Socialism and its contradictions [Archive]

Paul Cockshott

26th June 2011, 23:58

I am starting a new thread to address issues that arose in the War Guilt of German Imperialism thread, which were clearly off-thread.
These arose from the claim by some participants that there were no socialist societies in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s. I intend to open with a moderate length post addressing the epistemological basis of such a claim, before handling the much more difficult challenge of answering what the contradictions inherent in socialist economy are.

The inform candidate wishes to argue that Jugoslavia in 1955 or Russia in 1945 were
not 'marxian socialist' societies.

I objected that there was no such thing as Marxian Socialism, since
Marx had never put forward any model of socialism, and I challenged
him to come up with some publication by Marx setting out what a
Marxian socialist society might be. Of course he can find no such
publication. Instead he cited a passage by another list participant
which concedes that Marx, insofar as he talks about socialism does
so in a critical fashion, opposing Communism to Socialism, with the
latter being seen as utopian scheme building.

In Marx's case this hostility to puting forward any socialist proposals
went on till his last years as my quote from his Notes on Wagner, one
of his last works showed.

Xanthorous who is quoted by Inform Candidate, essentially concedes that
Marx did not advocate socialism but says that Engels did use the word socialism.
This is correct, he did.

But Engels too was critical of any attempt to lay down in advance what
a socialist society should be emphasising that it was only the real
movement of history that would reveal this. This was also the basic
reason why Marx was so reticent to say much about the economic structure
of communism. He knew from his study of the history of political
economy that writers in pre-capitalist societies or from societies just
developing into capitalism had been unable to forsee how
capitalism would develop later. He, still in the capitalist world,
could at best analyse the trends present in capitalism that hinted
at its eventual end, and make a few very tentative suggestions about
how a post capitalist society might be organised.

His entire suggestions about the organisation of communism economy
come down to 4 points:

1. That he saw some system of labour vouchers as a possible distribution
in a future communist system or system of 'associated producers:
( two passages in Capital, and one in the Critique of the Gotha programme).

2. That the use of labour vouchers was not practical unless production
was directly social -- ie, it is impossible to force an economy of
independent producers to exchange their products exactly in proportion
to labour time.

3. That workers in a communist economy would have to have deductions from
their pay in labour vouchers to cover social security provisions ( remember
social security deductions did not exist in the real world when he wrote
this so this was a piece of real foresight ).

4. That a highly productive economy could afford more social benefits tied
to need, so that as time went on the principle of payment in proportion
to labour performed could be suplemented by credits or benefits to those
in particular need due to family size, invalidity etc.

If Inform had said that there was no economy in 1945 or 1955 that corresponded
to Marxian communism, then he would have a defensible position, since no
economy had a system of labour voucher distribution. The socialist economies
all retained money, and the only sustained attempt to use labour time accounting
was within only a part of the economy : the work point system in the Chinese
Communes in the 1960s and early 1970s.

But the problem with saying this is that it would be unexceptional. The
Communist Parties in power all agreed that their economies had not reached
the stage of Marxian communism. Some of them considered that their econmies
were already socialist (CSSR and USSR for instance ) in others they
held that the economy was a mixture of socialism and private production
( for example Poland ).

The inform candidate wants to make out that the idea of socialism as
a stage prior to communism was an innovation of Stalin. This is plainly
untrue, since the idea was present in Lenin and just repeated by Stalin.
Nor is it accurate to say that the idea of retaining money in a
socialist economy was a Stalinist or even a Leninist innovation.
The idea was well established before Lenin. Kautsky explicitly
argued that money would have to be retained by socialist societies
for the forseeable future. Neither the 2nd or the 3rd internationals
commited to the abolition of money as an immediate programmatic
goal.

What the USSR and then the East European states established in the
1950s was recognisably a socialist economy in terms of the broad aims understood
by most of the international socialist movement during the first half
of the 20th century. It was not Marxian communism, but it did not
claim to be that.

As a new social system, socialism had features and problems that could
not possibly have been fully anticipated by earlier speculation. There
are various responses one can make to these. You can say, as the critics
of socialism argue, that socialists were proposing an impossible system
to start out with, and that it was bound to run into these problems.
This was the view of some right wing economists in the West, and also
a view come to by some former socialist economists like Kornai.

You could say that the existence of these economic inefficiencies indicated
that the economies were not socialist at all -- this is the position of
the Inform Candidate and of people like Hillel Ticktin or the late Tony
Cliff. But the 'socialism' to which these critics contrast the historical
socialist countries is not an alternative social system open to investigation.
Such critics make it a point of principle to say that socialism has never
existed. This precludes us from looking at for example the USSR in 1965 and
contrasting it point by point with some known example of a socialist society.
The contrast they are making is not a contrast between two categories of
existing matterial systems, but a contrast between and existing society and
an ideal socialist society -- ideal in the sense that it only exists as an
idea.

It is not per-se invalid for a science to develop the idea of something before
it has been observed. The concept of a black hole was developed by Laplace
and Schwarzschild well before there was any evidence for their existence.
But the theories of gravity on which the concept of a black hole was
based was very precise and very well validated under by other observations.

The idea of a socialist society also existed prior to any observation of a
socialist society, it was based on theories of economic development that
came from the study of societies that existed in and prior to the 19th century.

The prediction about the possible existence of black holes worked because
they are very simple objects which can be described by 3 variables

But to show that they could come into existence, for instance by the collapse
of super massive stars, required a much more elaborate and complex theory of
stellar dyamics, the dynamics of accretion disks, and actual observations of
probable black holes in the form of Seifert galaxies kernels.

If we want to go beyond postulating the existence of black holes and go on
to distinguish between black holes and other super dense configurations
that from a distance behave like black holes ( eg
neutron stars), you need an even more complex theory taking into account not only
gravity but electromagnetic and nuclear forces.

So in principle it is not unreasonable for a social scientist to be able to
develop a theory not only of how socialism is possible but how various
other systems that look like socialism from a distance may be distinguished from it.
But to do this you would need a detailed theory of how socialism would work
and how it could come into being, and this theory would have to be a lot more
complex than the theory required for black holes. A socialist society would
be something much more complex than a black hole, so developing a theory about
them from scratch, without any observations to guide you, would have been a heroic
task. So it is not surprising that no such theory of the dynamics of socialist
society had been developed prior to the first socialist experiments in the
20th century.

But even now, a century or so later, the people who reject studying countries
like the former USSR or East Germany as examples of socialism, have not developed
any detailed theoretical model of the dynamics of 'true socialism' that would
enable us to distinguish it from the 'false socialism' of the historical
examples. Where is the agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism?
Where is the agreed theory even of its economic structure?
Where is the theory of the mechanisms by which 'true socialism' would cause
classes to disappear, shortages to disappear, technology to develop rapidly,
economic calculation to be performed effectively?

There is no such agreed theory among the critics of historically existing socialism,
on the contrary there are only a few slogans like 'production for use not profit',
'abolition of abstract labour', 'workers power', 'absence of classes', 'abolition
of scarcity'. These slogans range from ambiguity ( workers power ), through hope
( absence of classes ), meaninglessness (' production for use not profit', 'abolition
of abstract labour') to the impossible ( abolition of scarcity).

Die Neue Zeit

27th June 2011, 00:55

Notwithstanding Real, Radical Bourgeois Socialism (Left Ricardianism / Economic Republicanism), Petit-Bourgeois Socialism (ranging from Distributism to Third World Caesarean Socialism :D ), True Socialism, Proletarian Socialism, etc.

All tendencies that like to scream "state capitalism," including the Marxist-Humanists, conveniently ignore how the programmatic works of "Late Marx" emphasized the abolition of "juridical private property" - in turn tied much more closely to class relations than approaches tackling generalized commodity production directly - and also replacing "production for profit" with higher production relations (read: central planning), before any sort of lower or higher communist production was considered.

Just read the Programme of the French Workers Party (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm)!

Where do "Late Marx" and Guesde write of non-circulable labour vouchers (forerunners of proposed electronic non-circulable labour credits)? [Nowhere.]

Where do they write of private property? ["That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production [...] this collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat - organized in a distinct political party [...] in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production [...]"]

