Money!

[PoliticalNightmare]

What other anarchists (and other libertarian socialists or other strands of leftism) agree with me and think that it is a silly idea to get rid of money? What future system do you propose we use? Would you be hostile to, perhaps a community banking system that uses the gold standard?

[ZeroNowhere]

No libertarian socialists agree with you, because socialists aren't particularly enthusiastic about commodity production, surprisingly.

Edit: Of course, perhaps you mean something else by 'money'. If you mean that we should not abolish ponies, then I generally agree. However, perhaps you should explain what exactly you are asking.

[Widerstand]

Please explain what for we need money?

[Ism]

What other anarchists (and other libertarian socialists or other strands of leftism) agree with me and think that it is a silly idea to get rid of money? What future system do you propose we use? Would you be hostile to, perhaps a community banking system that uses the gold standard?

As far as I'm concerned, you can't abolish capitalism without abolishing money. Abolishment of money prevents capital accumulation and greed in society. You would perhaps like a thousand bucks more per month, but would you like an extra bicycle, sweater, jacket, toothbruth and shampoo in addition to the ones you've already received from the community?

Accumulating extra bicycles won't do anything to satisfy your greed. However, extra capital (money) will. By abolishing money, you can effectively supress greed, busting the greed-argument against communism. Or am I missing something here?

[PoliticalNightmare]

Please explain what for we need money?

As a means of effectively calculating the value of and trading goods and services in society, hence the allocation of resources.


No libertarian socialists agree with you, because socialists aren't particularly enthusiastic about commodity production, surprisingly.

Do you not count mutualists or syndicalist anarchists under the libertarian socialist category? For instance in Catalonia '36, they still used money.

I generally speaking hold firm that we should abolish private property first, then worry about money later.

[Zanthorus]

As a means of effectively calculating the value of and trading goods and services in society, hence the allocation of resources.

So in this 'socialism' which you describe, products have 'value' which serves as the mediation for 'trading goods and services'. The social character of labour appears not as it's character as labour producing definitely useful goods, but as abstract, value producing labour. That this mediation is necessary, that labour should have to become social through the mediation of value, can only mean that labour is not in fact immediately social. It can only mean that labour is still private labour, labour for the account of private firms and entities, and that this mediation of value continues to be necessary in order for this private labour to turn into it's opposite, social labour. In socialism proper, as derived from the Marxist critique of political economy, on the contrary, all labour is immediately social, there is no 'trading goods and services', and there is no need for this 'effective calculati[on]' of value, since value can only express itself through the medium of commodity exchange.

Put sensibly, all that it can mean to say that value aids the allocation of resources is that in all societies it is a natural necessity for societies labour-time to be allocated to the production of certain products in definite proportions. That this natural necessity takes the form of value is by no means necessary, but is historically limited to the form of society in which the human community is broken up into isolated commodity producers. In that higher form of society where all labour is immediately social and production is appropriate by the freely associated producers "People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted “value”." (Engels, Anti-Duhring) Without value or exchange, to speak of money - the measure of value and medium of exchange - is to speak nonsense.


Do you not count mutualists or syndicalist anarchists under the libertarian socialist category?

I don't count mutualists as any kind of socialists. They are for the perpetuation of the private appropriation of the production process, hence capitalism and all the crap that goes along with it, only under the management of workers.

[PoliticalNightmare]

The social character of labour appears not as it's character as labour producing definitely useful goods, but as abstract, value producing labour. That this mediation is necessary, that labour should have to become social through the mediation of value, can only mean that labour is not in fact immediately social. It can only mean that labour is still private labour, labour for the account of private firms and entities, and that this mediation of value continues to be necessary in order for this private labour to turn into it's opposite, social labour.

I'm afraid you've lost me here. Firstly, what is the "social character" of labour? The benefits that a labourer can bring to society through their productivity? Also, I don't generally get the Marxist idea of intrinsic value or values that are "abstract" from the commodity.


