Can we admit that Castroism is a failure?

[CesareBorgia]

Cuba seems to be the greatest example of the dead-end of petty bourgeois nationalism.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/


Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- The Cuban government has agreed to allow all private businesses to hire employees, something previously restricted to a limited number of occupations, state media said Tuesday.
A meeting of the Council of Ministers also approved a proposal to delay massive layoffs, Granma newspaper reported, without providing any details.
Last year, President Raul Castro announced the biggest shakeup to the Soviet-style economic model in decades. He said more than a million state jobs needed to be eliminated.
At the same time, he said more private enterprise would be allowed to help soak up some of the unemployed and provide new sources of income, via taxes, for depleted state coffers.
The government published a list of 178 private occupations that Cubans could hold, from running a private restaurant to working as a plumber to being a party clown. Of those, 83 of them could hire employees.
Now, the Council of Ministers has granted all small businesses the authority to hire employees and agreed to further loosen regulations on the self-employed, according to Granma. The newspaper said it would provide details at a later date.
More than 200,000 Cubans have bought licenses to open small businesses since October.
The plan for government layoffs was harshly criticized by Cubans worried that for the first time in 50 years they will no longer be guaranteed a job, no matter how small the salary.
Castro originally had said that half of the layoffs from state jobs would come by March of this year. He later announced that the layoffs would be delayed, without giving a new timetable.

[Jose Gracchus]

He's doing it Deng style, so the old state elite has the opportunity to buy in nice and naturally into capitalism as a new bourgeoisie.

[SacRedMan]

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba had to survive. They almost have no support, no trade etc. It wasn't communism that failed there, no, it was the collapse of the USSR that kicked them in a pit of economic and trade problems. Let us hope that the idiots that wil come out their caves and yell "Communism is death now! Communism can't work!" will be a minority.

[manic expression]

We can admit nothing of the sort if we're being honest with the facts. These new reforms are a restructuring of Cuba's socialist system. The ability of small businesses to hire isn't anything new, it's just an expansion of that limited ability to more professions. Apparently news of this expansion is coming solely through CNN, so it'll be far easier to talk productively about the substance of the issue once more facts are known. It must be said time and again that these reforms must be analyzed carefully and patiently. The anti-Cuba crowd was screaming hysterically about the death of Cuban socialism some 20 years ago.

And frankly, party clowns being able to work with an assistant and pay them a share of their earnings isn't so much a contradiction of socialist relations. Let's see what the specifics are first.

[IndependentCitizen]

Socialism is bound to fail when you have capitalist superpowers constantly attacking you and your economy in many ways...

[Delenda Carthago]

Cuba had the misfortune to win in a period when revisionism was riding wild. From the beggining it fell into the claws of imperialism of USSR, thats the reason Che left the country. It was a dead end to beggin with unfortunatly.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think Cuba's ties to shady businessmen are more problematic than a diner being able to hire five waiters.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2011/05/corruption_cuba


CUBA’S recent crackdown on corruption has just claimed its most prominent victim. On May 5th Granma, the state newspaper, announced that a court had given a 20-year sentence in absentia to Max Marambio, a Chilean businessman and sometime close friend of Fidel Castro. Mr Marambio made a fortune (http://www.economist.com/node/16886803) through a stake in Rio Zaza, which has long held a near-monopoly selling fruit juice and long-life milk on the island. The report did not spell out the specifics of the conviction, but said said that Mr Marambio and Alejandro Roca Iglesias, the former food minister, had caused “considerable damage to the nation’s economy” and “impaired the ethical behaviour of various officials and subordinate workers”.
Mr Marambio was once the chief bodyguard for Salvador Allende, Chile’s socialist president. He accepted Fidel Castro’s invitation to take refuge in Cuba after Allende was toppled and died in a 1973 coup. The two men got on. In the 1990s he reinvented himself as a businessman, and was one of the first individuals allowed to form a joint enterprise with the Cuban government.
In 2006 Mr Castro fell ill and handed the country’s day-to-day leadership to his brother Raúl. Two years later Raúl formally became president, and promptly began attacking Cuba’s endemic corruption. In 2009 he started sending officials to inspect the books at the country’s state companies. Soon several executives—all of whom supposedly earn a state salary of around $20 a month—were jailed or placed under house arrest. Rogelio Acevedo, who fought alongside the Castro brothers in the 1959 revolution and was thought to be incorruptible, was sacked as head of the aviation regulator following allegations that he had leased the state airline’s planes off the books, and that millions of dollars in cash were found at his home. Pedro Álvarez, who for many years headed the government agency that buys food from the United States, fled the island before an investigation against him was completed, and is currently believed to be living in Florida. The former CEO of the national cigar producer and several of its senior executives are in prison (http://www.economist.com/node/18621276).
Despite Mr Marambio’s ties to the elder Mr Castro, his turn was bound to come. The government accused Rio Zaza of bribing staff and ministry officials, taking a lax attitude towards theft and overcharging the Cuban government for payments to its suppliers—some owned by Mr Marambio. He has not been seen on the island since 2009, and refused to comply with the government’s order for him to return last year, telling a Chilean radio station that “there's a new government in power made up of people with few ethics and scruples” and that he was “being persecuted by a bunch of thugs". He did not send a lawyer to represent him at the trial. The Cuban authorities instead provided him with one of their own, making the verdict a foregone conclusion.
For the president, an even harder task than rooting out corruption may be replacing the crooked officials he ousts. So far, Mr Castro has mainly drawn on his former colleagues in the Cuban army. GAE.SA, a holding company that functions as the military’s business arm, has been a prime beneficiary, and is now thought to control around 40% of the country’s economy. Its president, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja—who is also Raúl Castro’s son-in-law—was appointed to the Communist Party's Central Committee at the recent party congress (http://www.economist.com/node/18586776). Whereas Fidel Castro would occasionally trust somewhat maverick businessmen, General Raúl Castro is sticking to what he knows.
While the economist obviously should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to stories about the travails faced by socialist societies, it is interesting nonetheless. The implication is that Raul is actually clamping down on the real international bourgeois who exploited the 90s-era problems for personal gain, even if he is currently allowing some minor local bourgeois to hire a couple folks. It should be remembered that small capital really isn't a problem so much as the accumulated capital of the large businesses. Small businesses really cannot corrupt the state, abuse the common good and exploit labor or the environment on the same scale.

I would certainly hold Cuba up as a better than every other government in the world which claims to be MLs or some variant (China, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK). But it has substantial problems and shortcomings.

[LewisQ]

I'm not a supporter of these troubling "reforms", but I must say the media response has been amusing. Remember how cock-a-hoop they were when hairdressers were denationalised? Why were they nationalised in the first place? Strikes me as a perfect example of the type of enterprise that could be run on a family or individual basis in a socialist society.

[flobdob]

He's doing it Deng style, so the old state elite has the opportunity to buy in nice and naturally into capitalism as a new bourgeoisie.

Except "he" (because clearly Raul Castro is the great man who determines everything that happens in Cuba... ) is not restoring capitalism.

The article that has been posted is typical of the stuff which has come out in the media over the last few months - a lot of broad articles which claim that Cuba has miraculously decided that socialism just ain't working and is implementing capitalism. As ever, they are based on selective quotation, misrepresentation of the facts, and plain distortion in terms and words. To prove my point let's actually look at the article.



Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- The Cuban government has agreed to allow all private businesses to hire employees,­ something previously restricted to a limited number of occupations, state media said Tuesday.
A meeting of the Council of Ministers also approved a proposal to delay massive layoffs, Granma newspaper reported, without providing any details.

The article which this is referenced from is a section in Granma Online from Tues 17 May ("Council of Ministers meeting"). (http://granma.cu/ingles/cuba-i/17-mayo-council.html)This is worth noting and giving a read, as I will mention shortly.

First, a key point. Whilst much of these first 2 paragraphs are relatively factual, the particular terms it uses to describe things are crucial. I am of course talking about "massive layoffs". This term pretty much underlies the entire "Cuba is restoring capitalism!!" narrative, and is worth just reiterating the reality of this before we go any further forward.

Cuba is indeed adjusting employment for around 1 million workers over the next 5 years. However, to describe these as "layoffs" is a distortion of what is really going on. As manic expression rightly said, Cuba is adjusting the employment structure - that is, over 5 years, 1 million workers are to be removed from their current employment in state industry as part of a rationalisation process designed to improve efficiency in the socialist system (more on this later). They will not, however, be laid off. Workers will instead be offered jobs either in the co-operative sector, the self-employment/"private sector", or indeed jobs in other areas of the state sector (for instance, construction). Inbetween jobs they will be given sizeable unemployment benefits and will still retain all the benefits that the socialist state offers - free healthcare, education, cheap goods etc. Contrast this with, say, capitalist Britain, where we heard this morning that unemployment has been reduced to "just" 7.7% of the population - our government, like the previous one, has embarked on extensive cuts which will make thousands of workers jobless. Unlike Cuba they will not be offered new jobs by the state, but expected to "get on a bike" and find them themselves, with unemployment benefits being cut and other state welfare like the NHS being slashed.

So, moving on...


Last year, President Raul Castro announced the biggest shakeup to the Soviet-style economic model in decades. He said more than a million state jobs needed to be eliminated.

The latter half of this has just been dealt with, so I will not repeat it. However, the first sentence here is as much a distortion and a half-truth as the second sentence.

As many of us who study the Cuban revolution will know, these "reforms" are far from being some sort of last moment decision that popped into the head of Raul sometime last year. They are part of a process that began with the Battle of Ideas that aimed at rectifying distortions in the process of building socialism created through the Special Period. Particularly, they are aimed at resolving the problem of inefficiency, a process that began with the recentralisation of finances, de-dollarisation, energy efficiency campaign, the enterprise management system etc in the mid-2000s. Through debate and discussion in workplaces, communities and at national and local level these plans on employment adjustment came into being – they were then published in the Lineamientos last year, which were subsequently debated and heavily adjusted, before being brought to the CPC congress this year. Far from being a last minute announcement, these plans have been long debated and discussed in Cuba, by all sections of society.


At the same time, he said more private enterprise would be allowed to help soak up some of the unemployed and provide new sources of income, via taxes, for depleted state coffers.
The government published a list of 178 private occupations that Cubans could hold, from running a private restaurant to working as a plumber to being a party clown. Of those, 83 of them could hire employees.

Indeed, this is true. The wording is here, however, again an issue. “Private enterprise” (more on that shortly) will indeed be allowed to employ workers who are no longer employed in their state sector jobs. But then, so will co-operatives. And other areas of the state sector. Indeed, the very notion that the unemployed will be “soaked up” is an example of these kind of distortions and half truths – it obscures the fact that the Cuban government is not simply abandoning people to their fates, but instead offering new jobs elsewhere in the economy.
What is worth stating about this “private enterprise” is exactly what it is. The Vegan Marxist has posted the list of jobs available in private employment before, but this paragraph reiterates what they are – small businesses with clear structural limits on capital accumulation, like barbershops, piano tuners and clowns. As the paragraph above it notes, these will be taxed accordingly – indeed the government released a new tax law last year to pre-empt this issue, limiting the ability for private employment to accumulate capital effectively.

Now, the Council of Ministers has granted all small businesses the authority to hire employees and agreed to further loosen regulations on the self-employed, according to Granma. The newspaper said it would provide details at a later date.

More than 200,000 Cubans have bought licenses to open small businesses since October.

Contrary to what CNN reports, Granma did not say this. What it said was the following: “At the same time, the Council of Ministers agreed to extend authorization to hire workers to all non-state activities and continue the process of making self-employment more flexible.”

As reported here, details are yet to be fully formulated on this, and precedent doesn’t support the notion of it being “loosened” regulations. Indeed, neither does the Granma article. Indeed, the article shows that whatever these are, they will necessarily limited. Presuming that the figure given (200000) is accurate, that amounts to 200000 of the roughly 12 million people living in Cuba – or less than 2% - being given licenses to become barbers, plumbers or clowns. Capitalism will not be restored to Cuba on the blades of a barber’s razor or on the wheel of a unicycle.


The plan for government layoffs was harshly criticized by Cubans worried that for the first time in 50 years they will no longer be guaranteed a job, no matter how small the salary.
Indeed, the Lineamientos plans were criticised by Cubans. Indeed, during the debates on the proposals prior to the congress, almost 9 million people debated and argued the initial proposals, leading to 181 guidelines being changed, 36 new guidelines being incorporated, and 45 proposals being dropped for “openly contradiction the essence of socialism”.
Of course, this isn’t being mentioned by most of the media, whether Murdoch or “leftist” – it would contradict the idea that Cuba is some evil tyranny where Raul and Fidel Castro decide everything right down to the colour of your underwear.

Castro originally had said that half of the layoffs from state jobs would come by March of this year. He later announced that the layoffs would be delayed, without giving a new timetable.
Indeed, Raul did initially say this. More than a year ago. Subsequently the plans have been adjusted, debated and refined. Contrary to what CNN reports, whilst there isn’t a “new timetable” (as if the Cuban revolution should be expected to issue a report to the capitalist press whenever it wants to sort out its own affairs), it was announced at the Congress that a standing committee would be made to monitor the implementation and adjustment of the program over the next 5 years, to meet at least twice yearly. As last year’s CTC statement announced, it is government ministries who will be first to face the reforms. And, as the Granma article states (but the CNN article doesn’t),

“The meeting also approved a proposal to extend the timeframe for the process of reducing over-inflated personnel rosters, based on fundamental principles such as halting workforce growth by covering only essential positions and prioritizing changes to non-state employment options.

The President insisted that a task of this dimension and involving so many workers requires time, the creation of organizational structures for its implementation, and being attentive to the smallest detail in order to adjust the process to national realities. Raúl reiterated the premise that no Cuban will be left unprotected.

In this context, one concern which has arisen is that of pregnant women who have been displaced and cannot be reassigned. According to the regulations, in this case pregnant women would only receive one month’s wages and then become unemployed without the right to paid maternity leave. Given this situation, the meeting agreed that they should receive paid maternity leave for 18 weeks, six pre-natal and 12 post-natal, from the social security budget.”

The reality, then, is that Cuba is adjusting its employment structure to improve and refine its socialist economy. To do this it is reallocating jobs within the economy to other sectors, whether other state employment, cooperative employment or private sector employment. Private sector employment is limited to a few jobs, and is to be heavily regulated to restrict the potentials for capital accumulation. First to face these adjustments will be people working in government ministries, not ordinary Cuban workers. Unlike under capitalism, workers will not be thrown on the scrapheap: they will be given ample unemployment benefit and offered employment in other areas of the economy. The entire process is to happen over a prolonged period, precisely so that “no Cuban will be left unprotected. This is, as manic expression, rightly says “ a restructuring of Cuba's socialist system”. It is not the restoration of capitalism.

I’ll let a quote from Helen Yaffe’s excellent new article (http://revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/cuba/2174-cuban-communists-in-step-with-the-people-to-improve-socialist-efficiency)finish.


“New measures and legislation will be announced in Cuba in the coming months as the guidelines are implemented. Although there will be no surprises, we can expect these to be met by sensationalist exclamations about the advent of capitalism from the enemies of Cuban socialism. Cuba’s revolutionary people, lead by the CCP, will progress with patience and resolution to improve the efficiency of their system; maintaining the principles of socialism, while adapting, with creativity and innovation, to the challenging context of the global capitalist crisis.”

[flobdob]

The more worrying thing should be why revolutionaries are relying solely on bourgeois media sources - indeed, one of the biggest examples of it - to assess what is happening in a socialist country. What ever happened to "no investigation, no right to speak"?

[Book O'Dead]

Cuba seems to be the greatest example of the dead-end of petty bourgeois nationalism.

I disagree that Cuba is what the author of this thread claims it is.

While I don't think that Cuba is really socialist in the Marxist sense, I believe that the revolution there accomplished great things, not the least of which was to resist U.S. imperialist ambitions throughout the region.

Like most capitalist media, CNN is not a very good source to rely on for accurate information about Cuba. Over the years most "analysts" have decried the lack of bourgeois democratic institutions there, as if every revolution in the world ought to pattern itself after the one United States had in the 18th Century.

The Cuban revolution, I believe, accomplished as much or more as could have been expected from a larger, richer country; and with a treacherous enemy barely 90 miles from its shore!

No doubt the Cuban revolution has made many mistakes. There have been abuses and excesses--sometimes even great injustices have been commited there in the name of the revolution--but all true revolutionaries should admire and salute the Cuban people and their government for their courage and determination to remain free and independent from American imperialism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Flobdob pretty much just answered the OP's question: No! And I, as well, am astonished to see so many so-called 'revolutionary leftists' attaining a belief system through bourgeois-funded "evidence", by bourgeois-funded media.

[RadioRaheem84]

Why have mainstream sources been the rage for many leftists on here? They're being used to analyze everything from the Libyan crisis to Cuba's economic reforms.

[S.Artesian]

We can admit nothing of the sort if we're being honest with the facts. These new reforms are a restructuring of Cuba's socialist system. The ability of small businesses to hire isn't anything new, it's just an expansion of that limited ability to more professions. Apparently news of this expansion is coming solely through CNN, so it'll be far easier to talk productively about the substance of the issue once more facts are known. It must be said time and again that these reforms must be analyzed carefully and patiently. The anti-Cuba crowd was screaming hysterically about the death of Cuban socialism some 20 years ago.

And frankly, party clowns being able to work with an assistant and pay them a share of their earnings isn't so much a contradiction of socialist relations. Let's see what the specifics are first.


Hilarious. The new reforms aren't anything new. Right, the state, laying off half a million or a million, isn't anything new. Happens all the time in capitalist countries. Bit of the old "how's your father" for workers in Cuba though.

The ability of small businesses to hire isn't anything new, except now it has become official policy whereas before it was restricted and practiced outside those restrictions kind of clandestinely.

Yeah right, let's see what the specifics are. OK, let's take a look. Private employment increasing; wage-labor enshrined; differential pay rates will now become official policy, thereby splitting the working class.

And all this coming on the heels of the general capitalist attack on living standards, the expansion of capitalism in China, Vietnam-- nothing hysterical in calling a spade a spade and identifying this as another setback for the working class.

[S.Artesian]

Keep whistling passing the graveyard there Vegan, Flobdob et al. The concrete fact is that the private aggrandizement of wage-labor is being strengthened by these policies. Doesn't mean the Cuban Revolution is dead, but it sure is an indication of its isolation, and deteriorating state of health.

[28350]

It's not the -isms that are failures, it's the class battles.
The ideology of "post-revolutionary" states is one dependent on the conflict (a what's it called, diuretic?) of its classes.

I'm starting to think that
No policy decision on the part of cuba (be it Castro, CPC, le proletariat, what have you) could have brought about "socialism proper"

same with russia? mayb.e

[manic expression]

Hilarious. The new reforms aren't anything new. Right, the state, laying off half a million or a million, isn't anything new. Happens all the time in capitalist countries. Bit of the old "how's your father" for workers in Cuba though.
The workers are being put into new industries, they're not being left jobless. Funny, socialist countries don't act like capitalist countries. And no, it's not new, as for instance Cuba went through a similar process when it was slowing down its sugar production and shifting workers elsewhere.


The ability of small businesses to hire isn't anything new, except now it has become official policy whereas before it was restricted and practiced outside those restrictions kind of clandestinely.
IIRC, small restaurants were allowed to do something quite similar before. It wasn't clandestine.


Yeah right, let's see what the specifics are. OK, let's take a look. Private employment increasing; wage-labor enshrined; differential pay rates will now become official policy, thereby splitting the working class.
:laugh: Those aren't specifics. Crack open a dictionary if you're not sure next time.


And all this coming on the heels of the general capitalist attack on living standards, the expansion of capitalism in China, Vietnam-- nothing hysterical in calling a spade a spade and identifying this as another setback for the working class.Ultra-lefts like yourself have been calling "spade" for two decades and the Cuban Revolution has consistently disappointed you. :lol: Your perennially incorrect arguments amuse, but that's about it.

[el_chavista]

There is another issue attacked by these measures: the bureaucracy problem in not fairly distribution of land, and State food supplies in the black market.

[S.Artesian]

The workers are being put into new industries, they're not being left jobless. Funny, socialist countries don't act like capitalist countries. And no, it's not new, as for instance Cuba went through a similar process when it was slowing down its sugar production and shifting workers elsewhere.


IIRC, small restaurants were allowed to do something quite similar before. It wasn't clandestine.

Ultra-lefts like yourself have been calling "spade" for two decades and the Cuban Revolution has consistently disappointed you. :lol: Your perennially incorrect arguments amuse, but that's about it.

First, I'd like to point that I have actually worked in Cuba with and for officials of the government , so I don't know what kind of ultra-left you think you know, or you think I am, but I'm not one who has been "disappointed" in the Cuban Revolution. I think it has had a remarkable egalitarian impulse at core which I think should be preserved.

Don't mind being called ultra-left, though. Beats the shit out of being a cheerleader for every 2 bit Peron imitator that comes down the pike.

And having spent some time in Cuba, and done some work, I'm not exactly blind to the deterioration of that equality, the attacks on that egalitarianism that are taking place. Only a fool, an idiot, or a deliberate dissembler would ignore the tiered levels of income, where a service person in an international hotel will make more money, in a night in tips, and be able to spend that money, than a teacher, a nurse, a doctor makes in a month.

Secondly, we don't know how many workers are going to be put into new industries, how many are going to be marginalized, how many will be jobless, and what the impact on the overall standards of living of all the people [I]will be.

But we do have some experience and some information about previous experiments in massive privatization [and yeah, this counts as putting a massive emphasis on the private sector in order to reduce state expenditures].

Perhaps you should look at the concrete results of the shift from sugar to tourism as the largest generator of hard currencies in the Cuban economy; the segmentation of the working class; the "demand" footprint of the tourist economy... gobbling up scare resources in water, electricity, etc. in exchange for hard currency.

