How is production performed in a socialist economy?

[UnknownPerson]

As the title says, how is production performed in a socialist economy? What about the distribution? Who gets what?

[Book O'Dead]

Democratically. We get what we work for (minus whatever deductions are deemed necessary to ensure recapitalization and for sustaining other social enterprises like education, child care, medical, etc.).

[Broletariat]

To understand how production will be carried out under socialism/communism, we must understand how it is carried out under Capitalism.

Under Capitalism we of course of a division of labour which gives us isolated spheres of production. Under Capitalism production is carried out for individual profit.

In Socialism, we'd still have a division of labour, but production would be carried out for social need.

Despite a fear of becoming ckhaitsu, here's a diagram that I made that is simple and explanatory.

http://i.imgur.com/a6CYe.jpg

On the left is Capitalism, the lines represent value relations in order for things to circulate. On the right is Communism.

Distribution is a different question entirely. Price plays the distributive role in Capitalism. Under Socialism there might be labour-credits or a gift-economy style dealio, whatever it is, it will be democratically decided.

[Blake's Baby]

To the OP: That's not 'production'. That's 'distribution'.

Under capitalism, people with money can buy a wheelchair even though they can walk, but people who need one can't necessarily do that; under the labour credit system, people can trade their credits for a wheelchair (ie, buy a wheelchair) because they can work, but again people who need one might not be able to. Neither of these makes sense, but allocating a wheelchair to someone who needs one is only possible through some kind of rationing-by-need (as opposed to rationing-by-money or rationing-by-work system).

I think that the things that are scarce should be rationed: democratic decisions about who needs what should be taken and scarce resources assigned. Other things, it doesn't matter, take what you need.

[Book O'Dead]

To the OP:

I think that the things that are scarce should be rationed: democratic decisions about who needs what should be taken and scarce resources assigned. Other things, it doesn't matter, take what you need.

The operative phrase should be "production for use and not for sale with a view to profit".

[Psy]

As the title says, how is production performed in a socialist economy? Who gets what?

Who gets what is a distribution issue not production issue.

That said it would be a for use mode of production, meaning the point of production would be to fill a desired utility, thus everything produced would have been produced to create utility and its worth would be based on the utility it generates.

[Blake's Baby]

The operative phrase should be "production for use and not for sale with a view to profit".

That's what I was trying to get at with 'need'. I think both 'need' and 'use' have problems, though, in terms of explanitory power. 'I'd use a Ferrari' and even 'I need a Ferrari' both make linguistic (but not social) sense... but neither are what I mean.

Communities should decide what's needed, liase with productive units (factories, farms etc) to get them delivered, and have the power to decide who gets what on the basis that some people need some things that others don't (eg the wheelchairs mentioned earlier).

[ZeroNowhere]

Who gets what is a distribution issue not production issue.
It is a production issue, though, because labour has to be distributed among various spheres before anything else.

[Psy]

It is a production issue, though, because labour has to be distributed among various spheres before anything else.
That is allocation of productive forces. Think of a war economy, before resources are distributed among forces its production is planned and prioritized and as tanks roll off assembly lines they are distributed among the entire war effort. Same for a peace time economy in this case, a bulldozer factory wouldn't build bulldozers based current orders it would build for the stockpile of bulldozers which is then distributed due to the length of production cycle and retooling production.

[UnknownPerson]

I have a question to all of you - would a socialist economy which is based on production for use be able to fulfill more use-value than a market, profit-driven economy?

[ZeroNowhere]

That is allocation of productive forces. Think of a war economy, before resources are distributed among forces its production is planned and prioritized and as tanks roll off assembly lines they are distributed among the entire war effort. Same for a peace time economy in this case, a bulldozer factory wouldn't build bulldozers based current orders it would build for the stockpile of bulldozers which is then distributed due to the length of production cycle and retooling production.Which would still require more than 1 hour of social labour-time to be devoted to bulldozers. Who gets what is just as much a question of who gets what produced for them.

[Broletariat]

I have a question to all of you - would a socialist economy which is based on production for use be able to fulfill more use-value than a market, profit-driven economy?

