism, but need these questions answered first.:)

First, can someone describe in laymans terms, the various branches?

Second, can someone clarify the LTV (labor theory of value)?

Third, how come communism hasn't worked?

and Fourth, how would life differ from a capitalist society?

Thanks!!!!

[mikelepore]

The labor theory of value is that, when generic commodities exchange for one another in various proportions, this is due to the amount of labor time need to produce them, using the society's typical tools and methods. For example, if an ounce of gold exchanges for 1000 loaves of bread, this should be interpreted in terms of the production process, with a huge amount of ore being processed to extract a small speckle of gold. Economic value is a characteristic of the production process, not the issue of "how strongly does the consumer want the goods", which is the psychological theory.

Conservatives believe that the labor theory of value is dangerous knowledge, because it seems to advertise the fact that labor is the source of wealth. If labor is the source of wealth, then the wealth in the hands of the idle and wealthy class represents a robbery.

[mikelepore]

Third, how come communism hasn't worked?

For the same reason that the last manned mission to Mars hasn't worked, namely, that no one has done it yet.

The objective is a society that will have no hierarchy of power, a society where the workers will manage their workplaces through day-to-day democratic participation. The workers will have democratic committee delegations, but no bosses or rulers. This has never been put into practice. Every government that has claimed to be attempting it has quickly cited some excuse to do the opposite, for example, some enemies are found among us, so we have no choice but to install a dictator.

[scourge007]

I am a new member and i'm really into the idea of communism, but before i can fully commit myself, i have a few questions, please give me a non-dogmatic answer! I really want to believe in communism, but need these questions answered first.:)

First, can someone describe in laymans terms, the various branches?

Second, can someone clarify the LTV (labor theory of value)?

Third, how come communism hasn't worked?

and Fourth, how would life differ from a capitalist society?

Thanks!!!!
I'm new to the movement myself too so I can't really answer questions 1 , 2 , and 4 , but I can answer 3. All the so called communist states aren't even really communist. China and Vietnam turned into capitalist states. North Korea turned to Juche , which has nothing to do with marxism. I believe Cuba is turning capitalist too.

[dernier combat]

and Fourth, how would life differ from a capitalist society?
These things are certain:


Each worker would receive the full product of their labour, as opposed to having a significant portion taken by the capitalist.
Workers would collectively manage their workplaces.
Government (for want of a better word) would be entirely direct-democratic.
There would be no monetary system.

The rest is mere speculation. However some predictions could very well be made reality, like significant advancements in the many fields of science due to research not being dependent on private funding. Poverty could be all but gone if we understand many of the major factors causing poverty in "third world" countries to be related to the fact that bringing medicine, sanitation, clean drinking water and affordable housing to these areas to be simply not profitable under a capitalist system. If the above scenarios were the case then people everywhere could expect a much higher standard of living.

[Catma]

Wouldn't workers still not technically receive the full product of their labor? The only way for this to happen would be if the worker took home everything from the factory at the end of the day.

Portions of the worker's labor value would be somehow redirected to other areas of society. Some would benefit him or her directly - transport and production of goods he or she wants to use - but some would not - welfare programs, upkeep of roads he or she doesn't use, etc.

I think it's more accurate to say that the portion of the worker's output currently being stolen by capitalists would be re-employed to the worker him/herself, or at least things potentially useful, to either the worker or society.


On the question of why socialism/communism hasn't worked - let's continue with the analogy of the manned mission to mars. Obviously there are some prerequisites in the area of technology, but assuming we had everything we needed, the cases are still different. It would be a great accomplishment, at the very least a PR coup, for the rulers that pulled off the trip to mars. They'd benefit enormously from it. In the case of a socialist revolution (You probably can't just go right to communism), there is no benefit for the powerful. They lose everything, and they fight it with everything. In the last century the capitalists have done everything they could to quash every experiment with socialism. In the individual case, even if you're sympathetic, would you give up your position of superiority for a revolution that is far from guaranteed? It takes quite a constitution, I would imagine.

[mikelepore]

Wouldn't workers still not technically receive the full product of their labor? The only way for this to happen would be if the worker took home everything from the factory at the end of the day.

Even if they took everything home from the factory they wouldn't have their full product in the literal sense, because no one person produces anything. All workers in the society collectively produce each article. Each person adds an additional step.

For example, if I'm a carpenter and I assemble some wooden chairs, the truck driver who shipped the logs to the saw mill also worked on the chairs, and therefore the people who built the truck also worked on them, and therefore the teachers who educated the people who built the truck, etc., in infinite regression. Engels wrote in _Anti-Duhring_, "No one person could say of them: I have made this; this is my product."

Capitalists consider the collective aspect of production to be dangerous knowledge, because they need to pretend that wealthy capitalists are "self-made", "self-reliant."


Portions of the worker's labor value would be somehow redirected to other areas of society. Some would benefit him or her directly - transport and production of goods he or she wants to use - but some would not - welfare programs, upkeep of roads he or she doesn't use, etc.


That's true. Marx called this the "deduction for the common funds", in his pamphlet _Critique of the Gotha Programme_. Marx's version of the list names such items as "general costs of administration", "replacement", "expansion", "insurance", and several more.


I think it's more accurate to say that the portion of the worker's output currently being stolen by capitalists would be re-employed to the worker him/herself, or at least things potentially useful, to either the worker or society.

More than the portion stolen by the capitalists would revert to the workers. The portion that gets wasted because of the existence of capitalism would also revert to the workers.

Abolishing the advertising business, which is entirely useless and pure waste, would return a huge amount of wealth to society. Capitalism has many roles that achieve nothing, such as the speculative act of buying things for the purpose of reselling them. Capitalism also creates the problem that it needs to act on -- pollute the environment and then clean it up, make people sick and then hospitalize them, make people poor and then jail them for stealing food money, create military forces and then use them to fight each other's military forces.

Our speeches often emphasize profits, but the surplus value that goes to waste under capitalism may be larger than the surplus value that goes to profits.

A classless society's ability to eliminate so much waste should be understood in terms of the standard of living going up, up, up, while the length of the workweek goes down, down, down.

[Black Sheep]

First, can someone describe in laymans terms, the various branches?
Collective ownership of the means of production (no private property).
Means of production = land, factories,shops,housing etc


Third, how come communism hasn't worked?
For the same reason that capitalism in 1500 hadn't work.Political systems don't spontaneously 'work', it takes effort and struggle and, often, time.


and Fourth, how would life differ from a capitalist society?
No profit motive (solidarity and science can flourish), no economic differences (=no social differences and discrimination), equality, no uncertainty over income and survival.


Thanks!!!!
You're very welcome :)