Yes, small restaurants were allowed, on a very regulated basis, to hire a certain number of people. Not to put too fine a point on it or go on about changing quantity into quality, nothing on this scale, involving these numbers has been attempted in 50 years.

Particulars [small private enterprise] has been allowed in some service sectors-- restaurants, taxis; and private agricultural production and marketing has been sanctioned ; but this program involves a fundamental shift of resources and labor to the private sector, and a private sector which is in no way capable of absorbing the numbers that will be thrust upon it.

Capital does not grow up spontaneously out of private entrepreneurs using their wits, or powers of self-denial to quicken accumulation. It requires radical distortions in the pre-existing economy, whether pre-capitalist or "socialist."

I don't think the process in Cuba is going to be quite so smooth, trouble-free, benign, not to mention socialist, as you and some others think. The fact is, Cuba is going to require massive investment of private capital if it wants to reduce the burden on the state sector. It's not so much that there are few places to get that capital, although it's certainly going to be harder for Cuba than it was for China in the past 25 years. It's the fact that the dislocation of the economy by the influx of this capital is going to unleash wave upon wave of inflation in Cuba; will require full convertibility of the currency; and diminish, inexorably, the bases for social reproduction-- education, health care-- as incomes diverge, and those with more want more.

That Cuba has been able to manage itself on that tightrope better than the fSU and China, or Vietnam is a credit to the revolution. That does not mean the program after the special period has been any less corrosive to the principles of egalitarianism and socialism.

Get back to me when you actually know something about the Cuban economy.

[Chambered Word]

You can't pass off any criticism as bourgeois just because your opponent doesn't read articles straight from the PSL's website. There's a vast difference between parroting analysis and arguments from the mainstream media and citing news articles as a source of information. On the other hand, bourgeois sources are not always 100% accurate and are often happy to omit facts that could lead people to conclusions that don't exactly paint a nice picture of the establishment.

Anyway, I personally found this article on the subject interesting (and wish I had asked the author for her sources when I was at Marxism): http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6882:is-cuba-heading-towards-the-free-market?&Itemid=387&tmpl=component&print=1. Thoughts?

[manic expression]

And having spent some time in Cuba, and done some work, I'm not exactly blind to the deterioration of that equality, the attacks on that egalitarianism that are taking place. Only a fool, an idiot, or a deliberate dissembler would ignore the tiered levels of income, where a service person in an international hotel will make more money, in a night in tips, and be able to spend that money, than a teacher, a nurse, a doctor makes in a month.
"Attacks"? The Cuban Revolution is responding to the conditions it has no choice but to face. Productivity isn't where it needs to be, and the worker state is figuring out a way to make socialism more productive. It's not ideal, but revolutionary politics rarely are.


Secondly, we don't know how many workers are going to be put into new industries, how many are going to be marginalized, how many will be jobless, and what the impact on the overall standards of living of all the people will be.Well, which one is it? We don't know any of these things, or you're so airtight-sure of all of them that you're comfortable to launch into a series of predictions about the direction of the Revolution...the same tirades we've been hearing since the Special Period?


But we do have some experience and some information about previous experiments in massive privatization [and yeah, this counts as putting a massive emphasis on the private sector in order to reduce state expenditures].

Perhaps you should look at the concrete results of the shift from sugar to tourism as the largest generator of hard currencies in the Cuban economy; the segmentation of the working class; the "demand" footprint of the tourist economy... gobbling up scare resources in water, electricity, etc. in exchange for hard currency.The shift away from sugar was a necessity that honestly probably should've been done sometime before then. Still, it was a successful economic turn IMO. Tourism, along with zinc and nickel, are good sectors to build upon, but the real question is how to deal with the dynamics of something like tourism. The policy toward hotels is a useful example: they were once reserved for international tourists, but were later opened up to Cubans as well. Such developments need to be integrated into the Cuban socialist system, and because of that we're going to see different experiments on how to best accomplish that.

As Jack Reed noted in a conversation with Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1921/01/russianow.htm):

“But where we have the advantage over the rest of the world,” he said, “is that we can experiment, we can try any schemes we please, and if they don’t work, we can change our minds and try something else. The workers know that at least the Communist Party, which controls the Soviets, is a revolutionary working-class party, that it is fighting capitalist exploitation for their benefit; they trust us.”


Yes, small restaurants were allowed, on a very regulated basis, to hire a certain number of people. Not to put too fine a point on it or go on about changing quantity into quality, nothing on this scale, involving these numbers has been attempted in 50 years.Perhaps, but the overall numbers aren't as important as how many employees one small business is allowed to hire, and under what circumstances. How is this fundamentally different from what existed prior? That's the real question.

And I still find these reforms to not be as far-reaching as the Special Period.

Particulars [small private enterprise] has been allowed in some service sectors-- restaurants, taxis; and private agricultural production and marketing has been sanctioned ; but this program involves a fundamental shift of resources and labor to the private sector, and a private sector which is in no way capable of absorbing the numbers that will be thrust upon it.Self-employment may be able to do what the private sector can't. I think that's the aim of this measure. And again, the particular system is something of an antecedent to what this reform may end up looking like...it involves more numbers, sure, but it's not essentially different.


Capital does not grow up spontaneously out of private entrepreneurs using their wits, or powers of self-denial to quicken accumulation. It requires radical distortions in the pre-existing economy, whether pre-capitalist or "socialist."Is this a "radical distortion"?


I don't think the process in Cuba is going to be quite so smooth, trouble-free, benign, not to mention socialist, as you and some others think. The fact is, Cuba is going to require massive investment of private capital if it wants to reduce the burden on the state sector. It's not so much that there are few places to get that capital, although it's certainly going to be harder for Cuba than it was for China in the past 25 years. It's the fact that the dislocation of the economy by the influx of this capital is going to unleash wave upon wave of inflation in Cuba; will require full convertibility of the currency; and diminish, inexorably, the bases for social reproduction-- education, health care-- as incomes diverge, and those with more want more.

That Cuba has been able to manage itself on that tightrope better than the fSU and China, or Vietnam is a credit to the revolution. That does not mean the program after the special period has been any less corrosive to the principles of egalitarianism and socialism.Foreign investment has been increasing steadily over the past few years, it is unlikely to be as catastrophic as you say. What is also at work is the fact that whenever foreign investment comes into Cuba, much of it goes through the state sector one way or the other. Lastly, the "private sector" that is to take pressure off of the state is a "private sector" far different from those we've seen prior. From what it seems from what we've heard, that "private sector" will see far more self-employment and very limited employment (along the lines you already mentioned).

Also, divergent incomes are not contradictory to the principles of socialism. The social basis of income is what matters, and these reforms do not fundamentally change that. With these reforms, one party clown might get more work than another party clown, and thus receive a higher income, but this can very comfortably play out under socialist dynamics.


Get back to me when you actually know something about the Cuban economy.This, coming from the poster who didn't think Cuba has ever shifted large-scale labor power in its entire history until this point.

[flobdob]

You can't pass off any criticism as bourgeois just because your opponent doesn't read articles straight from the PSL's website. There's a vast difference between parroting analysis and arguments from the mainstream media and citing news articles as a source of information. On the other hand, bourgeois sources are not always 100% accurate and are often happy to omit facts that could lead people to conclusions that don't exactly paint a nice picture of the establishment.

Anyway, I personally found this article on the subject interesting (and wish I had asked the author for her sources when I was at Marxism): http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6882:is-cuba-heading-towards-the-free-market?&Itemid=387&tmpl=component&print=1. Thoughts?

I made it expressedly clear that I don't have a problem with using some sources from the mainstream media - after all, I said "relying solely on bourgeois media sources ".

The issue, rather, is literally posting them as if they were the be all and end all of analysis on Cuba.

As for thoughts on the Socialist Alternative article, I have very little positive to say of them. Indeed, when a section heading is titled "
No democracy in Cuba", describes reforms debated and proposed by vast swathes of the Cuban people as "driven from the top", ignores almost all Cuban history before 1990 (and a quick look at the Rectification period should here be useful for everyone in this thread), I think I'm justified in calling it nonsense from start to finish.

[flobdob]

And having spent some time in Cuba, and done some work, I'm not exactly blind to the deterioration of that equality, the attacks on that egalitarianism that are taking place. Only a fool, an idiot, or a deliberate dissembler would ignore the tiered levels of income, where a service person in an international hotel will make more money, in a night in tips, and be able to spend that money, than a teacher, a nurse, a doctor makes in a month.

You are right – egalitarianism is a key issue. Socialism is not egalitarianism. Remember Marx’s dictum that under socialism,“Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it.”?

Socialism is not about “equal wages”. Work under socialism, as Che was eager to stress, is a social duty. Differential pay is expected, if not indeed necessary.

What you are referring to, however, is not this. You are referring to the sort of inequality that the Cuban government has been fighting against. You cite the example of the issue of hotel workers (can be replaced with Taxi drivers or whatever) getting paid more than a doctor does in tips alone. This is a major issue for Cuba, one deriving from the presence of the dual currency. This issue was raised not just in Fidel’s 2005 speech lambasting the “new rich”, but also in the popular consultation in 2007 which gave birth to the very proposals put forwards in the Lineamientos.

Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the revolution will know that the government has been trying to limit the impacts of the dual currency system since it was implemented. But similarly, they will know that the elimination of the system requires an increase in domestic productivity. To get towards this Cuba has been working on improving efficiency in the Cuban economy – recentralising finances, de-dollarisation, distributing land in usufruct, so on. Hand in hand with this has gone a conscious attempt to increase political consciousness – for example, the reinvigoration of voluntary labour, the work through the mass organisations, and the political issues which are regularly raised in Granma and other newspapers and debated on the TV in Mesa Redonda (the recent Razones de Cuba programmes can also be seen in this light).

Far from it that anyone is ignoring these issues – we recognise that they are amongst the key things that these reforms are aimed at resolving.



Secondly, we don't know how many workers are going to be put into new industries, how many are going to be marginalized, how many will be jobless, and what the impact on the overall standards of living of all the people will be.

Whilst we don't know figures down to the last person, we do know ballpark figures which provide estimates. For example, just over a million workers are set to be moved into other industries. Indeed, it is one of the benefits of Cuba's planned economy that we can have a good knowledge of this.

It is wrong however to act as if the Cuban government is not monitoring the adjustments closely. Indeed, as I mentioned before, the Council of Ministers has set up a monitoring group which will meet at least twice a year over the next five years to monitor the implementation of the economic program. The PCC is investigating the effects of this on marginalisation and so on, and is creating measures to combat this. A case in point is referred to in the Granma article cited earlier, with pregnant women who cannot immediately be allocated a job - they will recieve paid maternity leave for 18 weeks, six pre-natal and 12 post-natal, from the social security budget. On top of these state-based support bases we have the local organisations, such as the CDRs, who will likely play an important role in ensuring community based responses and support for people during the period.


But we do have some experience and some information about previous experiments in massive privatization [and yeah, this counts as putting a massive emphasis on the private sector in order to reduce state expenditures].

By this point it’s pretty clear that we’re talking in very different terms. To me, massive privatisation is the sort of thing which characterised the restoration of capitalism in the former USSR – whole industries bought up for dollars, often by a handful of billionaires linked at the hip to the new politicians.

But to you it entails less than 2% of Cubans applying to become piano tuners or barbers. Someone better not tell you about what happened in Chile with Pinochet – you might faint with terror!



Perhaps you should look at the concrete results of the shift from sugar to tourism as the largest generator of hard currencies in the Cuban economy; the segmentation of the working class; the "demand" footprint of the tourist economy... gobbling up scare resources in water, electricity, etc. in exchange for hard currency.

Perhaps you should look at the context of the shift from sugar to tourism. Perhaps you should also look at the policies implemented by the Cuban government to limit the distortions created by the change too. And likewise, perhaps you should look at the attempts to diversify beyond a sort of mono-industry- it’s remarkable how many people seem to think that Cuba exists only by selling postcards, cigars and rum, and ignore the nickel industry, or the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, or for that matter just about every industry Cuba has…



Yes, small restaurants were allowed, on a very regulated basis, to hire a certain number of people. Not to put too fine a point on it or go on about changing quantity into quality, nothing on this scale, involving these numbers has been attempted in 50 years.

Particulars [small private enterprise] has been allowed in some service sectors-- restaurants, taxis; and private agricultural production and marketing has been sanctioned ; but this program involves a fundamental shift of resources and labor to the private sector, and a private sector which is in no way capable of absorbing the numbers that will be thrust upon it.

And yet we are expected to shed a tear for the dear entrepreneur, unable to choose between who to employ…

The reality is that people are not being encouraged to work for small businesses. As I said earlier, Cubans are being offered new jobs in other areas of state employment, co-operative employment, working for small businesses or making their own small businesses. The latter two are heavily regulated by the state.

Your argument has turned from “capitalism is being restored in Cuba!” to “capitalism isn’t coming back to Cuba fast enough!”.



Capital does not grow up spontaneously out of private entrepreneurs using their wits, or powers of self-denial to quicken accumulation. It requires radical distortions in the pre-existing economy, whether pre-capitalist or "socialist."

Capitalism required the slave trade, bloody conquest of swathes of the world, industrial labour, poverty, war, racism, colonialism and the expropriation of millions of peasants and serfs across the world to “grow up”.

Remind me again when Cuba decided that it would send ships around the Horn of Africa in search of gold and trade routes.



I don't think the process in Cuba is going to be quite so smooth, trouble-free, benign, not to mention socialist, as you and some others think. The fact is, Cuba is going to require massive investment of private capital if it wants to reduce the burden on the state sector. It's not so much that there are few places to get that capital, although it's certainly going to be harder for Cuba than it was for China in the past 25 years. It's the fact that the dislocation of the economy by the influx of this capital is going to unleash wave upon wave of inflation in Cuba; will require full convertibility of the currency; and diminish, inexorably, the bases for social reproduction-- education, health care-- as incomes diverge, and those with more want more.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the process in Cuba is "smooth, trouble-free, benign" - not least the Cuban people. Indeed, if it was so easy there would be no need to monitor the adjustments and there would be no need for the state to engage constantly in debate and discussion with the Cuban people. Some of us, like the PCC, understand that Cuba is trying to build socialism within the context of a global capitalist crisis, a crippling blockade, increasing terrorist attacks and subversive actions from a hostile neighbour 90 miles north of it, and a "left wing" movement which seems not to quite get the meaning of proletarian internationalism. And likewise, some of us understand that the Cuban revolution is not some cake which can be sliced up and observed in isolated sections. We recognise the important role of socialist consciousness in enduring imperialist attack and in building socialism. We recognise the important role played by regional anti-imperialist blocs like ALBA in building solidarity and forging a new system of regional trade. We recognise the importance of Cuba’s socialist internationalism, being able to provide solidarity with oppressed peoples the world over. And most importantly, we recognise that Cuba, despite the problems it faces now and has faced before, continues to inspire working class and oppressed people the world over, and demonstrates that another world is possible – whether or not its “left wing” detractors wish to admit that.

[RedSonRising]

Why don't we all take a nice revleft field trip so we can all soak in first hand experiences and observations, and discuss them, all IN REAL TIME.

[S.Artesian]

If I were a certain type of person, you know the type.. the type that likes to denounce "ultra-leftists" as armchair Marxists, etc. etc., this is the point where I would take such delight in flipping the script on our junior Fidelistas and ask them "What have you ever done for the Cuban Revolution, besides take a position?" But I'm not that type of person, so I would never do that. Besides, I don't know what our junior Fidelistas have or haven't done on behalf of the Cuban Revolution.

So let's not do that. Let's deal with what has, and has not, been argued. What has not been argued as that these reforms represent in and of themselves the restoration of capitalism to Cuba. What has been argued is that these reforms facilitate, enhance, quicken, capitalist social relations of production in Cuba.

Now that concept, social relations of production, most probably is not considered a critical factor in economic analysis, given the obvious cheerleading, the lack of critical analysis, our junior Fidelistas offer of absolutely anything to do with the conflicts and contradiction inherent in the organization of the Cuban economy, both internally and in relation to the world markets.

But that concept, the social relations of production, is the essential component of Marx's analysis of capitalism, pre-capitalism, and anti-capitalism. The only question that really matters in the first, and last, analysis is: "Do these reforms advance socialist relations of production, where the working class of Cuba is able to direct production, investment, the distribution of time, in order to meet real social needs, serve real social uses, enhance the equal opportunity and access of all to the resources required for a healthy, conscious life?"

Or.... "do these reforms enhance private property; the private exploitation of labor? Will these reforms create fundamental social inequalities that will crystallize along [proto]class lines?"

Manic Expression talks about "the same tirades as before." What tirades? What is being pointed out that these reforms have been initiated in an attempt to quicken economic growth through reducing the state sector's responsibilities and specific weight in the economy; that in its 52 year history, the Cuban Revolution has never attempted to move so many people [even within 5 years] out of the state sector and into the "mixed" or "private" sectors.

No, the Cuban reforms are not the restoration of capitalism, and they are not yet a radical distortion, and disruption of the economy. But the reforms are unlikely to accomplish what they are designed to accomplish unless there is an opening of the economy to [almost] unrestricted foreign investment.

Lets be clear. Cuba's infrastructure has undergone serious deterioration over the years. The ingenuity of the Cubans in keep their rail operations going giving the serious declines in rolling stock availability, track components, etc. is nothing short of amazing. But sooner or later, "amazing" and "resourcefulness" just aren't enough. Does anyone think that the Cuban government reforms are going to resolve the infrastructure problems? Does anyone think Cuba can reform its "socialism in one country"?

Sure the Cuban government has attempted steps to mitigate the inequalities and distortions of the former 3 currency system. But it has not, and it cannot remove the economic impetus for those inequalities as long as it maintains the hard currency differential in the economy.

On some minor points: ME should understand that "self-employment" is part of the private sector.

Now we get to the point of "divergent incomes" and "equality" and socialism. ME claims divergent incomes are not contradictory to the principles of socialism. I'm sure the millionaires of the new China are happy to hear that and will be quick to agree with you. And Flobdob thinks he's oh so clever quoting Marx about the "individual receives back from society-- after deductions have been made-- exactly what he gives to it." This may come as shock to Flob but, the emphasis is not on getting back exactly what he gives to it-- which is in fact an impossibility-- but rather on the "after deductions have been made" part.

So yeah, divergences in incomes is incompatible-- not with socialism, which does away with the whole notion of incomes [sorry to be such a nitpicker, but socialism is a bit different from the way you describe it] but with the transition of the social organization of production to one directed by, of, and for, the satisfaction of need, and the enhancement of the social welfare of all.

Flub is even more clever bringing up his example of Pinochet and what was done to workers there. Interesting that he should bring that up... because I'm sure he, or his antecedents were out there in 1970-1-2-3 supporting Allende's Unidad Popular government, endorsing its strategies, its "reforms," denouncing those "ultra-lefts" who pointed out how Allende's policies were weakening the organization of the working class while failing to reconcile "the national bourgeoisie"-- which was the UP's explicit strategy.

With his usual distortion of arguments,-- actually I think a better name for FD would Twist and Flop, he points out how capitalism was born of the world market, the slave trade, etc. and asks me to point out where the Cuban government has engaged in such activity. I'd ask Twist and Flop to point out where I said the Cuban government was a capitalist government.

Real problems of accumulation exist in Cuba. These problems have existed in other economies, capitalist and non-capitalist prior to this. Privatization based on an internal, domestic, and isolated, reallocation of resources and labor power has never worked to remedy those problems. International intervention has always been essential. The only issue, historically, has been whether the intervention is going to be at the expense of workers, or at the expense of capitalism through the internationalization of social revolution.

But meanwhile Twist and Manic, keep right on pom-pomming away, practicing Marxism the "real" way--- by subjecting everything to merciful endorsement.

[manic expression]

So let's not do that. Let's deal with what has, and has not, been argued. What has not been argued as that these reforms represent in and of themselves the restoration of capitalism to Cuba. What has been argued is that these reforms facilitate, enhance, quicken, capitalist social relations of production in Cuba.

Now that concept, social relations of production, most probably is not considered a critical factor in economic analysis, given the obvious cheerleading, the lack of critical analysis, our junior Fidelistas offer of absolutely anything to do with the conflicts and contradiction inherent in the organization of the Cuban economy, both internally and in relation to the world markets.
That you think there hasn't been any critical analysis on the non-theskyisfalling side of this issue just shows that you aren't fully engaging it. In response to the argument that this enhances the capitalist social relations in Cuba, I have said quite clearly that these reforms do not follow a capitalist model, nor do they fundamentally contradict socialist relations.


No, the Cuban reforms are not the restoration of capitalism, and they are not yet a radical distortion, and disruption of the economy. But the reforms are unlikely to accomplish what they are designed to accomplish unless there is an opening of the economy to [almost] unrestricted foreign investment.
How do you figure?


Manic Expression talks about "the same tirades as before." What tirades? What is being pointed out that these reforms have been initiated in an attempt to quicken economic growth through reducing the state sector's responsibilities and specific weight in the economy; that in its 52 year history, the Cuban Revolution has never attempted to move so many people [even within 5 years] out of the state sector and into the "mixed" or "private" sectors.
I don't disagree with "what is being pointed out", but in your analysis you missed the second portion of my argument. If this "unprecedented" shift of labor is going into a framework that not only already exists to some extent (and has for some time) and has also shown to be compatible with the worker state...the numbers are a secondary concern IMO.


On some minor points: ME should understand that "self-employment" is part of the private sector.
Technically speaking, of course this is true. In the context of "increasing capitalist social relations", the categorization loses its usefulness altogether. Self-employment does not necessarily involve any exploitation. Is it what we're used to seeing from socialist societies? No, but that's the point, the Cuban Revolution is experimenting with economic structures within socialism in order to boost productivity. You admit this is needed, so where's the beef?