In socialism proper, as derived from the Marxist critique of political economy, on the contrary, all labour is immediately social, there is no 'trading goods and services', and there is no need for this 'effective calculati[on]' of value, since value can only express itself through the medium of commodity exchange.

I understand that this is part of the Marxist critique of capitalism but socialism, surely is defined largely as democratic workman ownership and management over the means of production, no? Also, how do you propose that we prevent labourers from voluntarily trading their goods with other labourers? Also, how without money can a market value be place on the product of the labourer without the general evaluation by the consumers of his/her goods or service via purchase? If the answer is to abolish values, how do we redistribute goods and services?

I apologise for any ignorance of Marxist theory here, hence why I am in the learing section.


I don't count mutualists as any kind of socialists. They are for the perpetuation of the private appropriation of the production process, hence capitalism and all the crap that goes along with it, only under the management of workers.

Again, mutualists call for workman ownership over the means of production and community owned banking systems, no? So, surely they still qualify as socialists whether they advocate money abolition or not? In fact, unlike with individualist anarchism, the co-operatives are part of a free association rather than independent of one another so I don't see how they can qualify as private property...

So how would you organise the redistribution of goods in a moneyless gift economy then?


As far as I'm concerned, you can't abolish capitalism without abolishing money. Abolishment of money prevents capital accumulation and greed in society. You would perhaps like a thousand bucks more per month, but would you like an extra bicycle, sweater, jacket, toothbruth and shampoo in addition to the ones you've already received from the community?

Accumulating extra bicycles won't do anything to satisfy your greed. However, extra capital (money) will. By abolishing money, you can effectively supress greed, busting the greed-argument against communism. Or am I missing something here?

As far as I understand it, you won't be able to purchase private ownership over capital with money if property rights are replaced with occupance and use rights by the labourer who adds value to the land and property through his/her labour. So "a thousand bucks more per month" would only get you extra commodity items like "bicycle[s]. sweater[s], etc."

[Comrade1]

Labour vouchers.......

[mykittyhasaboner]

For instance in Catalonia '36, they still used money.

Only because it takes more than collectivisation to abolish commodity production and thus money. Money simply can't be abolished at one stroke. It is highly likely, that collectives in Spain would have attempted to abolish money, if it wasn't for all kinds of attacks and attrition caused by the war.

Besides, i've read somehwere that some parts of Spain abolished money; i'll do some searching. If you can, find a book called Revolution and Civil War in Spain (along those lines) by Arthur Landis, then you'll read what i'm talking about.


I generally speaking hold firm that we should abolish private property first, then worry about money later.Abolition of private property in it's totality implies abolishing money. Perhaps you mean first property must be collectivised and organized before abolishing money?

[PoliticalNightmare]

Labour vouchers.......

Could someone explain to me what the differences are, exactly, between labour vouchers and money? Is it that labour vouchers can't be circulated?


Only because it takes more than collectivisation to abolish commodity production and thus money. Money simply can't be abolished at one stroke. It is highly likely, that collectives in Spain would have attempted to abolish money, if it wasn't for all kinds of attacks and attrition caused by the war.

That's true but one has to question how much success they would have had.


Besides, i've read somehwere that some parts of Spain abolished money; i'll do some searching. If you can, find a book called Revolution and Civil War in Spain (along those lines) by Arthur Landis, then you'll read what i'm talking about.

Yeah, its true that some parts of Spain abolished money but they tended to be rural, agricultural areas rather than industrialised, I believe, also they were only a few parts of Spain.


Abolition of private property in it's totality implies abolishing money. Perhaps you mean first property must be collectivised and organized before abolishing money?

Yeah, I hold that first private property should be abolished. After that, I'm not too sure whether money ought to be abolished. Why does abolition of private property necessarily imply abolishing money?

[Zanthorus]

I'm afraid you've lost me here. Firstly, what is the "social character" of labour?

The social character of labour is that labour is not performed for the satisfaction of the needs of the person who performs this labour, but that the product of this labour goes to satisfy the wants of someone other than this immediate producer.