The fault of the Second International onwards was the bastardization of Marx's approach to generalized commodity production ("the lower phase of communism has generalized commodity production" a la Stalin or "generalized commodity production = consumer, labour, and capital markets" a la Trotsky), and this in turn allowed coordinators to seize political and economic power and establish their own Coordinator Socialism. This has led, in turn, to the flip-side fault of screamers of "state capitalism" basically saying that there's no such thing as non-capitalistic generalized commodity production, even going so far as to stretch the definition of "markets" (such as the alleged Soviet "labour market").

DaringMehring

27th June 2011, 01:10

There is no such agreed theory among the critics of historically existing socialism,
on the contrary there are only a few slogans like 'production for use not profit',
'abolition of abstract labour', 'workers power', 'absence of classes', 'abolition
of scarcity'. These slogans range from ambiguity ( workers power ), through hope
( absence of classes ), meaninglessness (' production for use not profit', 'abolition
of abstract labour') to the impossible ( abolition of scarcity).

1) Historically existing "socialism" -- the air quotes are important.

2) You call the slogan of "workers power" ambiguous, wanting to excuse the lack of anything resembling workers power, even in an ambiguous sense, in the economies you discuss. You negate the core principles of Marx and Lenin, that the proletarians have to defeat the power of the ruling class bourgeoisie, and take the power for themselves in the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I could insert some kind of personal attack on Stalinists, social democrats, and everybody else who pretends to care about the working class, but doesn't think that the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class, and that creating some kind of bureaucratic system that is nicer to the working class than capitalism has any kind of historical or Marxist validity. But this position is historically dead, its only living dregs in the CPUSA, supporters of the CPC, Labor Party, and assorted other fakers.

I mean, you spend paragraphs rambling about black holes, assert your conclusions in a sentence, and dismiss "workers power" and other "slogans" as ambiguous, etc. Class power -- the key concept of Marx-Lenin.

DaringMehring

27th June 2011, 01:15

Die Neue Zeit

27th June 2011, 01:15

"Workers power" is ambiguous, and "workers control" is worse:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-controli-t144527/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/stakeholder-co-management-t145117/index.html

It says a lot that DNZ & Cockshott focus on "vouchers in a socialist society" and other questions of how Marx foresaw utopia in 1860, ie content similar to utopian socialism, rather than Marx's brilliant innovation which was situating socialism in class relations, class struggle, and material forces and conditions.

Wrong year. :rolleyes:

1875: Critique of the Gotha Programme
1878-1885: Capital, Volume II

Hardly "utopian." :glare:

Die Neue Zeit

27th June 2011, 01:19

But even now, a century or so later, the people who reject studying countries like the former USSR or East Germany as examples of socialism, have not developed any detailed theoretical model of the dynamics of 'true socialism' that would enable us to distinguish it from the 'false socialism' of the historical examples. Where is the agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism? Where is the agreed theory even of its economic structure? Where is the theory of the mechanisms by which 'true socialism' would cause classes to disappear, shortages to disappear, technology to develop rapidly, economic calculation to be performed effectively?

Now, comrade, that I've addressed one side of the polemic, I'll address the other side by asking you a rhetorical question.

Why do you think the pareconists / Participatory Socialists reject the former USSR as an "example of socialism"? There are ethical reasons for sure on their part, but there are institutional reasons as well (coordinators vs. workers).

You write above of Ticktin and Cliff, but only the latter screamed "state capitalist." Like the pareconists and "degenerate workers state" Trotskyists, Ticktin and other like-minded thinkers hold to some form of neither-socialist-nor-capitalist position such as Bureaucratic Collectivism or Bureaucratic Absolutism.

By the way:

Some of them considered that their economies were already socialist (CSSR and USSR for instance) in others they held that the economy was a mixture of socialism and private production (for example Poland).

The state capitalism of the DDR, Hungary, Poland, and Romania (http://www.revleft.com/vb/state-capitalism-ddr-t156747/index.html)

RED DAVE

27th June 2011, 05:34

"Workers power" is ambiguous, and "workers control" is worseOnly for you and Paul because your concept of socialism wavers somewhere between social democracy and stalinism.

RED DAVE

ZeroNowhere

27th June 2011, 08:30

It says a lot that DNZ & Cockshott focus on "vouchers in a socialist society" and other questions of how Marx foresaw utopia in 1860, ie content similar to utopian socialism, rather than Marx's brilliant innovation which was situating socialism in class relations, class struggle, and material forces and conditions.I agree with the general sentiment of your post, but I'm not sure that that's a fair description of what Marx was trying to do in the Gothakritik and Capital. As Engels puts it:

There has also been a discussion in the Volks-Tribune about the distribution of products in future society, whether this will take place according to the amount of work done or otherwise. The question has been approached very "materialistically" in opposition to certain idealistic phraseology about justice. [...] All one can reasonably do, however, is 1) to try and discover the method of distribution to be used at the beginning, and 2) to try and find the general tendency of the further development.

Paul Cockshott

27th June 2011, 09:58

In response to DNZ: Albert and Hahnel are anarchists and dont go to town about the USSR not being 'marxian socialism'. You aree also right that I should have explicitly mentioned KMs advocacy of common ownership.

Workers power is ambiguous. Everyone from Kautsky to the Gang of 4 was in favour of it. The issue is what institutional form should it take.

Since all orthodox communists agreed that socialism would come through class struggle, Mehring, that is of no help to those who want to distinguish a true socialism from the allegedly false Cuban, Soviet etc examples.

RED DAVE

27th June 2011, 12:10

RED DAVE

27th June 2011, 16:14

Since all orthodox communists agreed that socialism would come through class struggle, Mehring, that is of no help to those who want to distinguish a true socialism from the allegedly false Cuban, Soviet etc examples.Again, you fail to see the crux of the matter: class struggle, as with workers power, is at the heart of the struggle for socialism.

If you are confused, just look at the classes in motion and which class is the leading class of the revolution. In Russia, prior to the stalinist counter-revolution, this was the working class. In Cuba, it is clear that the working class was not the leading class.

RED DAVE

Paul Cockshott

27th June 2011, 21:40

No, Comrade, the issue is which class shall control society. It's obvious from your work and that of DNZ that you haven't figured out yet which class it will be.

RED DAVE

What I was saying was that most marxists from Kautsky to the gang of 4 agreed that the working classes should be the dominant classes or leading classes. The actual make up of the working classes would be different in different countries depending on their level of economic development. Since so many orthodox communists and heterodox ones like the Jugoslavs agreed on this, just saying workers power gives little discrimination. You have to analyse the degree to which the working class is able to influence or dominate the goals of state and economic policy to go further.

Paul Cockshott

27th June 2011, 22:35

Again, you fail to see the crux of the matter: class struggle, as with workers power, is at the heart of the struggle for socialism.

If you are confused, just look at the classes in motion and which class is the leading class of the revolution. In Russia, prior to the stalinist counter-revolution, this was the working class. In Cuba, it is clear that the working class was not the leading class.

RED DAVE

It is not clear to me as I have never read a sociological analysis looking at the activity of different social classes in the Cuban revolution.

But the more general point that I am making is how is the dominance of the working classes supposed to be ensured. Is it to be by

By rigging the constitution to make everyone but industrial workers second class citizens ( USSR pre late 30s)
By banning politcal parties other than the ruling party? (USSR post late 30s, China etc)
By hoping that the social democratic party will go on winning elections for decades (Kautsky or Sweden )
By getting rid of elections and relying on sortition ( which Fotopoulos and I have argued )

How do you propose it is to be done?

S.Artesian

27th June 2011, 22:55

As I read your Towards a New Socialism.... , PC, what strikes me about it is how, first history slips away from your analysis, and then.... class struggle is nowhere to be found. Makes sense, since history is , as some guy said, the history of class struggle.

There is no need in your version for class conflict.

What you establish is some sort of "great continuity" between capitalism and socialism, as if somehow the socialism is the "positive" elements of capitalism with much more equality thrown in, and the nasty bits surrounding the accumulation of value taken out.

And.......and you misunderstand Marx's remarks in the Gotha Critique when in your second chapter I think it is, you discuss equality. I think it's pretty telling how you identify the principle of equality, as an "old" principle of socialism.... taking it back to.... Smith and Ricardo even, as if they were socialists.

I'm big on equality, really big. But that equality is not the equality of Ricardo, Smith. Locke, or Thomas Jefferson, slaveholder.