Now we get to the point of "divergent incomes" and "equality" and socialism. ME claims divergent incomes are not contradictory to the principles of socialism. I'm sure the millionaires of the new China are happy to hear that and will be quick to agree with you. And Flobdob thinks he's oh so clever quoting Marx about the "individual receives back from society-- after deductions have been made-- exactly what he gives to it." This may come as shock to Flob but, the emphasis is not on getting back exactly what he gives to it-- which is in fact an impossibility-- but rather on the "after deductions have been made" part.

So yeah, divergences in incomes is incompatible-- not with socialism, which does away with the whole notion of incomes [sorry to be such a nitpicker, but socialism is a bit different from the way you describe it] but with the transition of the social organization of production to one directed by, of, and for, the satisfaction of need, and the enhancement of the social welfare of all.
Absurd. Comparing Cuba to "The New China" is not only utterly cross-eyed but self-consciously so. Doing so ignores, with gusto, the myriad of differences in social and economic structures, modes of production, place of foreign investment, political systems and far more. It is an argument that collapses under the weight of its own obliviousness.

Of course, that comparison also side-steps the argument being made: that socialism and wage disparity are not contradictory. However "clever" you deem the Marx quote to be, you never addressed it. Claiming a difference in emphasis does nothing to diminish its meaning, which remains squarely opposed to your reasoning.

So yeah, get back to me when you know something about Cuba...and/or Marxism.


Real problems of accumulation exist in Cuba. These problems have existed in other economies, capitalist and non-capitalist prior to this. Privatization based on an internal, domestic, and isolated, reallocation of resources and labor power has never worked to remedy those problems. International intervention has always been essential. The only issue, historically, has been whether the intervention is going to be at the expense of workers, or at the expense of capitalism through the internationalization of social revolution.
I find this reductionist. The type of reform we're seeing isn't so greatly paralleled by previous attempts at socialist reform. It's quite distinct, and deserves to be analyzed as such, not blindly thrown into the same pot as the PRC or whatever other outrageous comparison you feel like making.


But meanwhile Twist and Manic, keep right on pom-pomming away, practicing Marxism the "real" way--- by subjecting everything to merciful endorsement.
Keep repeating the same drivel we've been hearing for the better part of 20 years. I'll take materialist analyses (what you call "pom-pomming") over your insipid attempted puns any day of the week.

[S.Artesian]

Right comparing Cuba to the New China is absurd. How about Vietnam, less absurd. 87million or so vs 12 million?

Here's a news flash, new China wasn't always, new China. Why, once upon a time it was considered a paradigm, an absolute model of socialism. So why don't you take your own advice and list the differences in the mode of production, political systems, restrictions on investment, and most fundamentally the organization of labor between the old China and Cuba?

Or is it your argument that China was never socialist?

Or that what has happened in China, or Russia, or Ukraine, happened because somehow those socialist reforms were somehow more consciously, more directly capitalist from the getgo?

Or that the current reforms in Cuba do not hold the potential for dividing the working class, increasing income differentials, and empowering private employment of labor?

I did address the Marx quote. Apparently you can't read. First I pointed out that since we're talking socialism, what counts, what is the most important part is the deductions made for the social reproduction, the social welfare of all. And then I stated its ridiculous to think anybody/everybody could and will get back exactly what they put in.

Here's a question for you to answer using your great "exactly back" theorem: Long-haul railroad crew takes a 100 car, 10,000 ton coal train 135 miles to delivery in Chicago. Trip takes 5 hours; crew drops the cars, and takes its locomotives and couples to another train, this one made up of 100 empty hoppers to haul back to Iowa, another 5 hours.

Meanwhile a switching crew delivers 50 cars of grain to a plant 40 miles north of Chicago, spots the cars in the plant on 4 receiving tracks; then the crew goes to the empty yard, makes up a train of 50 empty cars and takes the 50 empties back to Chicago. Total time on duty 7 hours

Did these crews do equal work? Did one crew work more than the other? Which crew? Why? Should the crews be paid equally and differently and on what basis.

Tell me exactly how society is going to give back exactly to each crew what it got from each specific crew.

For someone with such a thorough grasp on Marx and economics, this should be a snap.

You'll "take materialist analyses"? You wouldn't know a materialist analysis if it ran up and smacked you in the gob.

[manic expression]

Are you even trying to keep track of what you're saying? The PRC prior to the Cultural Revolution, prior to the arrest of the Gang of Four and the ascension of Deng, was in a vastly different political, economic and social situation than Cuba is today. It would be a waste of time to actually illustrate it, since it's so blatantly obvious, and since it's on you to justify your increasingly random allusions. You haven't done so.

The current reforms in Cuba hold a potential that we cannot honestly know at this point. We should analyze them as they play out. They are designed to increase productivity within socialism, while you argue that income can't exist in socialism anyway. I'd like to again recognize that you haven't shown us a useful comparison from which you're divining this "potential".

You didn't address the quote. You tried to be clever over its supposed emphasis, but you didn't address its substance whatsoever. The deductions made for social welfare...ok, and then we're left with the rest of the quote that you steadfastly refuse to deal with. You're welcome to continue believing you did if it makes you feel better, though.

I don't know the railroad industry so I can't answer the question. You told me the total time on duty, but that's it. What were the comparative difficulties of the two tasks? Which task was less comfortable/more unpleasant? What were the risks of injury? Does each crew live in the city of departure/destination? While you're answering all that, what I'm getting at is there are a wide variety of factors that must be assessed, and assessed by the people who know the specifics (remember that word?).

What, no cheap, childish pun on my username? :lol: You're losing your touch.

[S.Artesian]

What were the comparative difficulties of the two tasks? Which task was less comfortable/more unpleasant? What were the risks of injury? Does each crew live in the city of departure/destination? While you're answering all that, what I'm getting at is there are a wide variety of factors that must be assessed, and assessed by the people who know the specifics (remember that word?).

Look at what you wrote. So how do you account for all those things and give back exactly what was put in? How do you assess the difficulty of handling a 10,000 ton train over 135 miles, with signals to comply with, difficulties of terrain etc, to the difficulties of switching cars in and out of a grain mill? What, are you going to "give back" more to a crew operating in mountainous territory, than one operating on the flats?

Or give back less to a crew that operates over a railroad governed by automatic train control systems since there is less chance of signal violation and collision?

The whole point of Marx's analysis of capitalism is the notion of abstract social labor-- labor as time and nothing but time. Your conception of "giving back" is certainly pre-Marxist and is much more akin to craft and guild labor, as if such a social organization could ever "give back" even close to what was put in.

That's some understanding you got of Marx and the "anti-socialist" nature of equality.

You actually think expanding variations in income are more socialist than raw equality?


Priceless. Says everything we need to know about your "materialist" analyses, and your understanding of Marx.

But back to Cuba... so tell me rocket scientist, exactly how the reforms are internally going to remedy the problems of rail freight operations in Cuba. How is the capital going to be generated to upgrade the track; to replace the rolling stock; to obtain new locomotives; to install grade crossing protection?

I'd like to see some explanation as to how these reforms are going to address what, according to the Cubans I worked with, one of their most serious problems.

PS. Check the posts-- I don't think I made a single remark about your user name... unless you and Flobdob are the same person.

[manic expression]

Look at what you wrote. So how do you account for all those things and give back exactly what was put in? How do you assess the difficulty of handling a 10,000 ton train over 135 miles, with signals to comply with, difficulties of terrain etc, to the difficulties of switching cars in and out of a grain mill? What, are you going to "give back" more to a crew operating in mountainous territory, than one operating on the flats?

Or give back less to a crew that operates over a railroad governed by automatic train control systems since there is less chance of signal violation and collision?
So in other words, you're not going to answer any of my questions, and you'd rather run away from your own hypothetical. Cool.


The whole point of Marx's analysis of capitalism is the notion of abstract social labor-- labor as time and nothing but time. Your conception of "giving back" is certainly pre-Marxist and is much more akin to craft and guild labor, as if such a social organization could ever "give back" even close to what was put in.
Except I didn't say x wages per hour and leave it at that. I see you like making things up when it comes to analysis and when it comes to discussion.


That's some understanding you got of Marx and the "anti-socialist" nature of equality.
:laugh: You don't even think wages are part of socialism.


You actually think expanding variations in income are more socialist than raw equality?
"Raw equality" can only be achieved in a classless society, which socialism is not.


Priceless. Says everything we need to know about your "materialist" analyses, and your understanding of Marx.
Cute. Full marks on not addressing what Marx wrote. :lol:


But back to Cuba... so tell me rocket scientist, exactly how the reforms are internally going to remedy the problems of rail freight operations in Cuba. How is the capital going to be generated to upgrade the track; to replace the rolling stock; to obtain new locomotives; to install grade crossing protection?

I'd like to see some explanation as to how these reforms are going to address what, according to the Cubans I worked with, one of their most serious problems.
I've been saying constantly that we can't know the long-term results of this reform until they play out. Anyone who says (as you have) that this and that are bound to happen have absolutely no idea what they're talking about because there isn't a really comparable example to analyze and draw predictions from.

So I'd like to see some explanation on what the hell is going through your mind when you type up these responses. It certainly has nothing to do with what I've said.


PS. Check the posts-- I don't think I made a single remark about your user name... unless you and Flobdob are the same person.
Hence my comment.

[S.Artesian]

Hence what? You're the same person?

But let's go back to quote from Marx's critique of the Gotha Program and clarify the matter which you have so woefully obscured.

Marx says this in responding to the "undiminished proceeds of labor" statement in the program:





From this must now be deducted: First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up. Second, additional portion for expansion of production. Third, reserve or insurance funds to provide against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.



These deductions from the "undiminished" proceeds of labor are an economic necessity, and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.


There remains the other part of the total product, intended to serve as means of consumption.



Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be deducted again, from it: First, the general costs of administration not belonging to production. This part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops. Second, that which is intended for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc. From the outset, this part grows considerably in comparison with present-day society, and it grows in proportion as the new society develops. Third, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.



Only now do we come to the "distribution" which the program, under Lassallean influence, alone has in view in its narrow fashion -- namely, to that part of the means of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the co-operative society.



The "undiminished" proceeds of labor have already unnoticeably become converted into the "diminished" proceeds, although what the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.
Just as the phrase of the "undiminished" proceeds of labor has disappeared, so now does the phrase of the "proceeds of labor" disappear altogether.



Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.



What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.



OK, that's the background. Now here's the statement:

Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. 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.


Notice how Marx says nothing about degree of difficulty, elements of danger , away from home status blahblahblahblah.

What he has given is his "individual quantum of labor"-- his, or her, portion of the total social working day-- [I]time and in return a voucher of some sort is issued for that time and he withdraws an amount of the social means of consumption equivalent to that time. That's how Marx resolves the problem.

Now there's lots of room for interpretation and expansion, discussion, and disagreement here, even with Marx's own formulation. But one thing is clear, Marx is not advocating distribution based on the particular circumstances of labor, the particular details of that labor, nor the particular productivity of that labor.

IMO, Marx is indicating a rough equality here, more that rough, a rather strict and neat equality here, based on social labor, and until the mode of production has been made productive enough to support greater expansion of social labor with even less time.

I would argue that this means, yeah a doctor, a teacher, draws as much as a sanitation worker, as a librarian, as a railroad conductor adjusted for specific circumstances of dependent children, or dependent adults etc. And the amounts drawn are not adjusted for an individual's "overtime" etc. as this gets worked out in the social working day, creating more for all of society, or so we hope, and thus the individual portion is perhaps [modestly]greater as an aliquot part, but there is no specific reward.

Now I think Cuba's current proposed reforms are moving away from that prescription Marx has just provided. And that amounts to a step backward.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Delicious real-estate market opening up. Nothing like buying and selling property, a great socialist virtue. Nothing like the state sponsoring quack-jobs like fortune tellers and private entrepreneurship...

Then again the people here arguing in defence of these deforms are the same that maintain that modern capitalist China is socialist in some way. :laugh:

[flobdob]

If I were a certain type of person, you know the type.. the type that likes to denounce "ultra-leftists" as armchair Marxists, etc. etc., this is the point where I would take such delight in flipping the script on our junior Fidelistas and ask them "What have you ever done for the Cuban Revolution, besides take a position?" But I'm not that type of person, so I would never do that. Besides, I don't know what our junior Fidelistas have or haven't done on behalf of the Cuban Revolution.
As you patently are the type to do that – after all, nobody raised the issue but you – let me clarify; I’m part of an organisation that works in solidarity with the Cuban revolution, that provided important material aid to young Cubans during the special period, organises solidarity brigades with the UJC for working class young people from the UK to learn from Cuba, and raised funds in working class communities to send to Cuban doctors working on the ground in Haiti. But as I’m not an “armchair Marxist”, I’m not going to ask you to say anything of the same, because it’s totally irrelevant to the issues at hand.


So let's not do that. Let's deal with what has, and has not, been argued. What has not been argued as that these reforms represent in and of themselves the restoration of capitalism to Cuba. What has been argued is that these reforms facilitate, enhance, quicken, capitalist social relations of production in Cuba.
So these reforms don’t represent the restoration of capitalism in Cuba…they just represent “enhanced” capitalist relations in Cuba. I’m reminded of a certain group of reactionaries that Marx and Engels argued with, the critical criticists…


Now that concept, social relations of production, most probably is not considered a critical factor in economic analysis, given the obvious cheerleading, the lack of critical analysis, our junior Fidelistas offer of absolutely anything to do with the conflicts and contradiction inherent in the organization of the Cuban economy, both internally and in relation to the world markets.


Pardon me, but it’s only the “junior Fidelistas” here which have actually raised any concrete facts in this entire “debate” – the likes of you are quite content to abstractly waffle on a load of nonsense and then slander those who challenge you. A modern day critical criticist indeed!


But that concept, the social relations of production, is the essential component of Marx's analysis of capitalism, pre-capitalism, and anti-capitalism. The only question that really matters in the first, and last, analysis is: "Do these reforms advance socialist relations of production, where the working class of Cuba is able to direct production, investment, the distribution of time, in order to meet real social needs, serve real social uses, enhance the equal opportunity and access of all to the resources required for a healthy, conscious life?"

Or.... "do these reforms enhance private property; the private exploitation of labor? Will these reforms create fundamental social inequalities that will crystallize along [proto]class lines?"


Which is exactly the issue that has been tackled a number of posts before this one – regardless, the abstract nonsense continues…

Manic Expression talks about "the same tirades as before." What tirades? What is being pointed out that these reforms have been initiated in an attempt to quicken economic growth through reducing the state sector's responsibilities and specific weight in the economy; that in its 52 year history, the Cuban Revolution has never attempted to move so many people [even within 5 years] out of the state sector and into the "mixed" or "private" sectors.
It’s quite clear what he is talking about – those same naysayers who declared that the Special Period constituted the restoration of capitalism in Cuba. When they were proven wrong then, they bleated that the election of Raul Castro meant a rise of “Dengism” or “market socialism”. When they were wrong then they now harp on that the decisions of the congress mark the establishment of capitalism. Not once have they stopped to consider the facts, and nor will they in the future.



No, the Cuban reforms are not the restoration of capitalism, and they are not yet a radical distortion, and disruption of the economy. But the reforms are unlikely to accomplish what they are designed to accomplish unless there is an opening of the economy to [almost] unrestricted foreign investment.
This of course would constitute your “solution” – opening Cuba up to the capitalist market. In reality, what are Cuba’s measures to do? They are to rapidly improve productivity within the context of socialism. What nobody seems to want to talk about is the predecessors of these reforms in the Rectification period, or indeed when Che managed the National Bank – doing so would force them to acknowledge the Guevarista legacy in Cuba.
Let’s look at these then, shall we? In 2005 – following the swing towards consolidation and rectification initiated by the Battle of Ideas, financial autonomy was taken away from Cuban enterprises (this includes, by the way, the Cuban share in mixed enterprises), with CUC reserves sent to the central bank, which now allocates them and approves all future financial transactions. The spirit of the BFS resurgent; financial centralisation was drawn here directly from experience of Guevara. A particular version of the EPS was then adopted in 2006 and finalised by 2007, drawing direct influence and parallels with Guevara’s experiments. What purpose did this serve? It provided a lever to foster productivity through planned investment. At the same time there has been a distinct move to build efficiency – we can recall the 2006 “Year of the Energy Revolution”, and Fidel’s 2005 calls for a war on the “new rich” – ideological struggle to rectify Guevara’s 1964 warning that “the possibilities for thieving will exist for a long time under socialism until there has been a change in people’s mentality”. Subsequent reforms under Raul build on this – the 2008 removal of the wage bonus caps on workers meeting or exceeding production targets, to boost productivity (at the same time as standardising salary policy across the economy). 2008 also saw the redistribution of land held in usufruct to boost productivity without rapidly adjusting property relations. The current employment reforms further aim to boost productivity by reallocating workers to areas of the economy where productive employment is weak – particularly in agriculture and construction. Indeed we must remember that Cuba has been attempting to increase domestic agricultural production for a long time to prevent price movements on the global economy affecting their costs – recall the organiponicos, the land reforms and now this encouragement through the employment reform.
Indeed, for someone so eager to talk about the need to increase foreign investment, it’s remarkable how you ignore perhaps the one biggest change in Cuba’s recent history – the creation of ALBA, which has developed foreign investment and trade. Likewise you are totally silent on the elephant in the room for Cuban trade – that is, the US blockade. For someone who paints his opponents as knowing nothing or little of the Cuban economy, it is perhaps suspect that you haven’t pointed this out.


Lets be clear. Cuba's infrastructure has undergone serious deterioration over the years. The ingenuity of the Cubans in keep their rail operations going giving the serious declines in rolling stock availability, track components, etc. is nothing short of amazing. But sooner or later, "amazing" and "resourcefulness" just aren't enough. Does anyone think that the Cuban government reforms are going to resolve the infrastructure problems? Does anyone think Cuba can reform its "socialism in one country"?
Nobody is arguing that Cuba’s infrastructure has undergone deteriation. Indeed, quite why you assume this is baffling.
Do I think Cuba’s current reforms are going to resolve infrastructure problems? No, because they aren’t aimed at doing that. Indirectly will they? By fostering internal productivity, they will facilitate the ability for Cuba to afford the ability to improve infrastructure problems. But socialism has fostered resourcefulness in Cuba – recall the massive expansion of cycling and reuse of horses that came when fuel supply collapsed with the Special Period. Can Cuba reform it’s “socialism in one country”? Absolutely.


Sure the Cuban government has attempted steps to mitigate the inequalities and distortions of the former 3 currency system. But it has not, and it cannot remove the economic impetus for those inequalities as long as it maintains the hard currency differential in the economy.
Absolutely. I said this in my previous post. However, to remove the dual currency, productivity has to be increased markedly – which is what these reforms are part of a program of doing.


On some minor points: ME should understand that "self-employment" is part of the private sector.
Quite.




Now we get to the point of "divergent incomes" and "equality" and socialism. ME claims divergent incomes are not contradictory to the principles of socialism. I'm sure the millionaires of the new China are happy to hear that and will be quick to agree with you. And Flobdob thinks he's oh so clever quoting Marx about the "individual receives back from society-- after deductions have been made-- exactly what he gives to it." This may come as shock to Flob but, the emphasis is not on getting back exactly what he gives to it-- which is in fact an impossibility-- but rather on the "after deductions have been made" part.
Yes – this under socialism accounts for the production of the means of production, the “social wage” and what have you. As Lenin rightly noted, “After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.” It is contrasted with the communist principle of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.


So yeah, divergences in incomes is incompatible-- not with socialism, which does away with the whole notion of incomes [sorry to be such a nitpicker, but socialism is a bit different from the way you describe it] but with the transition of the social organization of production to one directed by, of, and for, the satisfaction of need, and the enhancement of the social welfare of all.
This is where your idealist conception of socialism comes clear – you expect socialism to be communism. As Marx said, “"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes.” The utopian character of your “socialism” is even more obvious when you understand that it’s not simply stamped with the birthmarks of the old – but rather, the old is trying it’s damned best to kill the infant if it can.


Flub is even more clever bringing up his example of Pinochet and what was done to workers there. Interesting that he should bring that up... because I'm sure he, or his antecedents were out there in 1970-1-2-3 supporting Allende's Unidad Popular government, endorsing its strategies, its "reforms," denouncing those "ultra-lefts" who pointed out how Allende's policies were weakening the organization of the working class while failing to reconcile "the national bourgeoisie"-- which was the UP's explicit strategy.
You might want to get a bit of a history check, and see what my organisation – or the PSL/WWP for that matter – actually said about the events in Chile, rather than making blind assertions to cover up for your own lack of an argument.


With his usual distortion of arguments,-- actually I think a better name for FD would Twist and Flop, he points out how capitalism was born of the world market, the slave trade, etc. and asks me to point out where the Cuban government has engaged in such activity. I'd ask Twist and Flop to point out where I said the Cuban government was a capitalist government.
And this is it – somebody who actually presents a case is presented as “distorting arguments”, and subjected to childish namecalling. How old are you, 8? I’m yet to see a single sentence from you that doesn’t contain an outright falsehood, half-truth or flat out lie, as the paragraph above demonstrates.
My point was very clearly directed at your argument that Cuba is “facilitating capitalist social relations”. You could adhere to a deformed workers state analysis, a state capitalist or a whateverist analysis and this argument would still apply.


Real problems of accumulation exist in Cuba. These problems have existed in other economies, capitalist and non-capitalist prior to this. Privatization based on an internal, domestic, and isolated, reallocation of resources and labor power has never worked to remedy those problems. International intervention has always been essential. The only issue, historically, has been whether the intervention is going to be at the expense of workers, or at the expense of capitalism through the internationalization of social revolution.
Quite. But Cuba is not making privatisations. And from your demands for “[almost] unrestricted foreign investment” in Cuba, it’s very clear whose side you are on.