Yes, Capitalist society has often seen a time where use-value was destroyed in order to maintain exchange-value. e.g. great depression farmer's spoiling milk and such I think it was.

[Fulanito de Tal]

I have a question to all of you - would a socialist economy which is based on production for use be able to fulfill more use-value than a market, profit-driven economy?


lol

Side bit
In a capitalist system, too many houses is a bad thing because it leads to crises and such.

In a socialist system, too many houses means that production has met its need, no one is homeless, and we can take a break from worrying about the housing situation.

In this case, I would say yes because the houses would be put to use instead of being dead capital.

[robbo203]

To the OP: That's not 'production'. That's 'distribution'.

Under capitalism, people with money can buy a wheelchair even though they can walk, but people who need one can't necessarily do that; under the labour credit system, people can trade their credits for a wheelchair (ie, buy a wheelchair) because they can work, but again people who need one might not be able to. Neither of these makes sense, but allocating a wheelchair to someone who needs one is only possible through some kind of rationing-by-need (as opposed to rationing-by-money or rationing-by-work system).

I think that the things that are scarce should be rationed: democratic decisions about who needs what should be taken and scarce resources assigned. Other things, it doesn't matter, take what you need.


Good point

This is why I think it is useful to think of a socialist/communist economy as a dual sector economy with one sector involving some form of rationng for those goods that are scarce and the other for more abundant goods that can be made available on the basis of free access. The process of allocation reflecting society' values will tend to reproduce this dichotomy anyway with high priority goods being more abundant and low priority goods being more scarce.

On the principle of rationing, I think the criterion used should be the quality of housing stock. Its a simple straightforward criterion which would minimise bureaucracy and involves something that actually makes for a very important component of the the quality of our lives. In the UK for example following the disastrous poll tax, a new scheme was introduced by which to raise local taxes which affectively placed all housing units within one of 7 or 8 bands for taxation purposes. Of course in socialism you wouldnt have taxes or any of the other paraphenalia of the capitalist money system but you could certainly grade housing stock according to their physical characteristics. That would then allow you to issue certificates or whatever documentation is required to enable some to enjoy priority access to rationed goods depending on the assesed quality of the dwelling they live in.

I call this the " compensation model of rationing" since we cannot all live in the same high quality type of accommodation we might desire at least for some time. This will help to diffuse social tension that might arise over differences in material conditions - particularly housing stock - in the early stages of a communist/socialist society

[UnknownPerson]

lol

Side bit
In a capitalist system, too many houses is a bad thing because it leads to crises and such.

In a socialist system, too many houses means that production has met its need, no one is homeless, and we can take a break from worrying about the housing situation.

In this case, I would say yes because the houses would be put to use instead of being dead capital.

I'm not talking about capitalism when I say 'market'. Market socialism and social democracy both use a market economy.

[Psy]

Which would still require more than 1 hour of social labour-time to be devoted to bulldozers. Who gets what is just as much a question of who gets what produced for them.

When it comes to distributing bulldozers between projects they would plan around the size of the stockpile as the changes to the stockpile will take another production cycle to change change and might not necessarily mean a increase in bulldozer production is necessary as other projects using bulldozers might complete within the production cycle and free up bulldozers before bulldozer factories finished with expansions (or new bulldozers factories built) also increasing bulldozer production will consume more resources that will ripple up the supply chain so it might not be easy to increase bulldozer production thus it might be that projects have to be prioritized and deal with shortages of bulldozers (in that society would like more bulldozers then it can realistically have in that production cycle).

So yhea distribution is a important question but a different question.

[ZeroNowhere]

I think that this is a fairly complex issue, and as such it may be convenient to illustrate it with a simple diagram contrasting capitalist and socialist societies, as after all a picture is worth a thousand words.

http://i.imgur.com/em09B.jpg

The left side of the picture represents a market economy, in which people are divided by the private nature of their labour, and hence must procure goods through exchange as private entities. On the other hand, the right side is a socialist economy, where everybody forms and works as a whole to bring happiness to all. As such, labour is carried out in direct accordance with the social need, as the private labour division illustrated in the first half of the diagram is not present and hence people ultimately work together in a *holistic* manner in order to fulfill social needs.