Whereas Marx found in his analysis of the conflict between labor and the conditions of labor the negation to Smith and Ricardo's economics, you seem content, if not intent, to establish the continuity.

When you discuss the principle of equality and you describe Marx's notion of vouchers and exchanging "equal time" for equal time, you are ignoring the critical aspect of Marx's discussion. He did not consider that exchange as being socialism. That exchange, that formal equality is characteristic of a transition period when the working class is still reproducing itself as a working class and the social and technical development of production requires further advances to create socialism. That's when the "superficial" exchange of like for like is the organizing principle-- and even then with qualifications.

What is critical for EDIT: Marxism is the mechanism, the mediation, the method, the organization by which the proletariat becomes the "class for itself" so it can make those technical and social advance. In fact, what is critical is how that organization is achieved and that's what class struggle accomplishes. It creates that class wide organization of the class for itself in the organizations that the proletariat establishes as it engages in the contest for power.

So....? So that specific organization that you find "incapable" and "dangerous" to socialism, that your mini-you DNZ dismisses with such contempt, that specific type of organization that workers have thrown up in circumstance after circumstance-- Russia 1905, 1917; Spain 1936; Chile 1971-73; Vietnam, 1931, 1937, 1945, Bolivia -[El Alto] in 2003, 2005--- those councils are the very heart of the socialism that must be a negation of, not the continuation of, the accumulation of capital.

Hence the old socialist principle that the "emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself."

Pretty Flaco

27th June 2011, 23:22

An economy isn't socialist unless if the working class DIRECTLY controls it. Some bastards saying they fight for my interests while they fuck me for money isn't my kind of socialism, thank you very much. It isn't socialism until the working class is the ruling class.

Zanthorus

27th June 2011, 23:29

He did not consider that exchange as being socialism.

I'm pretty certain that he did. See for example the comments on the community of free individuals in the first chapter of Capital Volume I and the discussion of the planned distribution of labour-time as the fundamental law of socialist society in the Grundrisse.

that formal equality is characteristic of a transition period when the working class is still reproducing itself as a working class

How exactly do the immediate producers reproduce themselves as a working-class when it's labour forms a direct component part of the total social labour rather the social character of their labour only being mediated through and posited in the act of exchange of the products of labour against money? Also you seem to have an ironically technologistic view of 'productive forces'.

It isn't socialism until the working class is the ruling class.

It isn't socialism if the working-class exists at all.

S.Artesian

28th June 2011, 00:08

I'm pretty certain that he did. See for example the comments on the community of free individuals in the first chapter of Capital Volume I and the discussion of the planned distribution of labour-time as the fundamental law of socialist society in the Grundrisse.

Not it TCOTGP; there he refers to this manifestation as the new society emerging from the old with all the birthmarks of its passage; he calls it a transition IIRC, reproducing a substantive inequality in its apparent equality. And this is a necessary and inevitable manifestation.

How exactly do the immediate producers reproduce themselves as a working-class when it's labour forms a direct component part of the total social labour rather the social character of their labour only being mediated through and posited in the act of exchange of the products of labour against money?

Because the immediate producers are still, at this point, using their labor, their individual labor, although now expressed socially through direct "redemption," as a means of exchange. Labor is not yet considered the need, the reward, and the purpose in itself for all. It is still a means of exchange.

Also you seem to have an ironically technologistic view of 'productive forces'.

I have no idea what that means.

It isn't socialism if the working-class exists at all.

You just refuted your first point and answered your own second question.

Zanthorus

28th June 2011, 00:21

he calls it a transition IIRC, reproducing a substantive inequality in its apparent equality.

No, he calls it the lower phase of communism. It is not a communism which is fully developed, that much is correct, but it is still communism in all it's essentials.

Because the immediate producers are still, at this point, using their labor, their individual labor, although now expressed socially through direct "redemption," as a means of exchange.

Well there is exchange and then there is exchange, by which I mean exchange between private economic units is quite different from the worker recieving a certificate entitling them to a certain share in the total social labour and then utilising that certificate. If we view the wage-labour relationship as simply any kind of reward in exchange for the act of labouring then practically every society in human history has had wage-labour and hence proletarians and hence capitalism. Everything from a child getting rewarded for washing the dishes to a slave recieving food and shelter could be regarded as wage-labour. Wage-labour as a historically specific organisation of labour, wage-labour in Marx's sense however, only exists when labour has the character of being at once private and social labour.

I have no idea what that means.

It means that you view the growth of the productive forces in terms of a growth in the productivity of the technical instruments of production rather than in terms of their transformation from individual into social productive forces.

Dumb

28th June 2011, 01:08

You just refuted your first point and answered your own second question.

I was thinking the same thing myself - but you, my friend...you have the courage...

S.Artesian

28th June 2011, 01:10

No, he calls it the lower phase of communism. It is not a communism which is fully developed, that much is correct, but it is still communism in all it's essentials.

Correct. He 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, as it emerges from capitalist society.

And in this "lower stage" the "same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities." And "as far as the distribution of the latter among individual producers is concerned, so much labour in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour in the other form."

This is equal right, "stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation."

And right can never be higher than "the economic structure of society and the cultural development thereby determined."

So no, it is not a communism in all its essentials. It is a communism in its potential, in its "becoming" because of the ability of the working class to direct production for use and need.

Consequently this equality of exchange is eclipsed by, through the further emancipation of labor, which requires a more extensive development of the means of production and the relations of production. "Soviets + electrification" as someone once called it... or even, as the NYC Situationists called it during the Great Blackout of 1977, "soviets minus electrification."

Well there is exchange and then there is exchange, by which I mean exchange between private economic units is quite different from the worker recieving a certificate entitling them to a certain share in the total social labour and then utilising that certificate. If we view the wage-labour relationship as simply any kind of reward in exchange for the act of labouring then practically every society in human history has had wage-labour and hence proletarians and hence capitalism.If you want to regard it as such go ahead, but that's not how I regard it. We are talking, remember about the society as it emerges from capitalism, where the wage form has been dominant. I did not say the use of labor certificates is capitalism. It is not, however, as Marx describes it the "higher phase" of communism, and really it's not socialism, if we define socialism as the relation of labor to the conditions of its own reproduction. It's not socialism yet.

The certificate is a way of appropriating surplus labor, of reproducing the laborer as such, a laborer while directing the product to that development where such use of labor as a means of exchange is no longer required.

Everything from a child getting rewarded for washing the dishes to a slave recieving food and shelter could be regarded as wage-labour. Wage-labour as a historically specific organisation of labour, wage-labour in Marx's sense however, only exists when labour has the character of being at once private and social labour.
Wage-labor exists when labor is organized as a commodity, having no use to its possessor other than as a means of exchange.

That doesn't mean that when we substitute vouchers, and provide a certificate saying "X has worked 40 hours this week," and X gets products that represent what used to be maybe 80 hours of work under capitalism, we have moved to socialism. We are not engaged in Gomper-ism where "more" = socialism.

To state that everything is not wage-labor does not mean, that this 1 thing amounts to socialism.

It means that you view the growth of the productive forces in terms of a growth in the productivity of the technical instruments of production rather than in terms of their transformation from individual into social productive forces.And the point of socialism is to erase that conflict, that disparity-- to join, or co-join the growth in the productivity of the technical instruments of production with their transformation into social productive forces. You don't get, you can't get, one without the other. That's what the capitalists make everyone else find out the hard way.

S.Artesian

28th June 2011, 01:25

One more thing-- re: the planned distribution of labor time under socialism. Marx makes clear that there is a fundamental, essential issue for social reproduction which is expressed differently depending on the class organization of the society. That fundamental issue is how does society distribute its total available time among the different sectors of production to reproduce itself, to meet the needs of its members.

Capitalism is one historical manifestation of humans grappling with that problem.

Socialism is another manifestation, a manifestation unencumbered by private property, need for profitability, etc. To get to this specific manifestation, that "unencumbered relation" takes first and foremost, class struggle-- the exact thing missing from PC's analysis .

It also takes, requires a radical reduction in the working day, which can only be accomplished through........class struggle and the ability of the means of production, once freed from their identity of capital, to support such a reduction.

Socialism does not come about when everybody gets a voucher issued through some central processing unit. It comes about when the means of production are emancipated by labor from their limitations as value deposits.