But meanwhile Twist and Manic, keep right on pom-pomming away, practicing Marxism the "real" way--- by subjecting everything to merciful endorsement.
Keep up with your laughable “analysis”. Cry and bleat as you might, the working class sure isn’t listening.

[S.Artesian]

As you patently are the type to do that – after all, nobody raised the issue but you – let me clarify; I’m part of an organisation that works in solidarity with the Cuban revolution, that provided important material aid to young Cubans during the special period, organises solidarity brigades with the UJC for working class young people from the UK to learn from Cuba, and raised funds in working class communities to send to Cuban doctors working on the ground in Haiti. But as I’m not an “armchair Marxist”, I’m not going to ask you to say anything of the same, because it’s totally irrelevant to the issues at hand.

Yes I patently am that type, given the ideological bunk that gets put out by those who think raising money for Cuba gives them some special relationship with the Cuban Revolution.



So these reforms don’t represent the restoration of capitalism in Cuba…they just represent “enhanced” capitalist relations in Cuba. I’m reminded of a certain group of reactionaries that Marx and Engels argued with, the critical criticists…

The critical critics inverted Hegel's dialectic into meaningless abstraction. Marx extracted the rational kernel by transposing the object, and subject, to the human, social labor process-- the relations of labor and property. So tell us, what sort of property relations, relations of labor to the product of labor, are being enhanced in these reforms? Socialist relations?




Pardon me, but it’s only the “junior Fidelistas” here which have actually raised any concrete facts in this entire “debate” – the likes of you are quite content to abstractly waffle on a load of nonsense and then slander those who challenge you. A modern day critical criticist indeed!


What concrete facts? That the government says it will maintain the "social safety net" during this process? That workers will be encouraged to seek employment in cooperatives? Yep, those sure sound like concrete facts to me. The government also announced, during the initial discussions of these reforms that it intended to reduced the state's role in the economy to certain basic, "essential" services. That's a concrete fact, too. What that fact means in actual social practice remains to be seen.



It’s quite clear what he is talking about – those same naysayers who declared that the Special Period constituted the restoration of capitalism in Cuba. When they were proven wrong then, they bleated that the election of Raul Castro meant a rise of “Dengism” or “market socialism”. When they were wrong then they now harp on that the decisions of the congress mark the establishment of capitalism. Not once have they stopped to consider the facts, and nor will they in the future.


Except that isn't what I'm talking about-- I thought we were "trying" to be concrete here. I said this represents a qualitatively, and quantitatively radical shift in the organization of the economy. I said it represents an attempt to reduce the burden on the state by shifting large numbers of workers out of the state sectors. I said this certainly generates, facilitates, the division of the working class, creating serious income differentials, that will manifest themselves in struggles over resources, and responsibilities and create a [proto]class of small, but growing capitalists.



This of course would constitute your “solution” – opening Cuba up to the capitalist market. In reality, what are Cuba’s measures to do? They are to rapidly improve productivity within the context of socialism.

And this shows the type of person you are... one who deliberately distorts what has been said. That is patently not "my" solution.... I pointed out historically such attempts cannot be resolved internally but require an international component, with the issue being whether its an international capitalist component, or an international revolutionary component.

I have not said Cuba is attempting these reforms because the bureaucracy as a social strata wants to become capitalist [although I'm sure there are individuals and sectors that feel that way]. I think the Cuban leadership sees no way to support its state apparatus if it is responsible for every aspect of income and welfare.

But you claim the Cubans must rapidly improve productivity within the context of socialism. So how is productivity improved? Is productivity improved, socially, by moving thousands of workers into "self-employment," "private sector," "coops"?

Well we have some experience with how that works and the experience shows us that the "increases in productivity" come about as living standards decline, and more people have to work longer hours for less renumeration.

Productivity means increasing output to the maximum while reducing labor inputs, or what amounts to the same thing ultimately, reducing cost inputs. Historically this means investment and application of machinery, technology in the production process, reducing, for capitalists, cost prices, and increasing relative surplus value.

If the issue for the Cuban economy is productivity, then how do these measures address the need for this sort of change in the "organic composition" of Cuban production? These reforms do not. And that's why I think they will fail but will unleash, or quicken, forces in the economy that will demand greater "freedom" of property, greater "freedom" of capital to exploit labor.





What nobody seems to want to talk about is the predecessors of these reforms in the Rectification period, or indeed when Che managed the National Bank – doing so would force them to acknowledge the Guevarista legacy in Cuba.
Let’s look at these then, shall we? In 2005 – following the swing towards consolidation and rectification initiated by the Battle of Ideas, financial autonomy was taken away from Cuban enterprises (this includes, by the way, the Cuban share in mixed enterprises), with CUC reserves sent to the central bank, which now allocates them and approves all future financial transactions. The spirit of the BFS resurgent; financial centralisation was drawn here directly from experience of Guevara. A particular version of the EPS was then adopted in 2006 and finalised by 2007, drawing direct influence and parallels with Guevara’s experiments. What purpose did this serve? It provided a lever to foster productivity through planned investment. At the same time there has been a distinct move to build efficiency – we can recall the 2006 “Year of the Energy Revolution”, and Fidel’s 2005 calls for a war on the “new rich” – ideological struggle to rectify Guevara’s 1964 warning that “the possibilities for thieving will exist for a long time under socialism until there has been a change in people’s mentality”. Subsequent reforms under Raul build on this – the 2008 removal of the wage bonus caps on workers meeting or exceeding production targets, to boost productivity (at the same time as standardising salary policy across the economy). 2008 also saw the redistribution of land held in usufruct to boost productivity without rapidly adjusting property relations. The current employment reforms further aim to boost productivity by reallocating workers to areas of the economy where productive employment is weak – particularly in agriculture and construction. Indeed we must remember that Cuba has been attempting to increase domestic agricultural production for a long time to prevent price movements on the global economy affecting their costs – recall the organiponicos, the land reforms and now this encouragement through the employment reform.

That's a fine bit of ideological history, but what have the results been? Exactly what has been the boost in productivity? I'm talking about productivity-- greater output for low inputs.



Indeed, for someone so eager to talk about the need to increase foreign investment, it’s remarkable how you ignore perhaps the one biggest change in Cuba’s recent history – the creation of ALBA, which has developed foreign investment and trade. Likewise you are totally silent on the elephant in the room for Cuban trade – that is, the US blockade. For someone who paints his opponents as knowing nothing or little of the Cuban economy, it is perhaps suspect that you haven’t pointed this out.


Ah... I was waiting for that. Here's the gut check: "You didn't mention the US blockade." Is that your way of imputing that I'm not against the blockade? That I'm not anti-blockade. I'm pretty well aware of what the blockade means... having "run" the blockade myself to do some things in Cuba. Try not being such a predictable putz.

The US blockade is the given in this discussion. It's impact on Cuba is known. We weren't discussing the US blockade, which these reforms will not change. Nor will these reforms overcome the burdens of that blockade.


Nobody is arguing that Cuba’s infrastructure has undergone deterioration. Indeed, quite why you assume this is baffling.
Do I think Cuba’s current reforms are going to resolve infrastructure problems? No, because they aren’t aimed at doing that. Indirectly will they? By fostering internal productivity, they will facilitate the ability for Cuba to afford the ability to improve infrastructure problems.

And if it doesn't address infrastructure, exactly how is it going to enhance productivity? You are making the same argument made by those arguing that the foreign tourism trade allows economies, "indirectly," to boost productivity. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. What the foreign tourism trade does is allocate resources inordinately to itself. What it does is introduce greater income differentials within the working class.





This is where your idealist conception of socialism comes clear – you expect socialism to be communism. As Marx said, “"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes.” The utopian character of your “socialism” is even more obvious when you understand that it’s not simply stamped with the birthmarks of the old – but rather, the old is trying it’s damned best to kill the infant if it can.


Why don't you actually deal with what Marx says in the Critique rather than just cherry pick the quotes you want. Why don't you deal with what he actually says about the transition to socialism, and the equality that is inherent in his notion of the transition-- where the worker, as an individual, is the social worker, is a collective producer, not an individual only out for individual gain, and gets back from the society what he puts into it as part of that collectivity, that social producer-- an aliquot portion of the social working time?


You might want to get a bit of a history check, and see what my organisation – or the PSL/WWP for that matter – actually said about the events in Chile, rather than making blind assertions to cover up for your own lack of an argument.



I've done that.



And this is it – somebody who actually presents a case is presented as “distorting arguments”, and subjected to childish namecalling. How old are you, 8?

Actually, I'm 6, but I'm big for my age.



I’m yet to see a single sentence from you that doesn’t contain an outright falsehood, half-truth or flat out lie, as the paragraph above demonstrates.

The only falsehoods and lies around here are yours. Here's another example



And from your demands for “[almost] unrestricted foreign investment” in Cuba, it’s very clear whose side you are on.


I've never made any such demand, you lying sack of rancid rat fat. I pointed out how historically what policies and actions these sorts of problems have imposed upon less-developed countries.... that historically, overcoming "productivity" issues has led Vietnam, China, Russia, Poland, Hungary to unrestrict foreign investment, creating economic dislocation, and eventually, overall negative impacts on living standards.

[manic expression]

Notice how Marx says nothing about degree of difficulty,
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.

So you're saying that total time spent at work is the only measure of "amount of labor"...?


What he has given is his "individual quantum of labor"-- his, or her, portion of the total social working day-- time and in return a voucher of some sort is issued for that time and he withdraws an amount of the social means of consumption equivalent to that time. That's how Marx resolves the problem.
This is rich. Just a post ago you were deriding the idea that labor can be reduced to time spent at work. You called it all sorts of names, and now here you are, championing it yourself.

So returning to the metaphor that you so eagerly ran away from...does the first railroad team get more income than the second?


IMO, Marx is indicating a rough equality here, more that rough, a rather strict and neat equality here, based on social labor, and until the mode of production has been made productive enough to support greater expansion of social labor with even less time.
"Rough equality"...care to quantify what that roughly means?


Now I think Cuba's current proposed reforms are moving away from that prescription Marx has just provided. And that amounts to a step backward.
It's a step that generally adheres to the principles that Marx provides. You keep stepping away from it because it illustrates the futility of your argument in plain black-and-white.

[S.Artesian]

This is rich. Just a post ago you were deriding the idea that labor can be reduced to time spent at work. You called it all sorts of names, and now here you are, championing it yourself.




Reference please. Where did I say what you claim I said? In the meantime, read again what Marx says.. the whole paragraph: the worker is a social worker, he or she contributes to the social working day and gets an aliquot part of the total social working day. What I said, is that IMO, this means there is no "extra compensation" to an individual for the difficulty of the labor, the productivity of the labor, and even for differentials in the particular time consumed in the work. The social obligation, of course, is the immediate and continuous reduction of the working day.



So returning to the metaphor that you so eagerly ran away from...does the first railroad team get more income than the second?

I didn't run away from anything. I used the example, and the full quote from Marx to show how your absurd interpretation is actually counter to what Marx asserts, and that in a socialist, or transition to socialism, individual wage differentials are radically reduced. No...I didn't spell out the conclusion for the railroad workers. Pardon me for presuming you have more intelligence or initiative than you actually have, and thinking that you'd be able to figure out the answer on your own. My mistake. So let me help you. Both railroad teams are compensated equally. They have contributed their time to the total social working day as workers, they draw the aliquot part of the social product. The differences in the particularities of their work are eliminated in the performance of general social labor.



"Rough equality"...care to quantify what that roughly means?

Sure. Individuals have different requirements-- one may need different, more complicated eyewear than the other; one may require different foodstuffs; one may have to draw more based on those dependent on him/her. But such withdrawals are not based on the differences in the particular labor.



It's a step that generally adheres to the principles that Marx provides. You keep stepping away from it because it illustrates the futility of your argument in plain black-and-white.

Saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Wishing and hoping is not materialist analysis.

[manic expression]

Reference please.
The whole point of Marx's analysis of capitalism is the notion of abstract social labor-- labor as time and nothing but time.

You identify this with capitalist society. Why are you then now brandishing it as the gold-standard of socialist society? Perhaps you need some time to figure out what you're arguing.


I didn't run away from anything. I used the example, and the full quote from Marx to show how your absurd interpretation is actually counter to what Marx asserts, and that in a socialist, or transition to socialism, individual wage differentials are radically reduced.
"Radically reduced", but not erased. And you did run away from it, for as soon as I asked you for clarification, you launched into some fresh tirade and haven't touched your own allusion since then.


But such withdrawals are not based on the differences in the particular labor.
You've failed to explain why.


Saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Wishing and hoping is not materialist analysis.
:laugh: "Wishing and hoping" for the fall of the Revolution is all your analysis is.

[S.Artesian]

this is what you claimed:


This is rich. Just a post ago you were deriding the idea that labor can be reduced to time spent at work. You called it all sorts of names, and now here you are, championing it yourself.
As evidence, when I ask where did I say that, you provide this:


The whole point of Marx's analysis of capitalism is the notion of abstract social labor-- labor as time and nothing but time.

So where do I deride the notion? I don't. Marx doesn't. And Marx uses this notion to describe a mechanism of transition.

Yes, that's what capitalism accomplishes, as part and parcel of its increase in the productivity of labor, the social interconnection of all labor through exchange; the overcoming [more or less, usually less successfully] of obstacles to the creation of the proletariat.

So do we reject the productivity of labor; the general social interconnection; the creation of the proletariat? Of course not, we "build upon that" as Marx points out. We build upon that general, collective social labor, as measured by time, to expand that productivity, increase the social connection, eliminate exploitation, and overcome the structured inequality, the structured division of he working class in the transition to the classless society.

I answered your question about the railroad crews. If you disagree, then show your alternative and where you disagree. Otherwise your just pumping gas with you mouth.

[chegitz guevara]

Cuba seems to be the greatest example of the dead-end of petty bourgeois nationalism.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/

No.

[manic expression]

So where do I deride the notion? I don't. Marx doesn't. And Marx uses this notion to describe a mechanism of transition.
You called it a part of capitalism. We're talking about the dynamics of socialism. Is it your contention that the socialist treatment of labor in terms of recompense should draw its example from that of capitalism? Is it your contention that if one worker at the sanitation department sits at a desk for 6 hours, and another spends 6 hours wading through sewer waste...they should always get the exact same wage? The worker who is required to spend entire months away from her/his family should get the exact same as the worker who walks down the street to their job?

You get out what you put into it, after deductions have been made. All you're putting into this discussion is denial.


I answered your question about the railroad crews. If you disagree, then show your alternative and where you disagree. Otherwise your just pumping gas with you mouth.
No, you didn't answer it, you neglected to mention it again. Perhaps you need time to think it over.

[S.Artesian]

You called it a part of capitalism. We're talking about the dynamics of socialism. Is it your contention that the socialist treatment of labor in terms of recompense should draw its example from that of capitalism? Is it your contention that if one worker at the sanitation department sits at a desk for 6 hours, and another spends 6 hours wading through sewer waste...they should always get the exact same wage? The worker who is required to spend entire months away from her/his family should get the exact same as the worker who walks down the street to their job?

I said it was the whole point to Marx's analysis of capitalism [which is an overstatement]. It is actually the whole point that creates the basis for the overthrow of capitalism, and the emancipation of social labor. However such emancipation cannot be achieved without the development, and "improvement" of abstract social labor, by the proletarian revolution. That's the point. You have to climb the ladder before you throw it away.

I nowhere deride the notion of abstract social labor, or think it is something that needs to be abolished, or eliminated through.... well what you are offering is nothing but reproduction of the capitalist system through differential wage rates; differential compensations.


Yes, the abstract social labor is part of capitalism, as is the proletariat, as is the development of the productivity of labor, and all those other things I mentioned. And Marx is quite clear that it is this "abstract social labor" which capital measures and amplifies through increased organic composition is what in fact constitutes the "progress" of capitalism over other previous systems.

Capitalism, of course, manifests this in its peculiar, perverted, exploitative fashion: "Time is everything, man is nothing; or at most, time's carcass."

Without abstract social labor, no method, no reason, no need to enhance productivity on the part of the bourgeoisie.

And yes, I'm saying exactly that... that somebody who sits at a desk for 6 hours and registers people entering a hospital, and someone who is a sewer inspector working 6 hours are compensated in their individual "rates" roughly equally. That's exactly what I'm saying.

And I think the airline pilot and the baggage handler get compensated equally. And the doctor and the sanitation worker get compensated equally. What part of that violates your version of socialism.

The worker who spends months away from his or her family? What compensation do you think makes that palatable? You think, that under socialism we should pay someone who works on the oil rig ten times more than the sanitation worker? 50X more? If the problem is separation from the family, how can wage compensation mitigate that?

"Oh, sure I can't see my kids grow up," says the star baseball player, "because I'm the road so much. But with my triple rations of Budweiser, I can....." I can what? Exactly what can he or she do? Maybe exchange the Budweiser for.... broadband access so he/she can video-skype his/her kids? Or maybe swap the Budweiser for this really cool pair of cowboy boots, which aren't exactly my kids, but I want them and this is the only way to get them? Or maybe... sell the extra Budweiser.... and... and buy whatever I want in the.... what? In the what, the cash store? The hard currency store where imported goods are available?

Hey... rocket scientist, maybe you don't recognize it but you're on the road to barter, and from barter to exchange of commodities for money... and tell me again how that fits into socialist production relations, because I forget.

Maybe we have to think outside the box, outside the paycheck, outside the wage system; outside commodity compensation-- something like-- breaking down the specialization of labor-- so that oil rig workers rotate in and out of the offshore work with sanitation workers or historians or clerks. Maybe we need to do something like reduce the working year, for those who are going to spend considerable time in isolated circumstances, so that a rig worker works only 4 months out of the year on the rig. How's that sound? Too communist for you? Gee, that's too bad.



No, you didn't answer it, you neglected to mention it again. Perhaps you need time to think it over.

Read much? I told you, they are compensated equally.

[Robocommie]

Why don't we all take a nice revleft field trip so we can all soak in first hand experiences and observations, and discuss them, all IN REAL TIME.

That'd be kinda bomb, but we need separate bunks or the Revlefters will KILL EACH OTHER

[manic expression]

I said it was the whole point to Marx's analysis of capitalism [which is an overstatement]. It is actually the whole point that creates the basis for the overthrow of capitalism, and the emancipation of social labor. However such emancipation cannot be achieved without the development, and "improvement" of abstract social labor, by the proletarian revolution. That's the point. You have to climb the ladder before you throw it away.
Yeah, but we're talking about what society looks like after you throw it away.


I nowhere deride the notion of abstract social labor, or think it is something that needs to be abolished, or eliminated through.... well what you are offering is nothing but reproduction of the capitalist system through differential wage rates; differential compensations.
What I'm explaining is a socialist society along the lines that Marx described. Call my position what you want, but you'll have to admit that Marx was "offering nothing but reproduction of the capitalist system through differential wage rates; differential compensations." Admit that or be held as duplicitous.


The worker who spends months away from his or her family? What compensation do you think makes that palatable? You think, that under socialism we should pay someone who works on the oil rig ten times more than the sanitation worker? 50X more? If the problem is separation from the family, how can wage compensation mitigate that?
See previous answer. There are plenty of factors to be taken into account. But if you actually think you can make a society run where there's no difference if your work is comfortable or uncomfortable, far away from home or close...good luck with that. Notice that we can see just about every socialist country in recorded history with income differences in some manner. So your mental gymnastics here are quite beside the material reality of things.


Hey... rocket scientist, maybe you don't recognize it but you're on the road to barter, and from barter to exchange of commodities for money... and tell me again how that fits into socialist production relations, because I forget.
You forget because you've lost all conception of what socialism is. Socialism needn't be a barter economy.


Maybe we have to think outside the box, outside the paycheck, outside the wage system; outside commodity compensation-- something like-- breaking down the specialization of labor-- so that oil rig workers rotate in and out of the offshore work with sanitation workers or historians or clerks. Maybe we need to do something like reduce the working year, for those who are going to spend considerable time in isolated circumstances, so that a rig worker works only 4 months out of the year on the rig. How's that sound? Too communist for you? Gee, that's too bad.
No, it sounds fine to me, but it does sound irrelevant to what we're discussing. Of course your "thinking outside the box" has always been part of the long-term goals of the communist movement, but they aren't inherent parts of socialist society. Especially one that is isolated so. You might as well tell us your glorious "outside the box" ideas about making Cuba a classless society...something we all agree with, but something that anyone with an ounce of sense in their body can see is impossible at present. Socialists deal first and foremost with what exists, and in the case of Cuba there exists a socialist society that is attempting to boost productivity within the structure of socialism. In response, you ramble because it's clear you're at odds with Marxism and Marx.


Read much? I told you, they are compensated equally.
After ignoring all the factors I brought up, effectively side-stepping the issue.

[GallowsBird]

Can we admit that Castroism is a failure?

No.

It may not be perfted but you have to give it to Cuba and the "Castroists" for survivng invasions, blockades and being alienated from most of the world for so long; and most of all you have to respect all Castro and the "Castroists" have done for the Cuban people and how much they have improved the life of the worker and that can't be a bad thing.

[Red_Struggle]

Market mechanisms are unjustifiable in a supposedly socialist economy. Not only do money-commodity relations antagonize even further, but it only opens the door to a cheap/slave labor market in underdeveloped/developing countries such as Kenya or China. Protectionism and and independent economy fly out the window in order to make room for new businesses. I realize Cuba isn't at this particular stage yet, but I predict that it will in given time.


Also: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/Compass101-Cuba92.htm

[S.Artesian]

Yeah, but we're talking about what society looks like after you throw it away.
No, we are not. That's the point. Marx, the Marx you and Flob cite in COTGP is talking about the society as it emerges from the capitalist womb, remember? A society stamped by the conditions of its origins in every facet.. remember? Sorry to insist that maintain a bit of consistency, but hey it's just my nature.