Also, I don't generally get the Marxist idea of intrinsic value or values that are "abstract" from the commodity.

The idea of an intrinsic value to commodities is a Ricardian theory. Marxist theory states that value is a social relationship, it is the way in which producers co-ordinate their production activity in a society of independent commodity producers. As for the abstract nature of value, it's difficult to see what's not to get. When we bring two commodities in relation with one another in definite proportions, we clearly abstract from their material bodily form and consider them only insofar as they represent a common magnitude which cannot be related to the physical form of either. It is a process of real abstraction which goes on within capitalism everyday.

I will reply to the rest in a bit, I have to go right now.

[Comrade1]

Yeah sure, I would be glad to explain the vouchers for you. Well lets say you work 7 hours one day. Well it would be recorded and you could go to your local store which would only serve a purpose of exchanged commodities for the vouchers. And yes they can only be used once and ofcouse non-circulatory. You could exchange your vocher for something that took 7 hours to make or 2 commodities that one took 4 hours to make and one took 3 hours took make. That the basics of it.

[Zanthorus]

I understand that this is part of the Marxist critique of capitalism but socialism, surely is defined largely as democratic workman ownership and management over the means of production, no?

The definition of a word is it's use. We can use the word socialism in a number of ways. Generally however, it is concieved of as being a type of society which is different from capitalism. Marx's analysis of capital presents it as the self-expansion of value, M - C - M', a self-expansion which is necessary in the social situation where the majority of societies wealth takes the form of commodities, a situation to which the simple circulation of commodities, C - M - C, is unsuitable, since in simple circulation value is only realised in it's consumption as a use-value. Marx's analysis of the production and reproduction of capital shows that it is based on the fact that labour is only indirectly social, and hence for Marx socialism is, in the first place, a society where all labour is immediately social. The kind of society in which workers' manage the means of production but still function as independent commodity producers maintains all the basis' which Marx identifies for the production of capital.

Now, I'm aware that some people do define the above as socialism, but it seems to me that behind this definition lies an implicit analysis which is never fully elucidated, that is, that the basis for the production of the capital relationship is the hierarchical management structure of the capitalist firm. In such a case, they would need to show why Marx's schema is faulty, and why their own analysis of the production and reproduction of capital on the basis of hierarchical management structures is superior. So far, no-one has done this, so I'd feel fairly confident putting my chips in with marx on this one.

Democratic management is undoubtedly a part of Marx's vision of socialism, but this management is the management of social production by the whole of society and not just of the individual firm by the workers within in it. The hierarchical structure of existing capitalist firms also plays into Marx's critique of capitalism. For example, in the Manifesto he writes that "Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker". And in various places he praises co-operative factories for proving that society can exist without the individual personage of the capitalist. However, the co-operatives only do this in a limited fashion "by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist".


Also, how do you propose that we prevent labourers from voluntarily trading their goods with other labourers?

I don't. It is probable that alongside the socialist economy there will be occasional informal exchanges occuring between the members of a socialist society. But as long as the institutional structures of socialism remain in place then there doesn't appeat to me to be any danger of this exchange becoming generalised and recreating commodity society.


Also, how without money can a market value be place on the product of the labourer without the general evaluation by the consumers of his/her goods or service via purchase?

This seems to be a circular argument to me. Without a market, there can be no value or exchange, and hence no instrument to act as the universal measure of value or medium of exchange. Your question seems to be asking how, without a market, we can determine the market value of a commodity. The obvious answer is that there is no need for this, since there are no markets.


If the answer is to abolish values, how do we redistribute goods and services?

Marx's answer in the first chapter of Das Kapital and in the Critique of the Gotha Programme was to posit the use of labour-time as a unit of account for aiding the planning of production, in tandem with which producers would be allocated goods by their recieving of a 'labour voucher' representing how many hours of work they had performed, and then using this voucher to acquire a certain amount of the total social product. In tandem with this certain services are provided by society for free, along with welfare going to the disabled and incapacitated, in much the same way as modern welfare states. As time goes on and the productivity of labour improves this free sector of the economy is expanded.