Die Neue Zeit

28th June 2011, 01:51

In response to DNZ: Albert and Hahnel are anarchists and dont go to town about the USSR not being 'marxian socialism'. You aree also right that I should have explicitly mentioned KMs advocacy of common ownership.

They may not have a model of "Marxian socialism," but they still say "socialist in name only" or "not genuinely socialist" or whatever.

I think the Russian Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky said it best when summarizing his line of thinking and those of the pareconists, degenerated-workers-state theorists, etc.: that the Soviet Union had all the logically "negative" aspects of "socialism" (no legal consumer goods and services markets, no labour markets, no capital markets or private property), but lacked the "positive aspect of socialism" re. democracy.

Die Neue Zeit

28th June 2011, 01:55

It is not clear to me as I have never read a sociological analysis looking at the activity of different social classes in the Cuban revolution.

But the more general point that I am making is how is the dominance of the working classes supposed to be ensured. Is it to be by

By rigging the constitution to make everyone but industrial workers second class citizens ( USSR pre late 30s)
By banning politcal parties other than the ruling party? (USSR post late 30s, China etc)
By hoping that the social democratic party will go on winning elections for decades (Kautsky or Sweden )
By getting rid of elections and relying on sortition ( which Fotopoulos and I have argued )

How do you propose it is to be done?

I say a combination of 1, 2, and 4, plus extending the key measures of the Paris Commune which you didn't mention (and which I'm debating with Yoram Gat right now).

1) The workforce and pensioners may be the demographic majority in the most developed countries, but the business-propertied classes should be disenfranchised not just from voting or being elected, but from political affairs altogether.

2) My political model borrows from Lewin and Razlatzki re. avoiding "no party state" problems (that the CPSU lost its political character under Stalin and was only episodically political under Khrushchev and Andropov) and having a genuine one-party system.

Die Neue Zeit

28th June 2011, 02:03

Pretty Flaco

28th June 2011, 02:40

It isn't socialism if the working-class exists at all.

So the proletariat must abolish it's own condition as the working class. Liberation of the working class will never come from hand outs from above.

RED DAVE

28th June 2011, 04:12

Workers power is ambiguous. Everyone from Kautsky to the Gang of 4 was in favour of it. The issue is what institutional form should it take.

No, Comrade, the issue is which class shall control society. It's obvious from your work and that of DNZ that you haven't figured out yet which class it will be.
What I was saying was that most marxists from Kautsky to the gang of 4Great set of examples: a social democrat who betrayed the working class and a group of Maoists who betrayed the working class.

agreed that the working classesWhoa!

Who the fuck is talking about the working classes? We are talking about here the working class. Lots of people work in a capitalist society. We are talking about the class that, through its labor, creates value.

should be the dominant classes or leading classes.Wrong. We are talking about the working class, the proletariat, as the dominant class.

The actual make up of the working classesThere you go again. No wonder you love social democrats, Maoists and Stalinists.

would be different in different countries depending on their level of economic development.Wrong. Dead wrong. As wrong as you can be.

The working class is the same class internationally. The Communist Manifesto, way back in 1848, in Germany, which was not yet a united nation and in which the industrial revolution was just getting started, was clear. It spoke of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, not of the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The proletariat can be large or small, advanced or inexperienced, but it is still the same class and must, in all nations, be the leading class of the revolution or we get a Marx Brothers situation (as in Nepal) and not a Karl Marx situation (as in Russia 1917).

Since so many orthodox communists and heterodox ones like the Jugoslavs agreed on this, just saying workers power gives little discrimination. You have to analyse the degree to which the working class is able to influence or dominate the goals of state and economic policy to go further.Jeez are you ... what ... a statist, a bureaucrat ... whatever.

We have to analyze, for crying out loud, whether or not the working class has overthrown the bourgeoisie and achieved state power. That's the issue, not "the degree to which the working class is able to influence or dominate the goals of state and economic policy." Where do you get this shit?

Since all orthodox communists agreed that socialism would come through class struggle, Mehring, that is of no help to those who want to distinguish a true socialism from the allegedly false Cuban, Soviet etc examples.
Again, you fail to see the crux of the matter: class struggle, as with workers power, is at the heart of the struggle for socialism.

If you are confused, just look at the classes in motion and which class is the leading class of the revolution. In Russia, prior to the stalinist counter-revolution, this was the working class. In Cuba, it is clear that the working class was not the leading class.
It is not clear to me as I have never read a sociological analysis looking at the activity of different social classes in the Cuban revolution.Where have you been the last X number of years? The Cuban Revolution was one of the key events of the second half of the 20th Century, and you have never read an analysis of it?

But the more general point that I am making is how is the dominance of the working classes supposed to be ensured.By its control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

Is it to be by
• By rigging the constitution to make everyone but industrial workers second class citizens ( USSR pre late 30s)No. This presumes a state organized on bourgeois/bureaucratic principles, which is not surprising since you think the USSR was some kind of socialism.

• By banning politcal parties other than the ruling party? (USSR post late 30s, China etc)No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

• By hoping that the social democratic party will go on winning elections for decades (Kautsky or Sweden )No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

By getting rid of elections and relying on sortition ( which Fotopoulos and I have argued )No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

How do you propose it is to be done?By working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

RED DAVE

syndicat

28th June 2011, 04:32

When you discuss the principle of equality and you describe Marx's notion of vouchers and exchanging "equal time" for equal time, you are ignoring the critical aspect of Marx's discussion. He did not consider that exchange as being socialism. That exchange, that formal equality is characteristic of a transition period when the working class is still reproducing itself as a working class and the social and technical development of production requires further advances to create socialism. That's when the "superficial" exchange of like for like is the organizing principle-- and even then with qualifications.

Marx didn't talk about a "transitional society". he talked about the lower phase of communism. it was still communism...that is, a classless society.

the method that workers use to share out the social product that they create isn't the same as the question of whether the working class is still subordinate to some dominating, exploiting class. if the latter, it isn't any phase of communism/socialism.

this means the workers have to gain complete, collective power over the management of social production.

Dumb

28th June 2011, 04:35

I take it, Red Dave, that you support working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up. Is that a fair representation of your beliefs?

Paul Cockshott

28th June 2011, 08:41

Great set of examples: a social democrat who betrayed the working class and a group of Maoists who betrayed the working class.

Whoa!

Who the fuck is talking about the working classes? We are talking about here the working class. Lots of people work in a capitalist society. We are talking about the class that, through its labor, creates value.

Take France at the time Marx drafted the Socialist Party programme, the peasants and independent artisans laboured and produced value not just wage labourers. (There were also wage labourers who produced no value.) He used the term 'producers', to include all the working classes.

We have to analyze, for crying out loud, whether or not the working class has overthrown the bourgeoisie and achieved state power. That's the issue, not "the degree to which the working class is able to influence or dominate the goals of state and economic policy." Where do you get this shit?
Because power is never absolute. In the presence of contending classes no class completely gets its way.

Where have you been the last X number of years? The Cuban Revolution was one of the key events of the second half of the 20th Century, and you have never read an analysis of it?I have been in Scotland, American politics loom less than European ones here.

By its control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

No, by working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

By working class control of industry on a day-to-day basis from the bottom up.

RED DAVEIndustry is not the state. Control of industry without political power is very short lived, months at most, The question I was asking was how political power is to be organised.

Paul Cockshott

28th June 2011, 08:44

I should have added that industry is also only a small part of the economy.

sanpal

28th June 2011, 09:36

Marx didn't talk about a "transitional society".

It is wrong. Marx talked about "transitional society", he saw transformation of capitalism into communism not otherwise as through transitional period which he named as the DotP what can mean the class society is exists since the proletariat (the working class) is still exists.

he talked about the lower phase of communism. it was still communism...that is, a classless society.

It is indeed so. But this classless communist society can be created just in this transitional period as separate economic sector, like a crystal growing in the supersaturated grout. I see no other logical solution. So we see Marx talked about lower phase of communism quite reasonably.

robbo203

28th June 2011, 09:38

The inform candidate wishes to argue that Jugoslavia in 1955 or Russia in 1945 were
not 'marxian socialist' societies.
I objected that there was no such thing as Marxian Socialism, since
Marx had never put forward any model of socialism, and I challenged
him to come up with some publication by Marx setting out what a
Marxian socialist society might be. Of course he can find no such
publication. Instead he cited a passage by another list participant
which concedes that Marx, insofar as he talks about socialism does
so in a critical fashion, opposing Communism to Socialism, with the
latter being seen as utopian scheme building..