As to railroads, I answered your query. I stated they are compensated equally. Tell me then what factors do you think warrant one team or the other to be entitled to greater compensation.

Or take to equivalent mainline hauls. One crew hauls 100 cars X distance. The other crew hauls 200 cars X distance. Are you going to compensate them differently? If not, why not?




But if you actually think you can make a society run where there's no difference if your work is comfortable or uncomfortable, far away from home or close...good luck with that.
Good luck with establishing equality, reducing wage differentials? That's priceless. What... you forgot to say that's idealistic, and people are motivated by self-interest and material reward.


Notice that we can see just about every socialist country in recorded history with income differences in some mannerObviously, you haven't been keeping up with current events. You seemed to have missed that part where all the so-called socialist countries in recorded history with income differences have either collapsed, or... mimicked capitalism and abandoned what you call, improperly, "socialism." An uncharitable sort might, based on that fact, point out how absurd it is to refer to "socialist countries in recorded history."

You might be interested to know that Marx referred to the transition as a condition where a formal equality was imposed, one that was "equal" but "unequal" in that it did not account for individual variations. It was in communism that we move from this formal equality-- of drawing the aliquot part of the total social working day to the state where each and all could obtain all they needed, according to their individual needs.

I'll admit nothing about your ridiculous interpretation of Marx's remarks in COTGP except of course that it's your ridiculous interpretation.

What isn't irrelevant is that all you come up with in your supposed "socialist" compensation scheme is the mimicking of capitalist exchange relations; capitalist wage differentials. That is highly relevant and says everything about the nature of these types of reforms and those who uncritically endorse them as "socialist." Recorded history tells us exactly what happens to the capitalist imitators.

[manic expression]

I answered your query. I stated they are compensated equally. Tell me then what factors do you think warrant one team or the other to be entitled to greater compensation.
So if one team is required to stay away from their homes for a month, and the other is out and back every day...they get paid the same?


Good luck with establishing equality, reducing wage differentials? That's priceless. What... you forgot to say that's idealistic, and people are motivated by self-interest and material reward.
Wait, who was the one who talked about "rough equality"? Oh, right...you did. :lol:


Obviously, you haven't been keeping up with current events. You seemed to have missed that part where all the so-called socialist countries in recorded history with income differences have either collapsed, or... mimicked capitalism and abandoned what you call, improperly, "socialism." An uncharitable sort might, based on that fact, point out how absurd it is to refer to "socialist countries in recorded history."
The Paris Commune fell...so obviously we shouldn't learn from its example or deem it a dictatorship of the proletariat. :rolleyes: Looks like you can check off one more box on your "Contradict Every Principle of Marxism" list.


You might be interested to know that Marx referred to the transition as a condition where a formal equality was imposed, one that was "equal" but "unequal" in that it did not account for individual variations. It was in communism that we move from this formal equality-- of drawing the aliquot part of the total social working day to the state where each and all could obtain all they needed, according to their individual needs.
Interesting in that it doesn't prove your arguments whatsoever, sure.


I'll admit nothing about your ridiculous interpretation of Marx's remarks in COTGP except of course that it's your ridiculous interpretation.
A ridiculous interpretation that plainly observes what is clearly stated. You get out what you put into it, after deductions. Your argument is that no, Marx didn't write this, but meant to write that everyone gets exactly the same no matter what. And that we trade Budweisers for cowboy boots. :laugh:


Recorded history tells us exactly what happens to the capitalist imitators.
Recorded history tells us plenty about "socialists" who are incapable of supporting socialism.

[S.Artesian]

Answer the questions that have been posed and we can take it from there. As it is, it's pretty clear that you're nothing but a poseur with little knowledge of what you pretend to talk about.

Nobody in the railroad industry is required to be away from home for a month. People can take jobs that require them to be away, and this being a capitalist system, they get to demand additional compensation.

I was offered a job working in the fSU years ago. on their railroad. It was a "name your price," "we fly you once a month to anywhere in Europe to see your family," deal.

But take the simple problem-- one crew hauls X cars Y miles; other crew hauls 2x cars Y miles, or 1.5 miles. What is the basis for compensating the crews differently?


Recorded history tells us plenty about "socialists" who are incapable of supporting socialism.

Being clearly that type of person, let me point out that I've actually worked with Cubans on some of their problems. What exactly have you done.... besides wear a Che tee shirt to the family picnic, I mean?

[manic expression]

Answer the questions that have been posed and we can take it from there. As it is, it's pretty clear that you're nothing but a poseur with little knowledge of what you pretend to talk about.
There are still multiple questions sitting on this thread that you haven't touched. Go back and try again. Thanks. Oh, and don't forget that Marx quote that renders your arguments absurd.


Nobody in the railroad industry is required to be away from home for a month. People can take jobs that require them to be away, and this being a capitalist system, they get to demand additional compensation.
So your plan is to not have anyone fill those positions unless they feel like it?


But take the simple problem-- one crew hauls X cars Y miles; other crew hauls 2x cars Y miles, or 1.5 miles. What is the basis for compensating the crews differently?
I don't think that's a factor that would necessitate different wage levels. I'm talking about other issues...issues that you couldn't help but ignore.


Being clearly that type of person, let me point out that I've actually worked with Cubans on some of their problems. What exactly have you done.... besides wear a Che tee shirt to the family picnic, I mean?
So you are that type of person...the type of person to sit opposite unions in negotiations as part of your job, the type of person to glorify their role as a lackey of the capitalist class. As for me, I've participated in Cuban solidarity work in multiple countries, including agitprop, marches, campaigns, etc. And since you breached the subject, what sort of political activity (note, doesn't include plying your trade in a given country) have you engaged in on this issue?

[S.Artesian]

That's exactly the type of person I am, so much so that the head of the Cuban railways asked me to help with some of those same problems he was dealing with in his operation, as did the Egyptian National Railway.

The Marx quote, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, supports my position, and not yours. Marx's emphasis is in reducing the wage differential by shifting the economic emphasis to the social production, to the areas of the "social deductions."

As for those "long-term" away from home positions-- those are not any part of any railroads operating or financial plan. Those are exceptional circumstances. In my case the compensation didn't matter. I didn't want to be in Yeltsin's Russia, and doubly so during winter. And.... in the case of Cuba, the compensation didn't matter either as I declined to accept any, it was the opportunity to be there and participate in something other than fundraising or "fair play" marches that mattered.

However, let's call your bluff.

Mainline haul crew: Total time working in turn-around service, 11 hours; overnight periods away from home, 0 hours. Tonnage handled 12,000 tons. Members of crew: 2. Potential for injury- calculated on the basis of injuries/100,000 employee hours-- .036. Locomotives operated, 3- 4000 hp each. Total mileage, 270. Airhoses coupled, 2. Handbrakes set, 4. Handbrakes released, 4. Switches thrown, 6. Time period allotted for lunch break, 30 minutes

Local crew: Total time on duty: 9 hours. overnight periods, 0. Tonnage handled, 6000 tons. Members of crew, 3. Potential for injury .036. Locomotives operated, 3-2500 hp. Total mileage 80. Airhoses coupled, 32. Handbrakes set, 8. Handbrakes released 18. Lunch, 30 minutes. Switches thrown, 16.

That should be enough for you to come up with your wonderful Donald Trump compensation scheme.

And yeah, I'm exactly that type of person, proud of every single thing I did in my railroad career because I made things safer for everyone, particularly the passengers and the employees working on the ground. And yeah that meant I actually fired those who violated stop signals and caused a collision; who showed up to work and did work intoxicated; who tampered with locomotive safety devices; and once, some lunatic who decided he could punch out another employee because "he didn't like his looks."


But I'm sure, in your make-believe pseudo socialist, capitalist aping world, you'll handle all that differently-- you'll simply compensate those who don't cause collisions, violate the rules, punch other employees, more than those who do those things. That will work, I'm sure.

Advice to those following this thread-- don't take the train if this clown ever gets his way. And BTW, don't take the trains Egypt... yet.

[manic expression]

That's exactly the type of person I am, so much so that the head of the Cuban railways asked me to help with some of those same problems he was dealing with in his operation, as did the Egyptian National Railway.
So I suppose you have some experience with communists...which should balance out your apparent lack of political activity.


The Marx quote, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, supports my position, and not yours. Marx's emphasis is in reducing the wage differential by shifting the economic emphasis to the social production, to the areas of the "social deductions."
:lol: You haven't demonstrated any such thing. You've heed and hawed every which way about unrelated issues while failing to address the quote head-on. Marx clearly says that one gets out what one puts into it, and yet you say that everyone should get exactly the same. Like I said before, if you'd like to believe that you've addressed the issue to make yourself feel better, go right ahead. Just don't pretend it's anything but your usual denial.


As for those "long-term" away from home positions-- those are not any part of any railroads operating or financial plan. Those are exceptional circumstances.
So those exceptional circumstances don't merit any exceptional compensation...in direct violation of the principles Marx just laid out for us? Nice argument, too bad it's in opposition to, you know, Marxism.


Mainline haul crew: Total time working in turn-around service, 11 hours; overnight periods away from home, 0 hours. Tonnage handled 12,000 tons. Members of crew: 2. Potential for injury- calculated on the basis of injuries/100,000 employee hours-- .036. Locomotives operated, 3- 4000 hp each. Total mileage, 270. Airhoses coupled, 2. Handbrakes set, 4. Handbrakes released, 4. Switches thrown, 6. Time period allotted for lunch break, 30 minutes

Local crew: Total time on duty: 9 hours. overnight periods, 0. Tonnage handled, 6000 tons. Members of crew, 3. Potential for injury .036. Locomotives operated, 3-2500 hp. Total mileage 80. Airhoses coupled, 32. Handbrakes set, 8. Handbrakes released 18. Lunch, 30 minutes. Switches thrown, 16.In this situation, equal pay is most likely appropriate.

How about the sanitation example I brought up (the one you ran away from)? Let's say someone works in an office for 4 hours, while another workers is knee-deep in sewer waste for 9 hours. Same wage? Better get on your dancing shoes once again.


And yeah, I'm exactly that type of person, proud of every single thing I did in my railroad career because I made things safer for everyone, particularly the passengers and the employees working on the ground.
Spoken like a true capitalist. "I've made things safer for consumers and my employees." But you needn't be bashful, you're also proud of overseeing the exploitation of workers for the profit of the capitalist class. Something that mirrors your political views.


But I'm sure, in your make-believe pseudo socialist, capitalist aping world, you'll handle all that differently-- you'll simply compensate those who don't cause collisions, violate the rules, punch other employees, more than those who do those things. That will work, I'm sure.
It would be handled differently because those workers you were overseeing wouldn't be exploited for capitalist profit.

You know, materialist conditions 'n' stuff...exactly what you don't care about.


Advice to those following this thread-- don't take the train if this clown ever gets his way. And BTW, don't take the trains Egypt... yet.
You should also tell them not to read Marx's writings...seeing as you despise them enough to ignore them. :laugh:

[RED DAVE]

We can admit nothing of the sort if we're being honest with the facts. These new reforms are a restructuring of Cuba's socialist system. The ability of small businesses to hire isn't anything new, it's just an expansion of that limited ability to more professions. Apparently news of this expansion is coming solely through CNN, so it'll be far easier to talk productively about the substance of the issue once more facts are known. It must be said time and again that these reforms must be analyzed carefully and patiently. The anti-Cuba crowd was screaming hysterically about the death of Cuban socialism some 20 years ago.

And frankly, party clowns being able to work with an assistant and pay them a share of their earnings isn't so much a contradiction of socialist relations. Let's see what the specifics are first.Welcome to Fantasy Island. :D

These "reforms" represent a moment in the process of the transformation of Cuba from state capitalism to private capitalism.

RED DAVE

[manic expression]

S.Artesian, drawing upon his immense experience as a lackey for capitalist bosses, continues to obfuscate the issue and dodge the plain words of Marx. It should be more appropriate and productive to contrast his arguments with those of the communist movement. In particular, let's see what some communist leaders have to say about the issue. Lenin, drawing from Marx's ideas, writes (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm):

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:

"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).

--------------------------

That's funny, S.Artesian holds the opposite, that everyone is equal, that all things are equal, that equality reigns supreme. Actual communists who led actual working-class revolutions, quoting Marx directly, disagree.

Very clearly, S.Artesian's ultra-left ramblings align closely with those of Lassalle, a thinker whom Marx critiqued directly on this very issue. If we go to the source of this, this becomes all the more obvious, as we find that Marx writes (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm):

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right.

But wasn't S.Artesian hammering away that this is an impossibility in socialism? Yes, he did precisely that, and now Marx's own words have richly exposed his position as folly. Thus, we find that the S.Artesian's idea of socialism, and his "analysis" of Cuba, is definitively anti-Marxist, anti-materialist and not actually socialist at all.

[S.Artesian]

Marx's principle as he outlines in the COTGP, and as he describes it in other writings, is to eliminate wage differentials along with a radical reduction of the working day. "Rough equality" is imposed in the transition period, where compensation is based, explicitly, on return of an aliquot portion of the social labor time and not on the particulars of the work being performed. You obviously aren't aware of what exchange value means, and the basis it creates for socialism, but that basis is that all labors can be viewed as equivalent, can be expressed as a social abstract labor.

That is the basis for compensation during the "transition," in a society that emerges from the womb of the old stamped by the conditions of its origin. But since it's supposed to be a transition, we don't simply reproduce the tiering of compensation-- we do not, in the transition, provide more compensation to locomotive engineers than we do to track workers, car inspectors, yardmasters etc. We do not compensate road engineers more than we compensate local switching engineers. We do not compensate, individually, or collectively but in personal compensation, workers in a specific industry. Airline pilots don't get compensated more than coal miners; coal miners do not get compensated more than truck drivers; sanitation workers don't get compensated more than clerks.

In the railroad example, all those things you thought were so important-- the differentials in intensity and even elapsed time on duty don't matter anymore, do they? Why not? What are you going to tell the union rep of that road crew when he or she submits a claim on behalf of the road crew for extra compensation based on 11 hours on duty? Why is their eleven hours on duty not worth a differential compared to the 9 hours of the local crew, when the 9 hours on duty of a sewer inspector is compared to the 4 hours of a clerk? Are are you going to establish a "craft" differential, rewarding the road crew additional compensation based on their "craft" vs. the sewer inspector, or vice versa?

And on what rational grounds? Are you going to say... because the sewer inspector has a job with more risk? Really? And what will you say when the road crew points out that, on alternate days, they're not hauling coal, they're hauling tank cars full of hazardous chemicals? Or when the conductor on the switching crew points out the potential risk in having to go between 100 ton freight cars to make the air hose connections, or adjust the drawbars?

Or are you going to claim the sewer inspector has a job with more discomfort? You're going to tell that to a switching or yard crew that works outdoors in the snow, the cold, and the pouring rain, in conditions where vision and hearing can be obstructed with freight cars rolling freely... and silently?

All you are doing is reproducing the aggrandizement of labor for wages, although the wages in this case take the form of vouchers for product. Let's be clear the workers do not get back exactly what they put in, since they produce a surplus. They don't get back, individually, more if their particular industry is more productive, if their labor is more productive, because productivity is a social product, based on the overall development of the production process, and it is the contributions of those workers who are not in those particular industries who contribute to the total social product that allows for distribution of surplus into certain industries to enhance productivity.

If you knew anything about Capital, or capital, you would know that the productivity of the individual worker is a social product; that the productivity of any particular industry is NOT the product of that particular industry's investment, but a product of the total social surplus produced and the distribution of that total social surplus through exchange at prices of production.
The proletariat, emerging from the womb of capital, understans the social composition, creation, of surplus; that it is not the result of an individual worker working "harder" in the social main, but of the organization of production, and so the proletarian revolution compensate workers socially, as part of the whole, until such time as the productivity of society is at a level, and the organization of society is at a level, where all particularities, not of work, but of need and use can be supported.

Regarding your example-- I've already answered that. Except there's this one issue-- why would we set the working day for sanitary/sewer inspectors at 9 hours and clerks at 4 hours? That's just your way of doing what the bourgeoisie do... creating differentials in compensation based on value.

Short version: You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

[HEAD ICE]

if i was you i would just ignore manic. literally, put the dude on ignore. just from what i see what you have quoted it looks like his regular habit of constructing absurd strawmans of your argument where he fails to even give a good rebuttal to said strawman is still in full effect. the guy is the most obnoxious and snotty poster on this message board. his behavior makes sense when you consider the material conditions he finds himself in, being a trust fund law student and all.

[manic expression]

First, I'd like to thank you for again ignoring the words of Marx and Lenin.

Second, let's cut to the middle of your horseshit. That principle (equal pay and reducing the workday) is the ULTIMATE GOAL, not an inherent part of socialism. You keep singing the same tune, unaware that you're not dealing with the issue at hand. I'll wait until you do.

As Marx and Lenin both say, compensation during the first phase of communism (aka socialism) is not equal, owing to differences in labor, in circumstance and so on. This has been shown to you countless times, and yet you dance past it because you lack intellectual integrity.

On your railroad example, the labor seemed comparable, so it's not really an example of what I'm talking about. On my sanitation example, the labor isn't comparable because one is extremely uncomfortable and almost double the time than the other. Thus, it is reasonable to offer a bit extra to the worker who puts in more, as Marx said. Out of all your ultra-left ramblings, you haven't touched that reality.


Let's be clear the workers do not get back exactly what they put in, since they produce a surplus. They don't get back, individually, more if their particular industry is more productive, if their labor is more productive, because productivity is a social product, based on the overall development of the production process, and it is the contributions of those workers who are not in those particular industries who contribute to the total social product that allows for distribution of surplus into certain industries to enhance productivity.
Um, yeah, that's what Marx and Lenin both say. Hence the word "deductions". However, where you diverge totally from Marxism is where you go into thick, self-defeating jargon that runs contrary to the passages I just posted. Let me jog your memory:

This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

Let's see if you can pay attention this time. Probably not.


Short version: You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.
You think your ass and a hole in the ground should get the same income. :lol:

[manic expression]

if i was you i would just ignore manic. literally, put the dude on ignore. just from what i see what you have quoted it looks like his regular habit of constructing absurd strawmans of your argument where he fails to even give a good rebuttal to said strawman is still in full effect. the guy is the most obnoxious and snotty poster on this message board. his behavior makes sense when you consider the material conditions he finds himself in, being a trust fund law student and all.
Ultra-lefts mad because they can't come up with a constructive argument. Priceless.

[RED DAVE]

Cuba seems to be the greatest example of the dead-end of petty bourgeois nationalism.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/Bump :D

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

S.Artesian, drawing upon his immense experience as a lackey for capitalist bosses, continues to obfuscate the issue and dodge the plain words of Marx. It should be more appropriate and productive to contrast his arguments with those of the communist movement. In particular, let's see what some communist leaders have to say about the issue. Lenin, drawing from Marx's ideas, writes (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm):

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:

"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).

--------------------------

That's funny, S.Artesian holds the opposite, that everyone is equal, that all things are equal, that equality reigns supreme. Actual communists who led actual working-class revolutions, quoting Marx directly, disagree.

Very clearly, S.Artesian's ultra-left ramblings align closely with those of Lassalle, a thinker whom Marx critiqued directly on this very issue. If we go to the source of this, this becomes all the more obvious, as we find that Marx writes (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm):

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right.

But wasn't S.Artesian hammering away that this is an impossibility in socialism? Yes, he did precisely that, and now Marx's own words have richly exposed his position as folly. Thus, we find that the S.Artesian's idea of socialism, and his "analysis" of Cuba, is definitively anti-Marxist, anti-materialist and not actually socialist at all.


First off, I was no lackey. I was the chief operating officer. People like you are lackeys.

Secondly, obviously, reading Marx directly and for yourself is too much effort, too taxing for your limited abilities at comprehension.

Here's what Marx says [again].


What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. 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.



Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads,while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.





Emphasis added, obviously. But do you get this, ME? This is the first phase, the society as it emerges from the womb, before it has advanced truly to socialism, and it involves, actually requires the use of equal right.


We know this is the first stage, an advance, an advance which Marx supports, even as he criticizes the misinformation of Lassalle's formulation, because he tells us so.




In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.


Here it is: an advance that is still limited by the bourgeois conceptions. And in this first phase, what constitutes this shortcoming?






But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.


Get this, ME? This is the defect in the formal, "rough" equality. And this defect is inevitable until the economic development of the society has achieved a level where individual need can be supported.

Now maybe you want to argue that Cuba is moving from this "first phase" of socialism to communism, where it will recognize individual differences and compensate those individually. That of course might be a little difficult to support given the fact that productivity in Cuba is, as FD admits, in serious need of improvement. But hey, I have every confidence in your astounding ignorance that you will argue next that this is Cuba's way of making the transition to communism.

[S.Artesian]

if i was you i would just ignore manic. literally, put the dude on ignore. just from what i see what you have quoted it looks like his regular habit of constructing absurd strawmans of your argument where he fails to even give a good rebuttal to said strawman is still in full effect. the guy is the most obnoxious and snotty poster on this message board. his behavior makes sense when you consider the material conditions he finds himself in, being a trust fund law student and all.


Trust fund law student? Oh that's priceless. ME, care to deny that? Trust fund law student. Why that's so proletarian. Looking for a career doing what, Wall Street? Divorce? Personal injury?

Trust fund law student? What does your Daddy do, ME? Or is he a trust fund baby, too.

Just so you know, I had no trust fund. I hired out on the ground level of the railroad as a brakeman, and good proletarian that I am, I worked my buns off and got compensated more. A regular wage-differential success story. And then I was faced with the choice... either get furloughed [laid-off] or go into management. Being the good proletarian that I was back then, it took me about 20 seconds to decide, since I had no trust fund, but a very young child.

Hey, ME, you posing scumbag, when do you get your hands on the trust fund?