I apologise for any ignorance of Marxist theory here, hence why I am in the learing section.

I also apologise if I came over as particularly aggressive in my initial post. I have a tendency to forget that no everyone has already gone through the same process of learning as me.


...unlike with individualist anarchism, the co-operatives are part of a free association rather than independent of one another so I don't see how they can qualify as private property...

This seems to be an erroneous interpretation of 'free association' though. For Marx, freedom is not the same as the idealist view of freedom as the freedom of the self-willing individual subject. On the contrary, he has the view which he believes is the only consistent materialist one that "Power and freedom are identical." Since freedom is equal to control, what free association means in this context is that the members of society control the production process rather than the products of their activity controlling them. The freedom of the producers consists in their association rather than than in any imaginary independence from social ties.


Could someone explain to me what the differences are, exactly, between labour vouchers and money? Is it that labour vouchers can't be circulated?

Because the society which is presupposed by the advocates of 'labour vouchers' is one in which all labour is immediately social, production is performed according to a common plan and hence there is no exchange or value. Without exchange or value, their can be no instrument which is the universal measure of value, or the medium of exchange, much less the unity of these two. If we are going to say that money merely consists in pieces of paper representing certain amounts of goods rather than as a social relation existing within commodity capitalist society then we might as well say that a ticket to the theatre is also a form of money.

[Tablo]

Marx's answer in the first chapter of Das Kapital and in the Critique of the Gotha Programme was to posit the use of labour-time as a unit of account for aiding the planning of production, in tandem with which producers would be allocated goods by their recieving of a 'labour voucher' representing how many hours of work they had performed, and then using this voucher to acquire a certain amount of the total social product. In tandem with this certain services are provided by society for free, along with welfare going to the disabled and incapacitated, in much the same way as modern welfare states. As time goes on and the productivity of labour improves this free sector of the economy is expanded.

So you are agreeing that in the final stage of the move to communism there will be no currency because I seem to recall Marx rejecting the necessity for currency for the final stage of communism in his Critique of the Gotha Program.

[Zanthorus]

So you are agreeing that in the final stage of the move to communism there will be no currency because I seem to recall Marx rejecting the necessity for currency for the final stage of communism in his Critique of the Gotha Program.

Fun fact: the word 'currency' originally meant the course of money as it was exchanged from person to person, hence Marx's rather odd title for section two, part b of chapter three 'The Currency of Money'. Currency tends to imply exchange, and in communism there is no exchange, hence no currency. The labour-vouchers Marx discusses are accounting units not currency, so there is in fact no 'currency' in either the 'lower' or 'higher' phases of communism. Anyway, the 'lower/higher' division is intended by Marx to illustrate the point that the issue is not the 'fair' or 'unfair' distribution of products as in the Lassallean schema, but that this distribution is merely a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production, and that the latter is a feature of the mode of production. Hence it is above all a question of the mode of production and not that of distribution. This is in direct contrast to the point which this division is usually put to by people like yourself to prove that communism is actually a question of the distribution of goods rather than of production relations.

[Tablo]

Fun fact: the word 'currency' originally meant the course of money as it was exchanged from person to person, hence Marx's rather odd title for section two, part b of chapter three 'The Currency of Money'. Currency tends to imply exchange, and in communism there is no exchange, hence no currency. The labour-vouchers Marx discusses are accounting units not currency, so there is in fact no 'currency' in either the 'lower' or 'higher' phases of communism. Anyway, the 'lower/higher' division is intended by Marx to illustrate the point that the issue is not the 'fair' or 'unfair' distribution of products as in the Lassallean schema, but that this distribution is merely a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production, and that the latter is a feature of the mode of production. Hence it is above all a question of the mode of production and not that of distribution. This is in direct contrast to the point which this division is usually put to by people like yourself to prove that communism is actually a question of the distribution of goods rather than of production relations.
So you are saying that even in the final stage of communism that Marx wanted to retain compensation for labor based on time spent as opposed to people freely working within their own capabilities and taking what they feel is necessary?