Marx, and particularly Engels , used the terms socialism and communism to mean the same thing - a moneyless wageless stateless society - as did numerous other. including the early Russian Social Democrats. In fact, this is how these terms were generally understood up until the early 20th century - as synonyms. The distinction between socialism and communism primarily emerged with Lenin - it was never found in Marx.

You misunderstand the point about Marx's supposed opposition to "utopian scheme building". It was not to oppose communiusm to socialism as such as you claim but rather to oppose communism to the approach favoured by utopian socialists. Why do you think Engels called his book Socialism Utopian and Scientific?

In Marx's case this hostility to puting forward any socialist proposals
went on till his last years as my quote from his Notes on Wagner, one
of his last works showed.
Xanthorous who is quoted by Inform Candidate, essentially concedes that
Marx did not advocate socialism but says that Engels did use the word socialism.
This is correct, he did.
But Engels too was critical of any attempt to lay down in advance what
a socialist society should be emphasising that it was only the real
movement of history that would reveal this. This was also the basic
reason why Marx was so reticent to say much about the economic structure
of communism. He knew from his study of the history of political
economy that writers in pre-capitalist societies or from societies just
developing into capitalism had been unable to forsee how
capitalism would develop later. He, still in the capitalist world,
could at best analyse the trends present in capitalism that hinted
at its eventual end, and make a few very tentative suggestions about
how a post capitalist society might be organised...

It is important not to confuse two quite different things:

1) A basic statement of the core features of a future communist/socialist society
2) Specuculative commentrary about the finer details of life inside such a society.

Marx certainly did not oppose 1) and in fact it is quite absurd to suggest that he did - otherwise how would we even know what he meant by a future communuist / socialist society if it remained completely undefined in this basic sense. There is clearly more than enough information in his writings to give us a fairly good idea that he was talking about a moneyless wageless stateless community....

It is usually argued that Marx opposed 2) although some of his comments e.g. on the division of labour certainly would count to a kind of speculative crytal ball gazing. I am actually a great believer in the idea of people engaging speculatively and imaginatively with the idea of a future society and I find the dismissive approach towards doing that as utopianism frankly ridiculous. It is to miss the whole point of the exercise. Indeed it is to reduce socialism/communism to a set of dogmatic slogans

His entire suggestions about the organisation of communism economy
come down to 4 points:
1. That he saw some system of labour vouchers as a possible distribution
in a future communist system or system of 'associated producers:
( two passages in Capital, and one in the Critique of the Gotha programme).
2. That the use of labour vouchers was not practical unless production
was directly social -- ie, it is impossible to force an economy of
independent producers to exchange their products exactly in proportion
to labour time.
3. That workers in a communist economy would have to have deductions from
their pay in labour vouchers to cover social security provisions ( remember
social security deductions did not exist in the real world when he wrote
this so this was a piece of real foresight ).
4. That a highly productive economy could afford more social benefits tied
to need, so that as time went on the principle of payment in proportion
to labour performed could be suplemented by credits or benefits to those
in particular need due to family size, invalidity etc....

This simply won't wash as an argument at all.

You grossly inflate the importance of the labour voucher proposal way beyond what is warranted. Marx put forward this proposal somewhat half heartedly merely as a way of getting to grips with, and responding to, what he called the "unavoidable defects" of the first phase of a communist society where the means of prpduction were not yet fully developed to permit full blown communism. In other words, labour vouchers were a form of rationing. It is pretty clear that he envisaged them being abandoned as society moved into the higher phase of communism - free access communism - as goods and service became more and more abundantly available. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme he talked of the principle " from each according to ability to each according to need " coming to apply in higher communism . This expression, which I think was first coined by Louis Blanc, was deliberately framed in opposition to the doctrine of the followers of Saint-Simon, "Let each be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his work" with the clear implication that work should be unremunerated and voluntarily undertaken. Apart from yourself, with your own eccentric interpretation of what is meant by the higher stage of communism, I know of no one who would dispute this point. Even people like Lenin and Trotsky whose politics I generally oppose, freely acknowleged that higher communism would means free access to goods and services as well as a system of voluntary labour. Whatever your views on the practicality of that, it remains a fact that is what is generally meant by higher communuism

Personally speaking. I see little merit in the labour voucher proposal. . There are numerous problems associated with iit and the allied proposal of pricing goods in labour time units. To cite just one, Marx talked of the producer getting back from society "exactly" what he put into it (after variuous deductions had been made) but how exactly do you determine what someone has contributed? How do you compare the productivity of a dentist and a steel worker for example. Do you treat each skill exactly the same and what does that mean in terms of incentives (for which reason advocates of labour vouchers propose such a scheme in the first place - on the grounds that workers need to be "compelled" to work by linking consumption to pay).

You yourself have argued that "not all workers of a given skill level accomplish the same work in an hour" and accordingly, should be assigned a "productivity grade" so that "unlike the case of skilled versus simple labour, the multipliers in this case might reasonably be used for determining differential rates of pay". This seems quite an arbitrary distinction to make and the belief that a highly skilled neurosuregon is going to happily accept the same basic rate as say a roadsweeper is astonishing in its naivete. If you are going to have a system of remuneration in the first place you might as well embrace fully the notion of differential payments as indeed Lenin was forced to do after the Russian Revolution.

This is just one of many problems which you and Cottrell in your book simply skirt over in the most unconvicing fashion. I consider that a labour voucher scheme would, in the end, prove to be hugely bureaucratic and wasteful of human labour, nothwithsanding all that "gee whizz" computer power at our finger tips you love to go on about, and as well as that, will quite likely create conditions that will enable the restoration of petty commodity production and eventually capitalism itself.

If Inform had said that there was no economy in 1945 or 1955 that corresponded
to Marxian communism, then he would have a defensible position, since no
economy had a system of labour voucher distribution. The socialist economies
all retained money, and the only sustained attempt to use labour time accounting
was within only a part of the economy : the work point system in the Chinese
Communes in the 1960s and early 1970s..

If these so called socialist economies retained money how on earth can you possibly call them socialist? Your position is incoherent or at any rate unmarxist since no marxist would say an economy that retained money was socialist.

The fate of the work point system in the Chinese Communes is not in fact a very good advertisement for the argument for labour vouchers you are peddling but rather iillustrates the very point that I have made - how a labour voucher scheme could path the way to restoration of capitalism

The inform candidate wants to make out that the idea of socialism as
a stage prior to communism was an innovation of Stalin. This is plainly
untrue, since the idea was present in Lenin and just repeated by Stalin.
Nor is it accurate to say that the idea of retaining money in a
socialist economy was a Stalinist or even a Leninist innovation.
The idea was well established before Lenin. Kautsky explicitly
argued that money would have to be retained by socialist societies
for the forseeable future. Neither the 2nd or the 3rd internationals
commited to the abolition of money as an immediate programmatic
goal. .

That much is true - the idea socialism was a stage prior to communism was not an innovation by Stalin. It was most famously introduced by Lenin. As for Kautky - yes he did argue quite absurdly that a socialist society might have to retain money for sometime but by then of course he was well on his way to turning his back on revolutionary marxism

What the USSR and then the East European states established in the
1950s was recognisably a socialist economy in terms of the broad aims understood
by most of the international socialist movement during the first half
of the 20th century. It was not Marxian communism, but it did not
claim to be that.

That might just give us a clue as to parlous state into which the so called "international socialist movement" has sunk. What it has historically envisaged to be a "socialist economy" was an ultimately futile attempt to run capitalism in the interest of the workers. Which is why, without exception, every so called "socialist" government has failled the workers miserably and why the exigencies of pursuing power has meant that these so called representatives of socialism have steadily moved to right and have become, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from their conservative opponents...