[manic expression]

First off, I was no lackey. I was the chief operating officer.
:lol: As I thought.


Emphasis added, obviously. But do you get this, ME? This is the first phase, the society as it emerges from the womb, before it has advanced truly to socialism, and it involves, actually requires the use of equal right.

We know this is the first stage, an advance, an advance which Marx supports, even as he criticizes the misinformation of Lassalle's formulation, because he tells us so.
YOUR POSITION IS Lassalle's formulation. Marx's position shows that unequal compensation is a part of such a stage of communism. That applies to the issue at hand. What part of that do you not understand?


Here it is: an advance that is still limited by the bourgeois conceptions. And in this first phase, what constitutes this shortcoming?

Get this, ME? This is the defect in the formal, "rough" equality. And this defect is inevitable until the economic development of the society has achieved a level where individual need can be supported.
It's a trait, as Marx says, that arises inevitably from the conditions of that stage. Therefore it is a part of socialist construction. Your pseudo-Lassallesque position flies in the opposite direction.


Now maybe you want to argue that Cuba is
...socialist. It's been already demonstrated that it meets the requirements of this time and again.


Trust fund law student? Oh that's priceless. ME, care to deny that? Trust fund law student. Why that's so proletarian. Looking for a career doing what, Wall Street? Divorce? Personal injury?
:lol: Of course I'd deny it. I'm no law student. I know very little about law and have absolutely no inclination to getting into the field. Further, I have nothing to do with any trust fund. Stagger Lee is lying because he's mad that I whooped his ass awhile back. Ultra-lefts are like that, poke holes in their illusions and they turn as bitter as lemons.


Just so you know, I had no trust fund. I hired out on the ground level of the railroad as a brakeman, and good proletarian that I am, I worked my buns off and got compensated more. A regular wage-differential success story. And then I was faced with the choice... either get furloughed [laid-off] or go into management. Being the good proletarian that I was back then, it took me about 20 seconds to decide, since I had no trust fund, but a very young child.
How good of you to share with us your old-fashioned "rags to riches" Horatio Alger story.

[S.Artesian]

So tell us, what do you do, oh pulse of the proletariat. In the meantime, your reading comprehension is still near zero. Marx is criticizing Lassalle's idealistic formulations, which in fact Lassalle is proposing as the "final product" of his little romance with state socialism.

Marx is showing, and he states it explicitly, how the initial transition contains this notion of formal or rough equality, inevitably, and has to progress beyond.


What Marx claims is part of this socialist construction is not the wage-differential you are touting, but the actual insistence of equality in the initial stages, which contains a deeper inequality within, but does not slavishly follow the bourgeois application of wage differentials.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Under full communism there will not be wage differentials, it will be "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". "Critique of the Gotha Program" has been misused by Stalinists to justify elements of capitalism in "socialist" states.. I used to go to CP meetings a few years ago. The CPUS was/is trying to align itself with the CCP. They used the COTGP to justify the twists and turns of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

I agree that Cuba's "reforms" are setting the stage for capitalist restoration. One thing I have heard that this is being done under pressure from the PRC who has extended vast loans to Cuba, although in and if itself this may be a simplistic explanation.

Anyway would a labor market be legitimate in the early stage of socialism? The early Bolsheviks maintained a labor market, paying doctors more than street sweepers. Ultimately this is not the society we want, street sweepers are just as important as doctors long term, but short term could a labor market be beneficial?

Of course wage differentials and markets of any kind are antithetical to socialism, the two modes of reproduction can't co-exist long term.

[S.Artesian]

Hey, BTW, and I'm more than willing to handle this in PMs, Stagger Lee say's you're a liar ME-- that you've tried to defend yourself, in the past, by claiming that Castro was a lawyer.

And Che was a doctor. You think they got paid more in the 26 July movement because they were university graduates?

So what is it you study in school, Marxist-Leninist student?

[Robocommie]

Anyway would a labor market be legitimate in the early stage of socialism? The early Bolsheviks maintained a labor market, paying doctors more than street sweepers. Ultimately this is not the society we want, street sweepers are just as important as doctors long term, but short term could a labor market be beneficial?

The catch is, that being a doctor requires a very specialized set of skills and talents, not to mention years of schooling. A lot of manual labor is exhausting, and tiring, and it's essential, but almost anyone can do it. There will always be a lot less people who can be doctors, compared to people who can be street sweepers. They have the same human dignity, rights and needs, but in pragmatic terms, their skills are just not equivalent by any stretch of the imagination.

A lot of folks like to talk about labor rotation as a means of fighting this unequal division of labor, but I just never get that. It always sounds silly and more guided by ideology than practical realities. The truth is, if I had to have open heart surgery, I'd want to make sure the guy who did it was entirely focused on being the best cardiologist he could be.

[Robocommie]

Trust fund law student? Oh that's priceless. ME, care to deny that? Trust fund law student. Why that's so proletarian. Looking for a career doing what, Wall Street? Divorce? Personal injury?

Trust fund law student? What does your Daddy do, ME? Or is he a trust fund baby, too.

Jesus Christ, are we really going to play the prolier-than-thou, your daddy has more money than me game? What the fuck is this, 3rd grade recess? C'mon man, I'd like to think you're better than that.

[S.Artesian]

Jesus Christ, are we really going to play the prolier-than-thou, your daddy has more money than me game? What the fuck is this, 3rd grade recess? C'mon man, I'd like to think you're better than that.


Would you. Hey man, the guy calls me a capitalist lackey based on my employment. I didn't hear your cry of outrage then. Did I miss that?

I didn't bring it up. Trust-fund baby brought it up.

[Robocommie]

Would you. Hey man, the guy calls me a capitalist lackey based on my employment. I didn't hear your cry of outrage then. Did I miss that?

I didn't bring it up. Trust-fund baby brought it up.

Yeah, I thought it was lame when he said that, but I don't comment on every single flame in this forum or I'd be here all day. It's getting stupid though, and the whole "he started it" thing isn't making it any less stupid. You can be the better man and not continue with this "trust fund baby" stuff. This game is childish, and that goes for both of you.

[S.Artesian]

The catch is, that being a doctor requires a very specialized set of skills and talents, not to mention years of schooling. A lot of manual labor is exhausting, and tiring, and it's essential, but almost anyone can do it. There will always be a lot less people who can be doctors, compared to people who can be street sweepers. They have the same human dignity, rights and needs, but in pragmatic terms, their skills are just not equivalent by any stretch of the imagination.

A lot of folks like to talk about labor rotation as a means of fighting this unequal division of labor, but I just never get that. It always sounds silly and more guided by ideology than practical realities. The truth is, if I had to have open heart surgery, I'd want to make sure the guy who did it was entirely focused on being the best cardiologist he could be.


That's crap. The schooling and skills a doctor requires are a social product, produced, paid for by society, not on the basis of any "natural" talent. So in providing additional compensation to our doctor friend you are simply depleting, and depriving, society of more of the social surplus it has already bestowed on the training.

We don't know how many people can or can't be doctors. We know Cuba hasn't had any problem training, finding, keeping doctors despite the relative lack of a wage-differential, don't we?

Notice how fucked, inefficient, unskilled Cuban doctors are, Cuban healthcare is because it's socialized, and the wage differentials are so little? What, you don't notice that? That's because the Cuban socialized system, with those small wage differentials, is not fucked, is efficient, is skilled and does meet social needs. You think it's going to stay that way once doctors can claim 100 X the income of a street sweeper [NOTE: I am not saying that is the plan of the Cuban reforms. I'm using that number as an illustration. I think the Cuban reforms leave healthcare pretty much in tact, and for good reason.].

Exactly how is society going to support that wage-differential? It cannot, without denying some sector of the population access to the services of the "greater" skilled.


We know that socially people aren't born to be doctors or manual workers. We know that class determines, under capitalism, who goes where and gets what. We know that differential compensation perpetuates itself-- "he who has, or whose daddy has, gets."

[S.Artesian]

Yeah, I thought it was lame when he said that, but I don't comment on every single flame in this forum or I'd be here all day. It's getting stupid though, and the whole "he started it" thing isn't making it any less stupid. You can be the better man and not continue with this "trust fund baby" stuff. This game is childish, and that goes for both of you.

Like I said, I'm only too happy to handle this in PMs, or some other venue. But in the meantime, fuck him and the rich horse he rode in on.

[Robocommie]

We know that socially people aren't born to be doctors or manual workers. We know that class determines, under capitalism, who goes where and gets what. We know that differential compensation perpetuates itself-- "he who has, or whose daddy has, gets."

I know a guy, proletarian, child of a single mother household, who's going to medical school on scholarship. I respect him as a student to know that he's going to do well. I can't say I'd have the same expectations of other people I know in the same situation in the same town. People DO have aptitudes, and they also accumulate experience. If somebody asked me to handle the things you do in your rail job, somebody would get killed.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on it, and it's cursory at best, because frankly I think I'm already going to regret dragging myself into this ridiculous shitstorm of a thread.

[Robocommie]

Like I said, I'm only too happy to handle this in PMs, or some other venue. But in the meantime, fuck him and the rich horse he rode in on.

You should have kept it in PMs instead of dragging the shit Stagger Lee said to you in private, into the public forum. Furthermore, you're still on this "rich horse" bullshit, based entirely off of hearsay as far as I can tell. And even if it's true, it doesn't really matter, it's an ad hominem.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

You should have kept it in PMs instead of dragging the shit Stagger Lee said to you in private, into the public forum. Furthermore, you're still on this "rich horse" bullshit, based entirely off of hearsay as far as I can tell. And even if it's true, it doesn't really matter, it's an ad hominem.

For what its worth Stagger Lee made his assertion in public, on this thread.

[Robocommie]

For what its worth Stagger Lee made his assertion in public, on this thread.

My mistake then, I retract what I said about that.

Edit: Anyway, this is already personal so I might as well close it personally, I don't want there to be any lingering bad feelings from this, I've always had respect for both Manic and you, S.Artesian, and I hope things can stay friendly-ish between us. Political disagreements notwithstanding, I try and keep on good terms with people I respect, though Lord knows I have a stupidly stubborn pride sometimes.

[S.Artesian]

I know a guy, proletarian, child of a single mother household, who's going to medical school on scholarship. I respect him as a student to know that he's going to do well. I can't say I'd have the same expectations of other people I know in the same situation in the same town. People DO have aptitudes, and they also accumulate experience. If somebody asked me to handle the things you do in your rail job, somebody would get killed.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on it, and it's cursory at best, because frankly I think I'm already going to regret dragging myself into this ridiculous shitstorm of a thread.


Again you are trying to use the exception to disprove the rule. Look at the economic background of all those attending medical school in the US. Tell me again how it takes special, natural talents and abilities.

Is it coincidence that those "talents" and "abilities" are concentrated in those who come from above average economic backgrounds in the US?

Or is there something about the US population stock as opposed to the Cuban population stock.... that less well off Cubans are smarter, more talented than poorer USers?

[Robocommie]

Again you are trying to use the exception to disprove the rule. Look at the economic background of all those attending medical school in the US. Tell me again how it takes special, natural talents and abilities.

Is it coincidence that those "talents" and "abilities" are concentrated in those who come from above average economic backgrounds in the US?

Or is there something about the US population stock as opposed to the Cuban population stock.... that less well off Cubans are smarter, more talented than poorer USers?

Cubans probably are better people than Americans, IMHO. j/k

No, I mean, there is of course a disparity between who gets to be a doctor and who doesn't based off of economic backgrounds. Socialism would certainly increase the number of people who WILL be doctors since many of those who would like to be now but cannot afford it, would be able to under socialism. But that doesn't mean that skilled and trained individuals still won't represent a somewhat scarce resource. You yourself admitted that Cuba has minor wage disparities - well, I'm not calling for the 100x a street sweeper's pay that you mentioned. I don't see any rational reason to make disparities that high, I'm opposed to it. But how else can society encourage people to put the time and effort into becoming one thing, as opposed to another? Do you honestly think people would want to become a proctologist rather than work in a library shelving books? Who would want to work in a sewer rather than in a cane field?

[S.Artesian]

Cubans probably are better people than Americans, IMHO. j/k

No, I mean, there is of course a disparity between who gets to be a doctor and who doesn't based off of economic backgrounds. Socialism would certainly increase the number of people who WILL be doctors since many of those who would like to be now but cannot afford it, would be able to under socialism. But that doesn't mean that skilled and trained individuals still won't represent a somewhat scarce resource. You yourself admitted that Cuba has minor wage disparities - well, I'm not calling for the 100x a street sweeper's pay that you mentioned. I don't see any rational reason to make disparities that high, I'm opposed to it. But how else can society encourage people to put the time and effort into becoming one thing, as opposed to another? Do you honestly think people would want to become a proctologist rather than work in a library shelving books? Who would want to work in a sewer rather than in a cane field?


This argument sounds suspiciously like the "there is no alternative to the market" arguments; there is no alternative to the wage structure; there is no alternative to a money economy where those who...., who what-- to ask the question again, "earn more can buy more?"

Increasing income differentials leading to "higher productivity" presupposes an entire economy based around market relationships. Otherwise, what's the point of your "higher income"? What can anyone do with it? Which gets back to the original point I was trying make. The point that these reforms don't mark a "failure" of Castroism-- I for one have no idea what that means-- but they do mark a step backward, from the egalitarian impulse necessary in the transitional part, and that was so essential to the real social progress Cuba made in education, health care, safe drinking water, adequate caloric intakes, etc.

So if you think that income differentials are essential to increased output, what you are, at core, advocating is a market economy, where labor produces, and produces for, value. Last time I checked, value production was the basis for the reproduction of capital's social relationships.

What do I honestly think about people being proctologists? WTF? How about urologists? Gynecologists? Gastroenterologists? Look, all doctors deal with human discharges, don't they? Proctology in capitalist countries is a specialization undertaken for, and only for, commercial reasons. Again ask yourself how did Cuba manage to make its tremendous strides in medical? Not because it created thousands of proctologists that's for sure.

But because Cuba emphasizes, first and foremost, public health, access to safe drinking water, proper sanitary conditions, universal access to health and dental care, the quality of which was not based on income or compensation. .

Certain numbers of doctors will find special fields that attract them; and if there is a series of pathologies emerging that involve peoples' rectums, I'm sure doctors who are concerned with the health of their patients and aren't squeamish [and I haven't met a doctor yet who is] will take it as an obligation of their profession to research and treat the pathology.

Right now, in Paris there are sewer inspectors who are considered to be on the level of EMTs, and firemen in Parisian society-- those who protect the functioning of the city to keep others healthy. They're not compensated above the level of doctors or bus drivers-- their health care issues [and they do suffer from more gastro-intestinal pathologies than others] are handled socially, by the general health care system.

And personally....have you ever worked in a cane field? Let me tell you, I'd rather inspect sewers any day of the week.

[manic expression]

So tell us, what do you do, oh pulse of the proletariat.
I have a few options open right now. Ask me a year from now. Any which way I go, though, I'll more than likely have to work my way through any further studies, which is gonna suck, but whatever.


In the meantime, your reading comprehension is still near zero. Marx is criticizing Lassalle's idealistic formulations, which in fact Lassalle is proposing as the "final product" of his little romance with state socialism.

Marx is showing, and he states it explicitly, how the initial transition contains this notion of formal or rough equality, inevitably, and has to progress beyond.
Thank you for admitting that Marx says that unequal income is a part of socialism. It must have been tough, since it's precisely what you've been arguing against for a few pages. Now that that's out of the way, the whole point of this is that Cuba hasn't progressed to the higher stage of communism (something no one here has claimed)...the material conditions that lead to what Marx is talking about still exist. That's why it's a socialist country looking to boost production within the principles of socialism.


What Marx claims is part of this socialist construction is not the wage-differential you are touting, but the actual insistence of equality in the initial stages, which contains a deeper inequality within, but does not slavishly follow the bourgeois application of wage differentials.
Wrong.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right.

That, there, is part of socialism. You keep harping on "insistence" and "emphasis", but the plain old fact is that there is inequality present in the first stage of communism. I wonder how many times we'll have to go over this point until it's learned.

[manic expression]

Hey, BTW, and I'm more than willing to handle this in PMs, Stagger Lee say's you're a liar ME-- that you've tried to defend yourself, in the past, by claiming that Castro was a lawyer.

And Che was a doctor. You think they got paid more in the 26 July movement because they were university graduates?

So what is it you study in school, Marxist-Leninist student?
I'll say this here, because facts don't bother me one bit. Stagger Lee is lying because he doesn't know jack shit about my life. I don't study law and I never will, and I definitely don't have a trust fund (:laugh:). I studied history in college, and I worked to support myself during that time. Also, the point about Fidel being trained as a lawyer and Che as a doctor is that even those who aren't born or raised proletarians have great contributions to make to the revolutionary struggle. As for your jab about income, please see the multiple quotes by Marx and Lenin that disagree with you. It's certainly no surprise you're drooling over my studies...I'm still waiting for an honest, straightforward answer to any of the quotes I've posted.

And for the record, it's downright c:lol:mical that Stagger Lee's only contribution here is to stalk this thread and lie about me even though he can't even read my posts. It's the mark of a true coward, someone who can't make an argument but instead throws out slander. Thank you, Stagger Lee, for reminding us what ultra-left "leftists" like yourself are: spineless hacks. You are truly a credit to your "movement". :laugh:

[S.Artesian]

Whatever you're going to do in your future life, you're going to need some remedial reading courses:


Thank you for admitting that Marx says that unequal income is a part of socialism. It must have been tough, since it's precisely what you've been arguing against for a few pages. Now that that's out of the way, the whole point of this is that Cuba hasn't progressed to the higher stage of communism (something no one here has claimed)...the material conditions that lead to what Marx is talking about still exist. That's why it's a socialist country looking to boost production within the principles of socialism.


Marx doesn't say that at all. He says the formal equality established in the transition phase, the equality of the first phase, equal distribution, contains a real inequality in that it does not account for individual differences.

Nevertheless, Marx says, such a formal equality is initially "inevitable."

Really, you should be a lawyer, the way you ignore the direct and explicit meaning of what has been written.

[S.Artesian]

BTW, back in the day we used to say: "Fart in a balloon, paint the balloon red, and some Marine somewhere will stand up and break off a crisp salute."

You guys are just like those Marines. Fidel could fart in a red balloon, and you'd be out there trying to sell it as socialist perfume.

[manic expression]

Marx doesn't say that at all. He says the formal equality established in the transition phase, the equality of the first phase, equal distribution, contains a real inequality in that it does not account for individual differences.
That's not what he says here: but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

"Recognizes unequal individual endowment"...


Nevertheless, Marx says, such a formal equality is initially "inevitable."
Yes, due to material conditions of that phase. No one's saying Cuba is at the higher phase of communism.


Really, you should be a lawyer, the way you ignore the direct and explicit meaning of what has been written.
Maybe I'm too busy swimming in my pool of trust-fund money to be bothered by such trifles. ;)

[manic expression]

You guys are just like those Marines. Fidel could fart in a red balloon, and you'd be out there trying to sell it as socialist perfume.
If Fidel farted in a red balloon, some voices on this forum would be screaming from the rooftops about how he betrayed the balloon through his centralized gas-passing. But back to the question on everyone's mind...would balloon-farters get the same income as sanitation workers?

[S.Artesian]

Maybe you are. I have no idea, and could care less. But it is crystal clear to anyone who reads the whole of COTGP what Marx is stating: the first phase embraces a formal equality, a formal equality of exchange, distributing the total social working day, that in fact is marked by the inherent inequality, the hidden, or implicit inequality that exists in all formal equality-- that it does not, and cannot account for different talents, abilities, efforts etc. Nevertheless, this phase is inevitable in the process of transition to an economy developed and social enough to allow, support, accept all individual differences in needs, uses and abilities.

Obviously, you've never been responsible for anything or anyone but yourself... but if you ever had been you might recognize that in the workplace everybody has different abilities, and some are much better than others. Some conductors on a railroad are much better than others. Some engineers are much better.

In a hump yard [a classification yard that uses gravity to separate cars into distinct tracks depending on the final destination], some conductors are much better at actually "humping the cars"-- which means separating the cars according to proper classification than others. Some are better on the train make up end. Do you think they should be paid differently?

The good hump conductor with a good hump engineer can hump, 4-5 cars a minute. A not so good conductor, half that. You think the "good crew" should be compensated with more than the "not so good" crew? Gee that's going to build real class solidarity, real class consciousness, a real socialist spirit.

Tell you what, you try doing that and you'll have a strike on your hands. Except you won't, because you would never accept the responsibility for actually making a decision. You'll sit in your school library somewhere telling others what a rough and ready Marxist-Leninist you are.

Stand up and salute your balloon. The reforms stink, and we're not buying any perfume.

[manic expression]

S.Artesian says: ...it does not account for individual differences.

Karl Marx says: ...it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

------------------------------------

There we go.

[S.Artesian]

S.Artesian says: ...it does not account for individual differences.

Karl Marx says: ...it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

------------------------------------

There we go.


There you went. One more time.

Marx says:


Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

You, in your scheme of differential compensations are the one advocating the distribution of the proceeds of labor. In this you aren't mimicking Lassalle so much as you are the capitalist with his or her piecework scheme, or "productivity" differentials.

Marx then says:


What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. 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.

What has the worker given-- a quantum of labor that makes up a portion of the total social working day. He has given hours. That's all Marx says-- hours. Not skills, not talent, not abilities, not danger not risk. Hours. Hours to the social working day. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished that aliquot portion of the working day-- which presumably, with the working day radically reduced, which is also part of Marx's immediate program for the transition, is roughly equal to the hours of anybody else's hours. IMO, as the railroad examples show, even where the hours differ modestly, there is no basis for additional composition.

All workers contribute to the social working day. All workers get a certificate and draw from the social stock of the means of consumption what amounts to an equivalent of those hours.