Of course, the diversity of people's needs will have to be taken into account in producing things, so that for example the second person from the left on the second half of the diagram has an iPod, while the others have different things. Great care was put into ensuring that all of the characters portrayed have a distinct and unique personality, as can be seen for example in the facial expression of the third person from the left, who is very angry at the second because he considers iPods to be bourgeois decadence. In addition, as a helpful illustration of the inequality hidden beneath the equality of market relations, dental images have been included on each side; on the left side, one can see that the man selling the widgets has vampire teeth, illustrating the fact that they are in actual fact a capitalist parasite, while on the right people have normal, human teeth and hence are not fashionable among preteens, which can only be a good thing.

Hopefully this has helped to clarify the matter.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm not talking about capitalism when I say 'market'. Market socialism and social democracy both use a market economy.

I am.

'Market Socialism' is as far as I know a joke that only exists on the web (sadly some people seem to think it's real) - socialism is a classless (classes depend on property relations and therefore having no classes implies having no property) communal (again implying that property is held 'in common' not privately) society without money (no exchange means no property and no market) based on the premise 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs' - so no 'market' there, just free access communism. 'Market socialism' is thus an oxymoron.

'Social democracy' is a way of administering capitalism rather than a different economic system. It's capitalism with slightly higher taxes. So again counterposing 'social democracy' to 'capitalism' makes no sense.

And Zero - that's a fucking awesome illustration. I really like the teeth.

[Fulanito de Tal]

I am.
'Social democracy' is a way of administering capitalism rather than a different economic system. It's capitalism with slightly higher taxes. So again counterposing 'social democracy' to 'capitalism' makes no sense.

Social democracy is a system in which the means of production are privately owned, but the welfare of the "less fortunate" is taken into consideration so as to meet their needs from a social justice ethical perspective, whatever that may be at the time.

[Blake's Baby]

That's what I said, only shorter. Capitalism with slightly higher taxes.

[Broletariat]

I'm not talking about capitalism when I say 'market'. Market socialism and social democracy both use a market economy.

Social democracy IS Capitalism. As is "market socialism." You seem to fail to understand Marx's theory of commodity fetishism which is that Capitalism MUST behave in a certain manner.


I think that this is a fairly complex issue, and as such it may be convenient to illustrate it with a simple diagram contrasting capitalist and socialist societies, as after all a picture is worth a thousand words.

http://i.imgur.com/em09B.jpg

The left side of the picture represents a market economy, in which people are divided by the private nature of their labour, and hence must procure goods through exchange as private entities. On the other hand, the right side is a socialist economy, where everybody forms and works as a whole to bring happiness to all. As such, labour is carried out in direct accordance with the social need, as the private labour division illustrated in the first half of the diagram is not present and hence people ultimately work together in a *holistic* manner in order to fulfill social needs.

Of course, the diversity of people's needs will have to be taken into account in producing things, so that for example the second person from the left on the second half of the diagram has an iPod, while the others have different things. Great care was put into ensuring that all of the characters portrayed have a distinct and unique personality, as can be seen for example in the facial expression of the third person from the left, who is very angry at the second because he considers iPods to be bourgeois decadence. In addition, as a helpful illustration of the inequality hidden beneath the equality of market relations, dental images have been included on each side; on the left side, one can see that the man selling the widgets has vampire teeth, illustrating the fact that they are in actual fact a capitalist parasite, while on the right people have normal, human teeth and hence are not fashionable among preteens, which can only be a good thing.

Hopefully this has helped to clarify the matter.

I laughed my ass off.

[Agent Ducky]

I laughed my ass off.

I did too. Especially the explanation of why there's an angry guy and the vampire teeth. Pure brilliance.

[Fulanito de Tal]

That's what I said, only shorter. Capitalism with slightly higher taxes.

Social democracies may have higher taxes, but not necessarily. A capitalist system may use higher taxes to fund imperialist interventions in other states. In this case, it wouldn't be a social democracy because social justice in not a factor.

[wayward1981]

Market Socialism is the only method by which Lenin prevented mass famine in russia, allowing grain farmers to sell most of their grain crops and only give 10 percent to the state.