As a new social system, socialism had features and problems that could
not possibly have been fully anticipated by earlier speculation. There
are various responses one can make to these. You can say, as the critics
of socialism argue, that socialists were proposing an impossible system
to start out with, and that it was bound to run into these problems.
This was the view of some right wing economists in the West, and also
a view come to by some former socialist economists like Kornai.
You could say that the existence of these economic inefficiencies indicated
that the economies were not socialist at all -- this is the position of
the Inform Candidate and of people like Hillel Ticktin or the late Tony
Cliff. But the 'socialism' to which these critics contrast the historical
socialist countries is not an alternative social system open to investigation.
Such critics make it a point of principle to say that socialism has never
existed. This precludes us from looking at for example the USSR in 1965 and
contrasting it point by point with some known example of a socialist society.
The contrast they are making is not a contrast between two categories of
existing matterial systems, but a contrast between and existing society and
an ideal socialist society -- ideal in the sense that it only exists as an
idea.
It is not per-se invalid for a science to develop the idea of something before
it has been observed. The concept of a black hole was developed by Laplace
and Schwarzschild well before there was any evidence for their existence.
But the theories of gravity on which the concept of a black hole was
based was very precise and very well validated under by other observations.
The idea of a socialist society also existed prior to any observation of a
socialist society, it was based on theories of economic development that
came from the study of societies that existed in and prior to the 19th century.
....
But even now, a century or so later, the people who reject studying countries
like the former USSR or East Germany as examples of socialism, have not developed
any detailed theoretical model of the dynamics of 'true socialism' that would
enable us to distinguish it from the 'false socialism' of the historical
examples. Where is the agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism?
Where is the agreed theory even of its economic structure?
Where is the theory of the mechanisms by which 'true socialism' would cause
classes to disappear, shortages to disappear, technology to develop rapidly,
economic calculation to be performed effectively?
There is no such agreed theory among the critics of historically existing socialism,
on the contrary there are only a few slogans like 'production for use not profit',
'abolition of abstract labour', 'workers power', 'absence of classes', 'abolition
of scarcity'. These slogans range from ambiguity ( workers power ), through hope
( absence of classes ), meaninglessness (' production for use not profit', 'abolition
of abstract labour') to the impossible ( abolition of scarcity).

As long as you think " historically existing socialism" is what it purports to be then you are not likely to envisage or develop a "detailed theoretical model of the dynamics of 'true socialism' that would enable us to distinguish it from the 'false socialism' of the historical examples". Essentially your argument is one of argument-by-definiton. A Humpty Dumpty approach to the matter. Because "historically existing socialism" calls itself "socialist" we must accept it as being such. This seems to be your line of argument . Well, two can play at that word game as you will no doubt be aware. At the end of the day it doesnt really matter. Your "historically existing socialism" sucks and whatever the title you give it, I want no part of it . What you call " historically existing socialism" and what we call "state capitalism" is a dead end as far as expediting the emergence of a genuine non market stateless alternative to capitalism. It has failed the workers miserably. Yet by identifying it as "socialism" you implicitly endorse such a system and hold it up as an example to be followed - despite the fact that it is not and cannot be operated in the interests of the workers. Your " historically existing socialism" can only ever be run in the interest of capital in the last resport

I am not quite sure what you have in mind when you ask "Where is the agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism". One might just as well ask where is the "agreed" theory of the economic dynamics of "historically existing socialism" - or false socialism - when we have people like yourself who seem to think that such socialism operated on principles other than capitalist ones. There is no one theory but plenty of theories

There are certainly theories around about the "economic dynamics of true socialism" if you mean by this a non market stateless alternative to capitalism - that go beyond a more restatement of the fundamental core principles of such an alternative - and you cannot surely be unaware of that fact, despite your efforts to effect ignorance. Such theories might not necessarily be generally or universally "agreed" but they have certainly been proposed. And as the movement for a genuine and radical alternative to capitalism gathers pace so these economic theories will become more prolific and detailed.

Your problem is that you cannot see this because you are fundamentally wedded to a mainstream or "bourgeois" economic perspective. This shows very much in your dismissal of "production for use not profit" as meaningless and of the "abolition of scarcity" as impossible. The first is pretty staightforward - it simple means goods are no longer produced for sale on the market with a view to profit but rather to directly meet human needs. What part of that sentence do you not understand? Unless you see "profit" as some kind of transhistorical requirement that effectively "naturalises" the capitalist order

As for the abolition of scarcity this does not mean as our anarcho capitalist friends seem to think (and whose arguments you seem to have absorbed into your vey bones) a repudiation of the idea of opportunity costs. Critics of socialism often seem wedded to this strange strawman notion of socialism as some kind of cornucopian society of absolute superabundance - all the more easy to knock it down. But this is not what is being proposed. What is being proposed is something rather more modest and reasonable - that we can today adequately meet our human needs )which are not infinite but finite) but increasingly capitalism gets in the way of this happening.. Thus, a vast and steadily growing proportion of the work carried out today does not in any meaningful sense enhance human wellbeing and welfare but merely exists to serve the functional needs of the system itself. We dont actually need socialism to develop the technology of abundance in this reasonable sense. We already have the capacity to produce enough to satisfy our reasonable needs and this is, among other things, why your system of labour vouchers is now completely irrelevant. The irony is that the potential of modern computer technology which yourself have attached such importance to, is one of the things that now make "real socialism" eminently practical.

Die Neue Zeit

28th June 2011, 14:42

Take France at the time Marx drafted the Socialist Party programme, the peasants and independent artisans laboured and produced value not just wage labourers. (There were also wage labourers who produced no value.) He used the term 'producers', to include all the working classes.

Comrade, at that time the "working classes" were not sufficiently differentiated on a social basis between the wage labourers, the small business owners, the self-employed, etc.

Today I wouldn't make any appeals to small business owners and self-employed hot shots in the most developed countries; Ferdinand Lassalle's slogan "One Reactionary Mass" has a point. Instead, there should be an appeal to the Dispossessed Classes.

[In the Third World where there are proletarian demographic minorities, only there can there be appeals to the National/Pan-National Petit-Bourgeoisie - whether patriotic shopkeepers, patriotic small tenant "producers," or patriotic sharecroppers (http://www.revleft.com/vb/urban-peasantry-developing-t154763/index.html) - through Third World Caesarean Socialism. ;) ]

Industry is not the state. Control of industry without political power is very short lived, months at most, The question I was asking was how political power is to be organised.

Red Dave has a track record of a very economistic political mindset.

RED DAVE

28th June 2011, 16:57

Industry is not the state. Control of industry without political power is very short lived, months at most, The question I was asking was how political power is to be organised.You are presuming, like any bourgeois economist, a division between industrial power and political power. Under socialism, with working class control of the economy, industrial power is political power.

I should have added that industry is also only a small part of the economy.
Red Dave has a track record of a very economistic political mindset.RED DAVE has a track record of being a part of labor struggles for over 40 years. Before you put me in a box, DNZ, you better know what the fuck you are talking about because you certainly don't know my mindset. I am very far from economism, and I knew what it was and its dangers probably before your father was born.

When I used the term "industry," I should have used the term "economy."

Happy now? By the way, how is your participation in the class struggle in Canada going?

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

28th June 2011, 17:03

Pretty incisive, direct, accurate post by robbo203.

I think this issue of labor vouchers as a permanent feature, as Cockshott intends, is the backdoor by which bureaucracy, dispossession of the workers from their social control of the means of production is introduced and the revolution is rolled back to the great relief of the professional planners, bureaucrats, economists-- to the "most educated elements of the working class"-- educated of course being an ideological category. "You agree with me? You're educated! Here, have a voucher."

Clearly, the enforcement mechanism inherent in this labor voucher system would grow steadily, consuming a significant portion of the social product. In addition, the ability of the bureaucracy, of the administrators to control who receives what vouchers, how frequently, and for how much will create a sub-rosa, sotto voce, commerce, exchange, in the vouchers, as the basis of the vouchers is the limited ability of society to satisfy the needs of its members. Possession then will become 9/10ths of the law.

A cynical jaded person might see the bureaucracy separating itself off from the rest of the population, attempting to aggrandize more of the social product in and through its control of vouchers, even awarding itself more as it, the bureaucracy, represents the "most educated" portion of the working class with greater needs, greater responsibilities, greater talents.

A cynical jaded New Yorker might even go so far as to call this process, the bureaucracy administering an impulse to capitalist restoration in the interstices of social production.

OH.. but wait, this is where democracy is supposed to kick in? This is where recall, random selection, etc. etc. etc. are going to be the remedy? Talk about utopian--- that's utopian.