Marx says next:


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.



Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.



Pay attention now, there might be a test afterward. See Marx is talking about the "first phase," the emerging socialist society, after the bourgeoisie has been expropriated. "A given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

Equal right is the governing principle... but still in this society, in this early stage it is a bourgeois right. In spite of the advance, the equality is still stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. All labor is regarded as equal.

Marx then goes on:


But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.



But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.



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


Now Marx is pointing out how the formal equality in the first phase, of a developing socialism, actually contains a deep inequality within its uniformity because it takes no account of individual abilities. Consequently, the human producers are not yet fully emancipated from the terms of the origin of their new system, not because compensations are formally unequal, but because they are equal... and they must be equal. "These defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society."

Marx then doesn't advocate introducing compensation differentials, based on individual productivity, talents, abilities. Remember, he said these defects, the defects of formal equality are inevitable.

He states that the solution only comes when labor itself has been emancipated to the degree that it is the fulfillment of the living abilities, talents, needs of the human being. The labor itself-- not compensation for the labor; but the labor itself. Not the exchange of the labor for commodities, but the labor itself. And this can occur only after the productive forces have been so developed that the all the cooperative springs ofwealth flow more abundantly. Note, he didn't say the springs of individual wealth, the springs of state wealth, the springs of differential wealth. He said all the springs of cooperative wealth.

So nowhere in Marx's sketch of the relation of workers to the products of their social labor is there any notion of differential wages or compensation based on mimicking the bourgeoisie's fracturing of the working class through such mechanisms. Neither in the first phases, where the defects of formal equality are "inevitable," nor in the communist phase, when labor is not exchanged for compensation, but rather becomes the productive wealth of all.

It will be easier to read the COTGP if you take your head out of your ass first.

[manic expression]

You, in your scheme of differential compensations are the one advocating the distribution of the proceeds of labor. In this you aren't mimicking Lassalle so much as you are the capitalist with his or her piecework scheme, or "productivity" differentials.
:lol: The lesson will be repeated until it is learned. Lenin explains why you are wrong here:

"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).


What has the worker given-- a quantum of labor that makes up a portion of the total social working day. He has given hours. That's all Marx says-- hours. Not skills, not talent, not abilities, not danger not risk. Hours. Hours to the social working day. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished that aliquot portion of the working day-- which presumably, with the working day radically reduced, which is also part of Marx's immediate program for the transition, is roughly equal to the hours of anybody else's hours. IMO, as the railroad examples show, even where the hours differ modestly, there is no basis for additional composition.

All workers contribute to the social working day. All workers get a certificate and draw from the social stock of the means of consumption what amounts to an equivalent of those hours.
Except Marx writes fully and clearly that not all workers work the same. Here:

This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right.

So you're wrong again.


Pay attention now, there might be a test afterward. See Marx is talking about the "first phase," the emerging socialist society, after the bourgeoisie has been expropriated. "A given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

Equal right is the governing principle... but still in this society, in this early stage it is a bourgeois right. In spite of the advance, the equality is still stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. All labor is regarded as equal.
And again, I'll repeat myself in that Cuba has not advanced to the higher stage of communism. Why do you keep admitting that unequal compensation is part of the lower phases of socialist construction and then refuse to apply this to Cuba?


Now Marx is pointing out how the formal equality in the first phase, of a developing socialism, actually contains a deep inequality within its uniformity because it takes no account of individual abilities.
:lol: That's your biggest contradiction. Marx says:

...it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

Just in case you missed it:

...it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.


Marx then doesn't advocate introducing compensation differentials, based on individual productivity, talents, abilities. Remember, he said these defects, the defects of formal equality are inevitable.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement.


He states that the solution only comes when labor itself has been emancipated to the degree that it is the fulfillment of the living abilities, talents, needs of the human being. The labor itself-- not compensation for the labor; but the labor itself. Not the exchange of the labor for commodities, but the labor itself. And this can occur only after the productive forces have been so developed that the all the cooperative springs ofwealth flow more abundantly. Note, he didn't say the springs of individual wealth, the springs of state wealth, the springs of differential wealth. He said all the springs of cooperative wealth.

So nowhere in Marx's sketch of the relation of workers to the products of their social labor is there any notion of differential wages or compensation based on mimicking the bourgeoisie's fracturing of the working class through such mechanisms. Neither in the first phases, where the defects of formal equality are "inevitable," nor in the communist phase, when labor is not exchanged for compensation, but rather becomes the productive wealth of all.
The defects you mention are the unequal compensation I've been talking about, that Cuba has illustrated in its socialist construction. Marx says so clearly.

And again, no one here has said that Cuba has entered the higher phase of communism. That means n-o o-n-e. Stop arguing with your strawmen. The material conditions of unequal equality that Marx talks about still apply. But that's still socialism.


It will be easier to read the COTGP if you take your head out of your ass first.
It's so good of you to so brazenly contradict Marx's writings. It makes this whole issue a lot more accessible.

[S.Artesian]

You're putting me on, right? You're not really this thick, right? Nobody could really be this thick, and figure out how to turn a light on and off.

Look closely at what Lenin is saying:


... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."


See, the bold parts..with the formal, or rough, equality, compensation be equal, based on an equal share in the social consumption fund, the equality in fact contains an inequality because it does not account for individual variations.

Lenin then says.


The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality;

You get that? The first phase of communism therefore cannot yet provide justice and equality? What is the first phase-- as Marx described it, as Lenin agrees, it is precisely this application of equality. Remember? Marx says the exchange of equals? Labor for an equal portion of the total social working day?

The first phase of communism by adhering to the necessary, inevitable formal equality, the apparent equality it has to impose as it emerges from the womb of capitalism, is essentially unequal.

And the equality has to be transcended, not by establishing wage differentials, but through the total social development of the means of production to the point where labor is in fact no longer exchanged for consumption, but becomes the "project" so to speak of the fulfillment of human potential. That's the communism part. The part where we move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

You are simply not a serious person.

[manic expression]

See, the bold parts..with the formal, or rough, equality, compensation be equal, based on an equal share in the social consumption fund, the equality in fact contains an inequality because it does not account for individual variations.
The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property.


You get that? The first phase of communism therefore cannot yet provide justice and equality?
Right. Cannot provide equality = inequality in some areas

That's a part of socialist construction. That's what we see in Cuba.


The first phase of communism by adhering to the necessary, inevitable formal equality, the apparent equality it has to impose as it emerges from the womb of capitalism, is essentially unequal.
Right, essentially unequal.


And the equality has to be transcended,
Through a shift in material conditions that Cuba does not see. It's in the lower stages.


That's the communism part. The part where we move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.
Please show me where anyone ever posted that Cuba has moved into the higher stage of communism. Then maybe you can make this argument.


You are simply not a serious person.
You seem to be seriously frustrated by the words of Marx and Lenin.

[S.Artesian]

For any others interested.

The sequence of Marx's argument:

1. labor time is the medium of exchange, still, during the first stage. The working day is the basic unit. All contribute to the working day, and roughly equally, in that hours are the measure.

2. Exchange is still formally equal, as it is in bourgeois society-- formally equally-- time for time. Except...

3. The time for time exchange in this first stage contains, obscures an actual inequality in the individual efforts, talents, abilities.

4. Consequently, the formal equality established in the social exchange of labor for consumption is not capable, in and of itself, of establishing a true equality, where all labor is in essence not just its own reward, but a reward for all.

5. Such inequality within the formal equality is inevitable in this first phase.


6. The solution is not in establishing differential levels of compensation for different efforts as that will disable any prospects of the transition to communism.

7. The solution requires the development of the social means of production to a level where the conditions in (4) are the dominant relations-- that "association of free producers."

Now the development of the means of production to that level necessarily develops from the phase of formal equality, not the reestablishment of an inequality based on private accumulation.

If there's anybody else viewing this thread who would like a further explanation, please contact me.

As for you ME, you're simply a troll.

[KC]

Anyone that makes an argument claiming people doing manual labor should be paid more because of the difficulties of the job vs. people that work in offices clearly have not done both.

[S.Artesian]

Well, the article in today's New York Times has shown me the error of my ways, and that the Cuban Communist Party is putting Cuba on the path to true socialism, just like Vietnam and China have done, and through the same mechanism: creating "2,3, many golf courses."


May 24, 2011
Revolutionary Cuba Now Lays Sand Traps for the Bourgeoisie

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/randal_c_archibold/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

MEXICO CITY — One of Fidel Castro (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/fidel_castro/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s first acts upon taking power was to get rid of Cuba (http://www.nytimes.com/info/cuba?inline=nyt-geo)’s golf courses, seeking to stamp out a sport he and other socialist revolutionaries saw as the epitome of bourgeois excess.



Now, 50 years later, foreign developers say the Cuban government has swung in nearly the opposite direction, giving preliminary approval in recent weeks for four large luxury golf resorts on the island, the first in an expected wave of more than a dozen that the government anticipates will lure free-spending tourists to a nation hungry for cash.



The four initial projects total more than $1.5 billion, with the government’s cut of the profits about half. Plans for the developments include residences that foreigners will be permitted to buy — a rare opportunity from a government that all but banned private property in its push for social equality.



Mr. Castro and his comrade in arms Che Guevara, who worked as a caddie in his youth in Argentina, were photographed in fatigues hitting the links decades ago, in what some have interpreted as an effort to mock either the sport or the golf-loving president at the time of the revolution, Dwight D. Eisenhower — or both.


President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who maintains close ties with Cuba, has taken aim at the pastime in recent years as well, questioning why, in the face of slums and housing shortages, courses should spread over valuable land “just so some little group of the bourgeois and the petit bourgeois can go and play golf.”



But Cuba’s deteriorating economy and the rise in the sport’s popularity, particularly among big-spending travelers who expect to bring their clubs wherever they go, have softened the government’s view, investors said. Cuban officials did not respond to requests for comment, but Manuel Marrero, the tourism minister, told a conference in Europe this month that the government anticipates going forward with joint ventures to build 16 golf resorts in the near future.



For the past three years, Cuba’s only 18-hole course, a government-owned spread at the Varadero Beach resort area, has even hosted a tournament. It has long ceased to be, its promoters argued, a rich man’s game.



“We were told this foray is the top priority in foreign investment,” said Graham Cooke, a Canadian golf course architect designing a $410 million project at Guardalavaca Beach, along the island’s north coast about 500 miles from Havana, for a consortium of Indians from Canada. The company, Standing Feather International (http://standing-feather.ca/plan.html), says it signed a memorandum of agreement with the Cuban government in late April and will be the first to break ground, in September.



Andrew Macdonald, the chief executive of London-based Esencia Group, which helps sponsor the golf tournament in Cuba and is planning a $300 million country club in Varadero, said, “This is a fundamental development in having a more eclectic tourist sector.”
The other developments are expected to include at least one of the three proposed by Leisure Canada, a Vancouver-based firm that recently announced a licensing agreement with the Professional Golfers Association for its planned resorts in Cuba, and a resort being designed by Foster & Partners of London.



The projects are primarily aimed at Canadian, European and Asian tourists; Americans are not permitted to spend money on the island, under the cold-war-era trade embargo, unless they have a license from the Treasury Department.



Developers working on the new projects said they believed Cuba had a dozen or so courses before the revolution, some of which were turned into military bases. Cuba and foreign investors for years have talked about building new golf resorts, but the proposals often butted against revolutionary ideals and red tape. Several policy changes adopted at a Communist Party congress in April, however, appear to have helped clear the way, including one resolution specifically naming golf and marinas as important assets in developing tourism and rescuing the sagging economy.



“Cuba saw the normal sun and salsa beach offerings and knew it was not going to be sustainable,” said Chris Nicholas, managing director of Standing Feather, which negotiated for eight years with Cuba’s state-run tourism company. “They needed more facets of tourism to offer and decided golf was an excellent way to go.”



The developers said putting housing in the complexes was important to make them more attractive to tourists and investors, and to increase profits.



Still, John Kavulich, a senior adviser for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said Cuba had a history of pulling back on perceived big steps toward freer enterprise and might wrestle to explain how such high-dollar compounds could coexist with often dilapidated housing for everyone else.



“Will Cuba allow Cuban citizens to be members, to play?” he said. “How will that work out? Allowing someone to work there and allowing someone to prosper there is an immense deep ravine for the government.”



But Mr. Macdonald said political issues were moot, given that Cuba already had come to terms with several beach resorts near Havana that generally attracted middle-class foreign travelers.



“It’s not an issue for them,” he said. “It’s tourism. It’s people coming to visit the country.”



If the projects are built as envisioned, the tourists will enjoy not just new, state-of-the-art courses and the opportunity for a second home in Cuba, but shopping malls, spas and other luxury perks. Standing Feather, which calls its complex Estancias de Golf Loma Linda (Loma Linda Golf Estates), promises 1,200 villas, bungalows, duplexes and apartments set on 520 acres framed by mountains and beach.



The residences are expected to average $600,000, and rooms at the 170-room hotel the complex will include may go for about $200 a night, a stark contrast in a nation where salaries average $20 a month.



Standing Feather said that to build a sense of community and provide the creature comforts of home among its clientele, the complex will include its own shopping center, selling North American products under relaxed customs regulations.



“It is in the area that Castro is from, in Holguin Province,” added Mr. Cooke, the golf course architect.




Emphasis added.

$600,000 bungalows, villas, spas, malls-- now that's what I call socialist use of resources for the benefit of all the people. And look how many new jobs as caddies, waiters, hotel maids, masseuses, will be created. And with the revenue from all those golfers will be able to.... create more golf courses. Maybe even augment our electricity generation so the malls can stay open all night!

I've seen the future, and it's a par four.

[manic expression]

5. Such inequality within the formal equality is inevitable in this first phase.
So your argument is that there is no inequality in socialist society, and yet here you say that inequality is inevitable. Huh.


As for you ME, you're simply a troll.He who quotes Marx, in your opinion, is a troll. Good stuff.


Well, the article in today's New York Times has shown me the error of my ways, and that the Cuban Communist Party is putting Cuba on the path to true socialism, just like Vietnam and China have done, and through the same mechanism: creating "2,3, many golf courses.":laugh: Yes, golf courses mean no socialism can exist. Forget about social relations...sand traps are the real enemy! S.Artesian presents S.Artesian's Anti-Marxist Circus...where the fun never ends!

But anyway, your anti-socialist diatribes are behind the curve. If your idea of "Golf = No Socialism" holds true, then the Cuban Revolution fell to capitalism long ago:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KZxVxmfWsYo/R8HJv-j2loI/AAAAAAAAByY/KqMmfYZweOA/s400/CheGolf.JPG

This is counterrevolution, Mr. Christian! Counterrevolution, that is! :lol: This all means that you, yet again, are just making stuff up because you have nothing of substance to say.


Anyone that makes an argument claiming people doing manual labor should be paid more because of the difficulties of the job vs. people that work in offices clearly have not done both.
Leon Trotsky disagrees (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1921/01/russianow.htm):

Under capitalism, the worker must go where there is a job, whether he likes it or not; but he works for a capitalist, and not for the working-class, as he does here. We make it especially attractive and pleasant for workers who are ordered to distant places, to distasteful work, etc. - special rations, short hours, their families should be particularly well cared for, like the families of our Red Army soldiers. Add to this unlimited schools for technical and every kind of training, open to all, and you can see the opportunities.

[KC]

Leon Trotsky disagrees (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1921/01/russianow.htm):

Under capitalism, the worker must go where there is a job, whether he likes it or not; but he works for a capitalist, and not for the working-class, as he does here. We make it especially attractive and pleasant for workers who are ordered to distant places, to distasteful work, etc. - special rations, short hours, their families should be particularly well cared for, like the families of our Red Army soldiers. Add to this unlimited schools for technical and every kind of training, open to all, and you can see the opportunities.Trotsky also supported the militarization of labor. Trotsky was wrong. He isn't a fucking saint. I'm surprised you're even quoting him, or is that because you think I uphold him as such?

EDIT: BTW that was a pretty shitty quote to use considering that in the bolded section he mentions nothing of wage differentials. That quote actually blatantly supports S. Artesian's position, considering that's exactly what he said a few pages back:



Maybe we have to think outside the box, outside the paycheck, outside the wage system; outside commodity compensation-- something like-- breaking down the specialization of labor-- so that oil rig workers rotate in and out of the offshore work with sanitation workers or historians or clerks. Maybe we need to do something like reduce the working year, for those who are going to spend considerable time in isolated circumstances, so that a rig worker works only 4 months out of the year on the rig. How's that sound? Too communist for you? Gee, that's too bad.

[S.Artesian]

Right, right, the reforms with facilitate socialism one golf course at a time.

Or is that socialism in one golf course?

Do you have any idea how much of the social resources a golf course demands to be made appealing to the "carriage trade"? The demand for water, fertilizers, electricity?

But don't worry the fertilizer's in a red balloon and our junior fidelistas can do nothing but stand up and salut.

Party for the Fore!--th International?

[KC]

BTW IDK if either of you posted/addressed this Lenin quote yet:


Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing father, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realize how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all, whereas in reality only socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm

Or these, same chapter:


Accounting and control--that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state “syndicate”. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations--which any literate person can perform--of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.


The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.

[S.Artesian]

^^^^^^^^^^That just about closes the discussion. I'm pretty sure neither ME nor Flob are going to respond to that. Unless of course, they think this was written when Lenin was under some ultra-left delusions.

[KC]

I think ME or someone else will respond to some effect claiming that "equal labor" actually implies a measuring out of the abstract labour-time, taking into account difficulty of labour and intensity, which of course begs the question posed earlier in the thread, i.e. how they think that's realistically possible.

Further, assuming that it is possible, one should be able to do it now, under capitalism. Which obviously goes against all academia as it's quite obvious to anyone that knows anything about Marxian economics that the empirical validity of the theory cannot be proven explicitly.

Assuming that being the case, they would also have to account for what Marx/Lenin mean when they say "formal equality."

[Jose Gracchus]

I think trying to achieve overnight, or near-overnight remunerative equality is impossible. However, I think we should move toward full equality as quickly as possible, but this won't be achieved be equalizing wages, but rather abolishing wages as a system and moving to a much more collaborative form of labor. I think perhaps labor time and effort and desirability should be relative to one's claim on social surplus.

[flobdob]

Or alternatively we'd point out that you are drawing quotes from the section on the Higher Phase of Communist Society, not on the First, ie socialist stage. Here he is saying is equality of labor and pay - as with the classic slogan of equal work for equal pay. This nowhere implies that everyone is getting the same pay; unless we are quite willing to say that Lenin is inconsistent to the point that he would contradict himself within the space of one chapter of a book. For sheer sake of clarity, I'm just gonna post the entire section of State and Revolution because I simply cannot be fucked with hearing the same nonsensical arguments of Artesian and his acolytes.



3. The First Phase of Communist Society

In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle's idea that under socialism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or "full product of his labor". Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the "wear and tear" of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people's homes, and so on.
Instead of Lassalle's hazy, obscure, general phrase ("the full product of his labor to the worker"), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs. Marx proceeds to make a concrete analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be no capitalism, and says:
"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes."
It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.
“Equality” apparently reigns supreme.
But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.
"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).
But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:
"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."
The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).
The vulgar economists, including the bourgeois professors and “our” Tugan, constantly reproach the socialists with forgetting the inequality of people and with “dreaming” of eliminating this inequality. Such a reproach, as we see, only proves the extreme ignorance of the bourgeois ideologists.
Marx not only most scrupulously takes account of the inevitable inequality of men, but he also takes into account the fact that the mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed". Continuing, Marx says:
"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."
And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.
However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.
This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.
Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

[S.Artesian]

Apparently, you can't read, and so you make an apparent contradiction where there is none. The first phase, socialism cannot provide true equality, because it provides formal equality, equality of "right," which is clearly equal right to social consumption based on the formally equal input of all to the working day.

The formal equality does not take into consideration the variations among workers, in intensity, skill, duration. So does the advance of socialism consist of disseminating unequal right, unequal distribution of social consumption product based on measuring the "skill" [or discomfort] expressed during the working time, thereby enhancing labor as a means of exchange [and incidentally preserving the proletariat as a proletariat in this mechanism, as differentials within the class divide the class]?

No, the progress of the society through this "first phase" is only possible where the unity of the class in the conscious development of social production and the movement away from labor as a means of exchange for the products of subsistence is strengthened.

Where does Lenin say this? He says exactly where and how Marx says it:


This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.
Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

Bold 1. This is a defect-- this refers to the formal equality where individual discomfort or individual talent does not entitle one to greater withdrawals from the stock of the social means of consumption. The defect is that in this first phase of socialism equality is blind, does not "reward" variations by exchanging more objects of production for the labor.

Bold 2. The defect, the imposition of formal equality in the working day and in compensation is unavoidable. That means essential, necessary to the development of the means for overcoming the defect.

Bold 3. Would safeguard the equality in the labor and the distribution of products. See the state has not withered away, it preserves this real inequality behind the formal equality. Remember, Marx referred to this equality as being, essentially, bourgeois "right"?

But hey, work on your short-game; chipping, the wedges, and of course, putting because you know what they say, and I'm sure you know what they say: "You drive for show, but you putt for dough. " Who would have thunk that way to "ruin a good walk" was actually the road to socialism? Actually, no one, because it isn't.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Since we're on the subject of golf and wether or not Cuba is restoring capitalism I thought this might be appropriate

The Golf Links
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
-- Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

Interestingly in Scotland and the North of England golf is a working class sport, everywhere else its a sign of having "arrived" in a local ruling elite.

[gorillafuck]

there's no such thing as Castroism. He's a Marxist-Leninist.

[manic expression]

Trotsky also supported the militarization of labor. Trotsky was wrong. He isn't a fucking saint. I'm surprised you're even quoting him, or is that because you think I uphold him as such?
Is that your argument..."he isn't a fucking saint"? OK, we knew that...now if you would be so kind, perhaps you could say something worth hearing?