[Sixiang]

What future system do you propose we use?
Labor vouchers.


Would you be hostile to, perhaps a community banking system that uses the gold standard?
Yes, I would.

[Rafiq]

I suppose an ID card would be an alternative. For instance, after your work day is completed, you scan the card and that points out you worked, allowing you to get goods by scanning the card at the store.

[Tablo]

I suppose an ID card would be an alternative. For instance, after your work day is completed, you scan the card and that points out you worked, allowing you to get goods by scanning the card at the store.
That's the way I see it. I prefer a gift economy and not one that is based around consumption being limited to hours of labor.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"That which is for me through the medium of money – that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

"If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation? It is the coin that really separates as well as the real binding agent...


"...


"If I have no money for travel, I have no need – that is, no real and realisable need – to travel. If I have the vocation for study but no money for it, I have no vocation for study – that is, no effective, no true vocation. On the other hand, if I have really no vocation for study but have the will and the money for it, I have an effective vocation for it. Money as the external, universal medium and faculty (not springing from man as man or from human society as society) for turning an image into reality and reality into a mere image, transforms the real essential powers of man and nature into what are merely abstract notions and therefore imperfections and tormenting chimeras, just as it transforms real imperfections and chimeras – essential powers which are really impotent, which exist only in the imagination of the individual – into real powers and faculties. In the light of this characteristic alone, money is thus the general distorting of individualities which turns them into their opposite and confers contradictory attributes upon their attributes.

"Money, then, appears as this distorting power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be entities in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence, and intelligence into idiocy.


"Since money, as the existing and active concept of value, confounds and confuses all things, it is the general confounding and confusing of all things – the world upside-down – the confounding and confusing of all natural and human qualities.


"He who can buy bravery is brave, though he be a coward. As money is not exchanged for any one specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to exchange every quality for every other, even contradictory, quality and object: it is the fraternisation of impossibilities. It makes contradictions embrace.

"Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune." - Marx

[revolution inaction]

What other anarchists (and other libertarian socialists or other strands of leftism) agree with me and think that it is a silly idea to get rid of money? What future system do you propose we use? Would you be hostile to, perhaps a community banking system that uses the gold standard?

no, i think that retaining money is a stupid idea and has the potential to lead back to capitalism or something similar. i also think that labour vouchers are a kind of money.
i think we should use communism.
i would be extramly hostile to a community banking system that used the gold standard, although if someone tryed to set one up after communism was established then i would probably just laugh at them.

[The Man]

Labor vouchers.


Yes, I would.



I agree with the anti-currency part of Anarcho-Communism. But what's the difference between Currency and Vouchers that do the same thing?

[Sensible Socialist]

I agree with the anti-currency part of Anarcho-Communism. But what's the difference between Currency and Vouchers that do the same thing?
Vouchers, unlike currency, cannot be circulated. I work for a voucher and, because of that voucher, I am allowed a certain amount of materials. But after the "purchase," the voucher, in essence, disappears. This is different than currency, which would be held and used by the purchasing location.

[Sixiang]

I agree with the anti-currency part of Anarcho-Communism. But what's the difference between Currency and Vouchers that do the same thing?

I second the other response, but my first response is that vouchers can't be invested or used to accumulate capital. Also, labor vouchers in a society which has commodities made specifically for need are used simply for that. The value of a labor voucher can't go up or down with a market like money will. It is based solely on the value of the worker's labor and the amount of labor put into making the commodity. This method of "paying" for things makes it much more clear, simple, understandable, and honest for everyone. There is no profit incentive, so the commodities are sold for what they are actually worth.

[EvilRedGuy]

Gift Economy is better than Labour Vouchers. but both could be used as a transisting face till we have reached post-scarcity (Resource Based Economy).

[Desperado]

For instance in Catalonia '36, they still used money.

Actually, in some areas moneyless communities were formed. But as mentioned, it's not about abolishing it immediately - obviously strong community bonds are required first.