Anyway, more on this as I wade through, hip boots on, Toward a New Socialism

robbo203

28th June 2011, 18:27

Paul Cockshott with his strange fixation on labour vouchers as the be-all and end-all of a post capitalist society might do well to consider Engel's remarks to Schmidt in 1890 . It nicely links up with Marx own assertion in the Critique of the Gotha Programme that, in the higher phase of Communism, when the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly, the principle "from each according to ability to each according to need" casn the be implemented. Meaning none other than free access communism where wealth no longer needs to be rationed and where labour is freely and voluntarily undertaken - the one thing logically implying the other and vice versa.

The quote is interesting also in view of the discussion on what was meant by a future "socialist society" i.e. communism

There has also been a discussion in the Volks-Tribune about the distribution of products in future society, whether this will take place according to the amount of work done or otherwise. The question has been approached very "materialistically" in opposition to certain idealistic phraseology about justice. But strangely enough it has not struck anyone that, after all, the method of distribution essentially depends on how much there is to distribute, and that this must surely change with the progress of production and social organization, so that the method of distribution may also change. But everyone who took part in the discussion, "socialist society" appeared not as something undergoing continuous change and progress but as a stable affair fixed once for all, which must, therefore, have a method of distribution fixed once for all. All one can reasonably do, however, is 1) to try and discover the method of distribution to be used at the beginning, and 2) to try and find the general tendency of the further development. But about this I do not find a single word in the whole debate. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm

Jose Gracchus

28th June 2011, 21:35

I will reply to Cockshott's distortions of my remarks from the other thread in due course.

I will say this though about the much-omitted political constitution:

How is sortititon supposed to work when it is not counterbalanced by the direct and deliberative participation of the mass of the public, as was the case in Athens via the Ekklesia, or Assembly? Clearly we're not going to have an all-American 100 million-man quorum assembly to check the now sortitive Congress and Fed, will we?

How do you, Paul, deal with the historical reality that the Athenian democracy was not a democracy of the working people and great majority, but rather the privileged supported by a system of primitive archaeo-imperialism (the Delian League) and slavery, as well as the total disenfranchisement of foriegners (interpreted much more xenophobically than nation-states today).

How do you deal with the fact that power inevitably accreted, despite the close and tight scale of the Athenian polis, and despite the fact that the Boule council, filled by sortition, was checked by the direct assembly (all features missing in your utopian system), in the elected offices of the strategoi?

Do you have any scholarly support other than a priori supposition, that the failings and limitations of the workers' soviets in Russia were due to 'indirect elections' and electoral fundamentals versus other factors? I have never read a serious study of the Russian Revolution which came to this conclusion. You claim that there was a one-party state because of indirect elections. Then how was it the Bolsheviks came to lose soviet elections in 1918 to Menshevik-Internationalist candidates? And had the electoral norms of 1917 been properly observed, than surely the Bolshevik party-state would have had to yield to coalition government? If it was merely a factor of fundamental elective principles, how come the Bolsheviks simply resorted to the crude putschism of the Jacobins before them with the latter's directly elected bodies?

Paul Cockshott

29th June 2011, 09:43

When you discuss the principle of equality and you describe Marx's notion of vouchers and exchanging "equal time" for equal time, you are ignoring the critical aspect of Marx's discussion. He did not consider that exchange as being socialism.
Quite so, he did not call is socialism he called it communism.

That exchange, that formal equality is characteristic of a transition period when the working class is still reproducing itself as a working class and the social and technical development of production requires further advances to create socialism. That's when the "superficial" exchange of like for like is the organizing principle-- and even then with qualifications.

That bit about his communism being prior to and superceded by socialism is your gloss on it without supporting textual evidence.

The certificate is a way of appropriating surplus labor,

are you talking about contemporary share certificates or Marx's labour certificates?

I am not quite sure what you have in mind when you ask "Where is the agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism". One might just as well ask where is the "agreed" theory of the economic dynamics of "historically existing socialism" - or false socialism - when we have people like yourself who seem to think that such socialism operated on principles other than capitalist ones. There is no one theory but plenty of theories
What I mean is a theory of how the putative socialist economy is supposed to work, its feedback relations and
developmental tendancies. Capital by Marx is an example of that for the current economic system.
My point is that until an economic form comes into being you can not know it, or have any substantial theory
about it.
There was of the quality of even The Wealth of Nations, let alone Capital, written about socialist economies
until after the Russian revolution led to the first socialist economy being set up. Only then do you start
getting serious theoretical work on the structure and operation of socialist economies with Lange, Kalecki,
Nove, Kornai etc.

robbo203

29th June 2011, 10:39

What I mean is a theory of how the putative socialist economy is supposed to work, its feedback relations and
developmental tendancies. Capital by Marx is an example of that for the current economic system.
My point is that until an economic form comes into being you can not know it, or have any substantial theory
about it.
There was of the quality of even The Wealth of Nations, let alone Capital, written about socialist economies
until after the Russian revolution led to the first socialist economy being set up. Only then do you start
getting serious theoretical work on the structure and operation of socialist economies with Lange, Kalecki,
Nove, Kornai etc.

So we are back to word games,it seems.

You say after the Russian revolution the first socialist economy was set up. I and others deny it was socialism at all. It was state capitalism. Whatever the case, what is clear it that by the logic of your own argument even you must concede that, if it is true as you say. that you "can not know it, or have any substantial theory" about an economic form until it actually comes into being then you cannot have an "agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism" insofar as "true socialism" (communism) has not yet been established. In other words, your so called "existing socialist economies" can throw little light on how a real socialist economy culd operate since all of your "existing socialist economies" are based on capitalist categories - money, wage labour, commodity production , pursuit of profit etc - that would cease to exist in "true socialism."

You whole outlook, Im afraid, is hopelessly muddled and confused and the more you try to wriggle your way out of the criticisms levelled at you, the deeper becomes the hole you have dug for yourself.

You are fixated on this concept of labour vouchers to the point of obsession, and invoke Marxian authority to support it, even though it was never intended by Marx to be the be-all and end-all of communisn. Labour vouchers is for you what is supposed to differentiate a post capitalist economy form a capitalist economy and yet you freely aclnowlege that none of the so called actually existing socialist economies ever implemented labour vouchers, the sole exception being the chinese communies of the late 60s . These latter are not a very good advertisement for the cause of labour vouchers since they were soon replaced by a more market oriented approach. Ask yourself why

Not to put to fine a point on it, you have boxed yourself into a corner and the only way out it to acknowlege that the so called socialist economies you talk of were not that at all

Rowan Duffy

29th June 2011, 11:06

Not to put to fine a point on it, you have boxed yourself into a corner and the only way out it to acknowlege that the so called socialist economies you talk of were not that at all

It's easy to get "boxed" when you make concrete proposals. All concrete physical manifestations of economy will suffer from "unsolvable dilemmas" that require some manner of compromise.

The question is rather about how we can attempt to minimise the negative impacts and maximise the positive ones. Systems that are based on historically existing economic structures modified to overcome problems are much easier to attack, but also infinitely more likely to come into existence.

The spontaneous order of spontaneously planned spontanaeity on the other hand doesn't leave us with many avenues for analysis of potential failings.

I disagree with Cockshott that there is any necessity to demand that the USSR or any other centrally planned economies were socialist. They had aspects which were egalitarian in their distribution models, but they were also hopelessly paternalistic and consequently subject to a very high likelihood of eventual degeneration. It doesn't make sense to me to insist that they be called socialist either for propaganda purposes or for clarity of thinking.

However, there does seem to be a pragmatic consequence of denying their socialism that I find rather disturbing and with which I'm even less sympathetic. The opposing camp (based on this thread and elsewhere) is totally uninterested in the actual workings of planned economics or how the problems of planning might be overcome. That seems to me, will create blind-spots regarding potential problems in systems which socialists eventually find themselves promoting (be it now or at the point of proletarian revolution or whenever).

Counter proposals should be given more weight than condemnation without alternatives. Unfortunately there does seem to be a tendency to insist that counter-proposals are unnecessary because proposals somehow straight-jacket the working class with prescribed systemics.

In point of fact, in an ideal revolutionary situation, the working class will be presented with some choices regards what kind of changes in the economic regime will be desirable, and the most convincing path will be chosen. The path of "hey what do you guys want" is extremely unlikely to lead anywhere.