EDIT: BTW that was a pretty shitty quote to use considering that in the bolded section he mentions nothing of wage differentials. That quote actually blatantly supports S. Artesian's position, considering that's exactly what he said a few pages back:
Income isn't always wages...but we're speaking of the principle of unequal compensation in socialist construction.


And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing father, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Yeah, that's past the stage that Cuba is at. Lenin already told us that socialist construction involves inequality within formal equality, which is where Cuba is at now. Do try to pay attention.


Right, right, the reforms with facilitate socialism one golf course at a time.

Or is that socialism in one golf course?

Do you have any idea how much of the social resources a golf course demands to be made appealing to the "carriage trade"? The demand for water, fertilizers, electricity?
And...? Having golf courses does not dictate social relations. You lose. Next question.


The formal equality does not take into consideration the variations among workers, in intensity, skill, duration.
Right...which is exactly what I've been saying.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Amazing the lengths people will go to defend Raul Castro's Cuba.

I love Cuba, don't get me wrong, and Fidel Castro is a huge hero of mine for his self-determination in the face of USA imperialism, but let us be honest, since he stepped down, Raul Castro has taken Cuba on a somewhat different path.

This latest news articulates a very Dengist-style path, and to see people on here using Capitalist jargon like 're-structuring' or whatever to defend layoffs of state workers and the expansion of the private sector, to me, is really rather sick.

If Fidel is/was a genuine left-nationalist, then Raul has proved to be little other than a populist-nationalist thus far.

[flobdob]

Amazing the lengths people will go to defend Raul Castro's Cuba.

I love Cuba, don't get me wrong, and Fidel Castro is a huge hero of mine for his self-determination in the face of USA imperialism, but let us be honest, since he stepped down, Raul Castro has taken Cuba on a somewhat different path.

This latest news articulates a very Dengist-style path, and to see people on here using Capitalist jargon like 're-structuring' or whatever to defend layoffs of state workers and the expansion of the private sector, to me, is really rather sick.

If Fidel is/was a genuine left-nationalist, then Raul has proved to be little other than a populist-nationalist thus far.

You remember that statement about history repeating itself first as tragedy, then as farce? It seems this applies to any time Cuba (or for that matter any socialist country) makes a change of any sort.

Myth 1 - Cuba is laying off state workers

It is true that 1 million Cuban workers will lose their current job. This is not the same thing as being laid off. In Cuba there is a legal obligation for the state/trade unions to offer workers alternative sources of employment. To briefly recap, these will either be in a) other areas of the state sector - primarily in agriculture and construction - , b) co-operative production - which is largely in agriculture- or c) "private" production, which is limited to a small number of non-strategic areas (like hairdressing, piano tuning etc). The process is taking place very slowly (over 5 years), to ensure that no major problems happen from going too fast with any change.

Contrast this to losing a job under capitalism, where you get about a week's notice before you are expected to go to the job centre and find yourself a new one or get left on the scrap heap. Cuba is taking a conscious political decision, as a socialist country, to ensure, in Raul Castro's words, that "nobody is left behind".

Myth 2 - Cuba is expanding the private sector

One of the key things that people here and in the bourgeois press seem to assume is that all 1 million workers are being expected to enter into the private sector. This is wrong. As said above, there are 3 areas of alternative employment, in the state, co-operative and "private" sector. Of these, the first 2 are being prioritised.

The "private sector" in Cuba consists of a small number of non strategic jobs like hairdressing and being a clown at birthday parties. Perhaps the most important one is in plumbing. With the 200,000 new applications since 2010 to the sector, it accounts for less than 7% of the Cuban economy.

These private sector jobs are being heavily regulated, with workers being unionised and a 2010 tax reform ensuring that they pay their share. We should all note guideline 3 of the Lineamientos, which says that " In the new forms of non-state management, the concentration of ownership shall not be permitted". And, further, as said in guideline 1, " socialist planning will continue to be the principal means to direct the national economy".

A far cry from a thriving bustling private sector. The bourgeoisie knows this - the 2011 Heritage Foundation Index on Economic Freedom places Cuba in the bottom 3.

Myth 3 - Raul Castro = Deng Xiaoping

This is perhaps the most pervasive of all, and yet at the same time the one least rooted in fact. Whilst the bourgeois media and the left are happy to present Raul Castro as some mysterious guy who appeared out of nowhere and set about dismantling the socialist economy, as revolutionaries we should know better. We should know that Raul was a member of the PSP, the original Cuban communist party, long before Fidel became a communist. We should know the role he played in the Sierra Maestra as comandante of the Frank Pais Eastern Front, fighting key battles against Batista in Oriente. As head of the FAR (the Cuban army) he made the army a relatively self-sufficient entity, leading the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Namibia and US imperialism at Playa Giron. He is a remarkable revolutionary of his own right.

Similarly it seeks to drive a wedge between Fidel and Raul. To do this it obscures the way that processes going underway now - the drive to build productivity and efficiency in socialism - are a continuity from what began under Fidel. Assuming a radical rupture between the two is totally counterfactual.

If anyone wants to see Raul as a "moderate", a "reformer" or a "market socialist" should actually read any of his speeches - they ain't no "socialism with Cuban characteristics".

[S.Artesian]

You forgot the myth about the golf courses and the $600,000 bungalows.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Flobdob: stop trivialising the rise of the private sector. Of these 1mln laid off (yes, laid off), at least a significant minority will relocate to the private sector, some will become unemployed no matter what the state's obligations are, because the state doesn't want them on the payroll and the private sector is still too fledgling to provide enough jobs.

The private sector isn't just full of clowns and individual hairdressers. It is expanding rapidly and to trivialise it is to really be ignorant of the truth at best, perhaps disingenuous at worst. The private sector, if it wished, could already open a 12-seater restaurant in its own home, it can now employ people to work for this 'paladar'. Do the maths:

12 seats, average of $5CUP meals, assume one rotation per night = $120CUP per night = $3600CUP per month = around $150CUC per month, when the average Cuban earns £10-20CUC per month.

And that's just their evening job.:rolleyes:

Stop using the excuse that it isn't rampant Capitalism. Of course it's not. But that doesn't meant that it's okay to re-introduce elements of Capitalism into the Cuban system. Doing so will exacerbate, not solve, the problems in Cuba of a rising class of haves vs a class of have nots (been there, seen it with my own eyes) and the currency problems.

And if you think that the agricultural sector in Cuba will be able to swallow up anywhere near 1million jobs then you are really quite naive and/or uninformed.

[flobdob]

Flobdob: stop trivialising the rise of the private sector. Of these 1mln laid off (yes, laid off), at least a significant minority will relocate to the private sector, some will become unemployed no matter what the state's obligations are, because the state doesn't want them on the payroll and the private sector is still too fledgling to provide enough jobs.

That's not true, and you know it. There is a legal obligation for the state to find alternative employment for people being "laid off" in Cuba. The Cuban state has managed through the last 20 years of keeping surplus workers on in state employment - arguing that they will "become unemployed no matter what" wasn't true then and it isn't true now. The reality is that Cuba is finding jobs for workers, and simply saying "No it's not!" doesn't refute that.


The private sector isn't just full of clowns and individual hairdressers. It is expanding rapidly and to trivialise it is to really be ignorant of the truth at best, perhaps disingenuous at worst. The private sector, if it wished, could already open a 12-seater restaurant in its own home, it can now employ people to work for this 'paladar'. Do the maths:

12 seats, average of $5CUP meals, assume one rotation per night = $120CUP per night = $3600CUP per month = around $150CUC per month, when the average Cuban earns £10-20CUC per month.

And that's just their evening job.:rolleyes:

Right. Now have a look at the tax reform initiated last year, and the legal prohibition on the accumulation of capital, and look at how the state will respond to that.

Private restaurants have existed in Cuba ever since the special period. Indeed, many have existed acting outside of "official" sanction - a large portion of those 200000 people who have applied for licenses are simply people who are now getting licenses to do what they did before on a safer legal ground. The nightmare scenario you're describing didn't exist in even the worst years of the Special Period. Indeed, the process of rectification and reform from 2005-onwards has made it even harder for them to do what you say; the reformed tax system and the increased costs they face (from salaries for unionised workers, for instance) make it harder still.


Stop using the excuse that it isn't rampant Capitalism. Of course it's not. But that doesn't meant that it's okay to re-introduce elements of Capitalism into the Cuban system. Doing so will exacerbate, not solve, the problems in Cuba of a rising class of haves vs a class of have nots (been there, seen it with my own eyes) and the currency problems.

But this is precisely it - Cuba is not reintroducing elements of capitalism, as has been argued extensively in this thread and elsewhere. You'll note more than a few parallels from current proposals with those made in the 1986 rectification period - y'know, when Fidel gave the speech about how Cuba "will not adopt capitalist methods"...


And if you think that the agricultural sector in Cuba will be able to swallow up anywhere near 1million jobs then you are really quite naive and/or uninformed.

Except nobody ever said that, in this thread or elsewhere. As I have been *repeatedly* saying, re-employment is being targetted in the state sector (in industry, construction and agriculture), in the co-operative sector (largely agriculture) and in the "private" sector (note: in that order). A far cry from agriculture alone being expected to "swallow up" 1 million workers.

Though it is worth noting that agriculture potentially *could* do this. It will be recalled that, when sugar production was pulled back, a lot of land was left fallow. Some of this was subsequently redistributed in an attempt to encourage co-operative production to boost domestic food production (a direct attempt to reduce expenditure on food and increase self-sufficiency - a key part of the rectification program which includes these employment reforms). You'd recall that there is a major problem with Marabu infestation however - indeed one reason why they emphasised co-operatives using the land was so that the state wouldn't have to waste it's money removing the weeds. Cuban agriculture could very well find employment for 1 million people in removing Marabu alone - but obviously it's not going to, and I challenge you to find 1 million people who want to be employed pulling weeds. Will agriculture play a very important role? Absolutely.

[Lucretia]

Not to come here as Mr. Marxologist, but I noticed a terrible exegesis of a Marx passage a few pages back. Somebody criticized the Cuban economy for allowing commercial employees at tourist resorts to make more money in tips than state medical employees make in more than a month. Then in defense of this, somebody ridiculously mentioned Marx's discussion of equality in his Critique of the Gotha Program.

Anybody who has read and understood Marx's argument there in regards to labor contribution and equality will know it was made by a person who would have detested the aforementioned situation. Marx conceded that pegging "income" to one's labor contribution (NOT conceptualized in bourgeois 'value' terms) might be unavoidable in the socialist stage of communism, but that the just distributive principle to be achieved in the higher stage of communism was need-based. He criticized people who advocated one standard for everybody as failing to recognize and account for people's differences, differences which might lead people not to be able to contribute as much to social labor or might require them to consume more than others. It is in this sense, not in the sense of shilling for the Cuban tourist industry, that Marx had stern words for abstract "equality."

To cite this argument as a justification for the tourist worker bringing home hundreds of dollars of tips in a society where a doctor makes that in a week is just the worst kind of misreading - or perhaps deliberate twisting - of Marx's texts and ideas.

[Kléber]

We should know that Raul was a member of the PSP, the original Cuban communist party, long before Fidel became a communist.
The PSP was an utterly opportunist party that helped Batista into power, supported his government for years and denounced the assault on the Moncada barracks. And I thought your line was that Fidel was always an undercover communist. xD


As head of the FAR (the Cuban army) he made the army a relatively self-sufficient entity, leading the fight against apartheid in South Africa and NamibiaThat was General Ochoa who defeated the apartheid forces, and he got shot as a scapegoat for the crimes of the bureaucracy.

[flobdob]

Not to come here as Mr. Marxologist, but I noticed a terrible exegesis of a Marx passage a few pages back. Somebody criticized the Cuban economy for allowing commercial employees at tourist resorts to make more money in tips than state medical employees make in more than a month. Then in defense of this, somebody ridiculously mentioned Marx's discussion of equality in his Critique of the Gotha Program.


The stuff relating to the Critique of the Gotha Program wasn't anything to do with the difference between salaries of medical employees and people working in taxis or something like that. That's recognised by *everyone* to be a massive distortion, not least the Cuban government (indeed it's a key element of why Cubans hate the dual currency system). It did however refer to the existence of wage differentials ( pegging "income" to one's labor contribution (NOT conceptualized in bourgeois 'value' terms) that you talk about) under socialism.

[flobdob]

The PSP was an utterly opportunist party that helped Batista into power, supported his government for years and denounced the assault on the Moncada barracks. And I thought your line was that Fidel was always an undercover communist. xD

Technically speaking he was a member of JS, the youth group linked to the PSP - which is where he had the opportunity to read Lenin and so on. Trying to link the PSP's failings to Raul Castro is nuts though - especially when he, y'know, lead the assault on Moncada and fought in the war against Batista as a commander of the rebel army.

And nobody said "Fidel was always an undercover communist". We know he had read some Marx and Lenin in his university years, something that increased when he was in Batista's prisons. How is this even relevant here, or is it just typical ad hominem nonsense that's so prevalent on this site?


That was General Ochoa who defeated the apartheid forces, and he got shot as a scapegoat for the crimes of the bureaucracy.

Last time I checked he was executed for drug trafficking, not for "crimes of the bureaucracy".

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Flobdob, comrade, stop defending these clear capitalist changes as Socialist.

I am a defender of Cuba against US imperialism as strongly as the next person, I can assure you. However, I do not understand why you are defending these clearly defensive/private sector-orientated changes.

Whether or not the state finds alternative employment does not change the fact that it is laying them off - a clear sign that it does NOT want them on the payroll. Whatever its obligations are, it is not simply shuffling the deckchairs here, it is clearly trying to expand the private sector. That it is not churning out large corporations, but small private vendors, is irrelevant, as the intent is clear.

If Cuba was moving forward, then this Congress it would have addressed three key issues:

the dual currency problem
the existence, hitherto, of bourgeois property relations in terms of housing
closer integration with the ALBA trading/currency bloc, finding new markets for its export products

Yet, despite these three things being the three clearest and gravest threats to the continued existence in Cuba, Raul and co. have simply focused on adjusting the labour market to what is arguably a closer to private-sector orientation.

Let's be clear, flobdob, this congress was nothing but a defeat for Socialism. So stop defending the state lay-offs as 'restructuring' or whatever and admit that, in the grand scheme of things, this congress moved Cuba AWAY from Socialism, not TOWARDS it. Or are you going to argue that these changes were socialistic?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Last time I checked he was executed for drug trafficking, not for "crimes of the bureaucracy".

And you support the execution of a hero of the revolution for drug trafficking?

I hope the irony strikes you next time you drink an alcohol beverage.

[flobdob]

Flobdob, comrade, stop defending these clear capitalist changes as Socialist.

I am a defender of Cuba against US imperialism as strongly as the next person, I can assure you. However, I do not understand why you are defending these clearly defensive/private sector-orientated changes.

As a defender of Cuba you should know better than to rely on the bourgeois media harping on about "capitalist" reforms there. Try checking out some (http://cubasolidaritycampaign.blogspot.com/2011/01/sustaining-revolution.html) well (http://revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/cuba/1934-cuba-the-drive-for-efficiency-within-socialism--frfi-217-octnov-2010) informed (http://links.org.au/node/1891) sources (http://links.org.au/node/1968) for (http://links.org.au/node/2086) help (http://links.org.au/node/1975).


Whether or not the state finds alternative employment does not change the fact that it is laying them off - a clear sign that it does NOT want them on the payroll. Whatever its obligations are, it is not simply shuffling the deckchairs here, it is clearly trying to expand the private sector. That it is not churning out large corporations, but small private vendors, is irrelevant, as the intent is clear.

How about we actually take a concrete analysis of the status of the Cuban economy and the historical development of socialism in Cuba before we come to some very sweeping conclusions? The links above do this; if these aren't enough, try looking at this presentation (http://palgrave.typepad.com/yaffe/index.html) as well.



If Cuba was moving forward, then this Congress it would have addressed three key issues:

the dual currency problem
the existence, hitherto, of bourgeois property relations in terms of housing
closer integration with the ALBA trading/currency bloc, finding new markets for its export products


Despite the audacity of someone in London deciding the criteria Cuba must fulfil for it to "move forward", it's worth noting that most of these were tackled in the congress. Simply saying that they weren't mentioned in the Congress (which, by the way, is untrue; certainly, the existence of the dual currency and ALBA played key roles in discussion of economic structure) is irrelevant, as they are brought up regularly both at assembly levels and in the mass organisations.



Yet, despite these three things being the three clearest and gravest threats to the continued existence in Cuba, Raul and co. have simply focused on adjusting the labour market to what is arguably a closer to private-sector orientation.

"Arguably", if you know nothing about the long-term program of reform and rectification that these measures are part of. The "friends of Cuba" on this forum might want to gain some conception of history; you might then realise that these recent elements of reform are part of a restructure and rectification program going back to the measures taken in 2005 to recentralise finance, the rollout of the EPS and so on (in lieu of the fact that I'm not going to repeat myself for what must be the 3rd/4th time in the same thread, either read my other posts or check out this journal article if you have access (http://lap.sagepub.com/content/36/2/49.short)). This arbitary assumption that these reforms come out of nowhere (aside presumably from the head of naughty boy #1 Raul Castro) is totally ahistorical, and a key underlying premise for the entire argument you're advancing.


Let's be clear, flobdob, this congress was nothing but a defeat for Socialism. So stop defending the state lay-offs as 'restructuring' or whatever and admit that, in the grand scheme of things, this congress moved Cuba AWAY from Socialism, not TOWARDS it. Or are you going to argue that these changes were socialistic?

Are these changes rooted in socialism? Yes. Are these changes ideal or perfect? No, and nobody is claiming they are - indeed, that's why there has been a massive emphasis on debating and discussing them, and now monitoring their implementation (both via the monitoring body set up by the council of ministers and through ‘objective, continuous and critical reports on the progress of the updating of the economic model’) . They are a pragmatic response to underlying issues affecting the Cuban economy - the blockade, low productivity, surplus labour in different sectors, import reliance and so on, in the context also of a global capitalist crisis. They take a conscious set of political decisions so that, unlike capitalism, "nobody will be abandoned". They do not exist in a vacuum either - we will recall that the Congress dealt with some other key political issues for the revolution too, such as an ageing leadership, an underrepresentation of women, black and mixed race people in leadership positions, and the role of the media in facilitating debate. Indeed, the Congress didn't happen in a vacuum either - there has been a concerted move to develop popular participation in the revolution (in ways as diverse as the Mesa Redonda TV show, last year's division of electoral districts, the mass debates and discussions on the Lineamientos and so on), to strengthen links with the Bolivarian and anti-imperialist movements through participation in ALBA, and a forging a political consciousness through issues like the Blockade, the Cuban 5, the counterrevolutionaries and so on.


And you support the execution of a hero of the revolution for drug trafficking?
Last time I checked I never said what I think about it - rather, I corrected the slander that was being levelled at Cuba. Is this really what it gets down to - random attacks on people about unrelated issues at a total tangent to the discussion? Have I wandered onto a Spart forum by mistake?

[RED DAVE]

Try checking out some well informed sources for help (http://links.org.au/node/1975).
Cuban Communist Oscar Martinez:

[Q:] So what is the response of workers to your new economic reforms?

We have spent long hours with the trade unions and workers. We discuss our problems. We make them public. That's how we can solve them. If we are open with people they will support us, as they did during the "Special Period" after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. We have also been given lots of ideas by the public and are including these in our plans.

But the workers are worried. You see, until now the state has been doing everything for them. They have become too dependent on the state, on the excesses of government paternalism. Now they have to adjust. It won't be easy, but we will do it. In a situation like this, the government has to be part of the solution.

We are not going to leave the workers alone. We are going to assist them in their new work. We have to make these changes. If we don't make them we will burden future generations. We are doing this for us but mainly for our children.(emph added)

http://links.org.au/node/1975

Love those pronouns!

Is it possible to be more clear that this is something that is being doen to the working class by a government outside them?

RED DAVE

[flobdob]

163000 meetings involving ~9 million people, holding discussions which resulted in 780000 recommendations that modified 181 guidelines and removed entirely 45 of them - all thrown out the window because of RED DAVE and his mighty pronoun powers.

Seriously, is this the best that the anti-Cuba clique can do?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Fair post, flobdob. I'll look into the material when i've got more time.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Cuba seems to be the greatest example of the dead-end of petty bourgeois nationalism.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/


This article quoted is pure shit.

That is not what the "Cuban government", whatever they want you to believe that is, has "allowed" to do. Instead of quoting this CNN bullshit, Granma should be quoted so we could discuss what we're discussing about...no shit, right?

[KC]

Instead of quoting this CNN bullshit, Granma should be quoted so we could discuss what we're discussing about...no shit, right?

Or instead of being a hack for the state media, both should be quoted. Feel free to post it...

[Jose Gracchus]

This article quoted is pure shit.

That is not what the "Cuban government", whatever they want you to believe that is, has "allowed" to do. Instead of quoting this CNN bullshit, Granma should be quoted so we could discuss what we're discussing about...no shit, right?

Rather than alluding to the possibility that its basic factual claims are wrong, maybe you could actually do your own homework rather than expecting us to take your word for it. Is the Cuban bureaucracy not opening up the economy to more and more private and personal profit, with wage labor in its most unvarnished and capitalist form?

[Nial Fossjet]

I wonder what Fidel thinks of his brother.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Rather than alluding to the possibility that its basic factual claims are wrong, maybe you could actually do your own homework rather than expecting us to take your word for it.

I'm saying that we're arguing on facts that are reported through a third party. Instead, we should go to the source.

I didn't provide any information, so there is nothing you have to take my word on. My perspective comes from my experience with the media in the US. It tends to provide information that serves the interest of the elites. Therefore, I ALWAYS assume that news from US sources is deceiving.