That said, I think the current situation of having only proposals is deeply deficient even if it is a million times better than the transcendentalist approach. We need more than just concrete well described proposals. We actually need experiments. The cost to experimentation after the revolution is too high and too likely to result in degeneration from choices with unintended consequences. Just as capitalism managed to grow up in the interstices of feudal economics before finally the bourgeois revolutions swept away the remaining barriers presented by the absolutist states, so should socialism have plausible functioning mechanisms in the interstices.

Paul Cockshott

29th June 2011, 13:27

You say after the Russian revolution the first socialist economy was set up. I and others deny it was socialism at all. It was state capitalism. Whatever the case, what is clear it that by the logic of your own argument even you must concede that, if it is true as you say. that you "can not know it, or have any substantial theory" about an economic form until it actually comes into being then you cannot have an "agreed theory of the economic dynamics of true socialism" insofar as "true socialism" (communism) has not yet been established.

I think you have slightly misunderstood my point. I do not think that the question 'was the USSR socialist in the way you pose it is meaningful since to give it meaning you would have to have a
prior and detailed theory of true socialism with which to compare it. Since you dont have that
what you are saying is just a matter of political allegiance -- you dont like the USSR so you say
it was not socialist.

In contrast I say that you can only study socialism by looking at real examples of it, and, outside
of a tiny group of left sectaries the system in the eastern block in the 50s to the 80s was generally
accepted both there and in the west to be socialism. It was a distinct social system with its own
contradictions and forms of growth etc that had been brought into being by the historically existing
socialist movement and as such its positive and negative features are those by which socialism
is judged.

In other words, your so called "existing socialist economies" can throw little light on how a real socialist economy culd operate since all of your "existing socialist economies" are based on capitalist categories - money, wage labour, commodity production , pursuit of profit etc - that would cease to exist in "true socialism."

This seems to me like the conceptual mistake a child makes on being taken to Santa's grotto and
then complains that that was not the real Santa Claus she saw, whereas it actually was the real Santa Claus, and she had been taking myth as the standard of reality.

We can define what the child expects from the 'real santa', a real beard and real elves as helpers, really living at the North Pole, but it is this collection of features that makes the girl's Santa ideal not real. Most proponents of the 'USSR was not true socialism' are I think, contrasting an ideal to reality, and finding - not surprisingly - that reality is not ideal.

Dumb

29th June 2011, 14:02

RED DAVE has a track record of being a part of labor struggles for over 40 years. Before you put me in a box, DNZ, you better know what the fuck you are talking about because you certainly don't know my mindset. I am very far from economism, and I knew what it was and its dangers probably before your father was born.

I'll admit that I didn't get much into the substance of this post yet, but thanked purely because of the self-reference in third person.

RED DAVE

29th June 2011, 14:58

My point is that until an economic form comes into being you can not know it, or have any substantial theory
about it.

There was of the quality of even The Wealth of Nations, let alone Capital, written about socialist economies until after the Russian revolution led to the first socialist economy being set up. Only then do you start
getting serious theoretical work on the structure and operation of socialist economies with Lange, Kalecki, Nove, Kornai etc.So your model for socialism is actually state capitalism.

No wonder everything you write about socialism is static, bureaucratic and has nothing to do with the working class running society.

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

29th June 2011, 16:23

are you talking about contemporary share certificates or Marx's labour certificates?

I'm talking about your labor certificates. You argue that the "issue" is the means by which society extracts its surplus. Wage-labor is identified as one means.

Labor certificates represent another means.

Despite your contentions, workers, individually, with the establishment of the lower phase of communism [let's leave out socialism to avoid useless wordplay], do not receive the full proceeds of their labor." Not under your version of labor certificates, not under any version of labor certificates, not even if we change the Gotha Program's "proceeds" to your "fruits."

After all, labor is a social process, so it must provide for the non-workers, the not yet born non-workers, education for all, healthcare for all, transportation for all, recreation for all, for depreciation of the means of production, expansion of the means of production [something missing, I think, from your calculation of the reductions from the targeted "full value renumeration" of labor in Britain].

But, after all, labor really is a social process, so the "full renumeration" doesn't come to the individual laborer based on the peculiarities of his/her work, but through the development of the products of that social labor-- precisely that education, healthcare, recreation, leisure that appears as a deduction from the renumeration, from the labor voucher which is, in fact, nothing but a wage by another name.

You have not, as Marx clearly has, recognized the bourgeois determinants of your scheme, and the bourgeois limitations. Labor yields a surplus collectively, but is renumerated individually.

The "solution" isn't found in your scheme, which regards this "lower stage" communism, this mediation of labor, as the permanent, complete, full manifestation of communism. The solution is not found in attempting to compensate labor at "individual" or idiosyncratic levels.

The solution is found in the 1) further development of the means of production reducing the working day which results in 2) further social support for the development of the laborers as producers rather workers which 3) can only come about to the extent that the producers review, plan, expand the social basis for production directly and collectively and 4) abolishes, transcends, supersedes the organization of labor as solely a means for exchange .

Your notion of "socialist labor" never engages with this, which becomes, IMO, painfully evident when you say your scheme depends on workers being "sufficiently diligent and productive-- or if they choose [! emphasis added] to be less productive that their personal consumption is correspondingly limited." You then go on to propose grading labor, A,B, C, and why not D, and F?

As if productivity is not a social product; as if productivity is not determined by the advancement of social labor; as if productivity were the result of individual efforts and talents, rather than the social application of all the efforts and talents of the producers.

You reproduce, in essence, the divisions within the working class, with your "allowances" for individual material compensation differentials. I assume that means an "A" worker gets, what? 3 extra days at the beach? Uhh.....that's swell. And the way you administer and enforce this? Well that of course is a deduction from the total social labor, and in fact diminishes social productivity does it not? Unless of course you imagine Hobbes as a communist, where war of all against all becomes competition of all against all and the resulting leaps in output more than offset your cost of labor policing.

Me? I don't buy that. I think the costs of labor policing become self-preserving, self-expanding, and operate against the emancipation of individual labor; against the ability of society to support the emancipation of individual labor; against the realization of individual labor as social development.In real life, let's take real life... let's take something I know a bit about-- railroad operations. Some locomotive drivers -[we call them engineers, why is another story] and conductors are better than others. Much better. Some drivers and conductors are much better at yard operations, the switching and making up of trains, rather than mainline operations. They just have that ability, for whatever reason [exposure, environment, temperament etc].

If you're running a "hump" yard [a yard where the cars from arriving trains are shoved, literally, uphill, to a crest where they are separated and roll downhill into a series of tracks called the classification yard, directed to a specific track depending on destination of the freight], you look for these crews with this ability in yard switching operations. You treasure them, almost literally. You thank your lucky stars if you get two such crews as your regular daily crews. But what you can't do is pay them more than you pay the other crews. I mean you can try. You can authorize overtime payment as a bonus, when the crew doesn't work the overtime, but if you do that you, as the supervisor, are padding the payroll and will get fired.

If there is overtime, you can certainly direct it to your "more productive" crews, but do that on a regular basis, and you know what happens? You create a bit more than a bit of ill will with the other crews, and you find out that things all crews do for each other to expedite the overall operation for the benefit of ALL, like lining up switches for each other, like removing handbrakes that will stop the free movement of the cars by gravity, etc. are no longer being done, and your overall "social" productivity declines.

Your notion on the other hand moves from the realm of "labor-value" equal renumeration to individual compensation for individual labor.... you're on your way to reproducing, in parallel, the relations of capital where the laborers are dispossessed socially from total product in return of an individually higher or lower wage.

RED DAVE

29th June 2011, 18:11

You reproduce, in essence, the divisions within the working class, with your "allowances" for individual material compensation differentialsWhich is exactly the contradictions that Paul is talking about that caused this thread to exist. You have arrived at the same conclusion that I arrived at: that his contradictions within socialism are the result of the fact that he is reproducing the capitalist division of labor within what he calls socialism.

So what do we call a society where industry is nationalized but the contradictions of capitalism still exist? State capitalism or, dare we say it, stalinism.

RED DAVE

Paul Cockshott

29th June 2011, 20:46

Between planned production and limited capacity to plan

In the debate so far a key issue that has been raised is the persistence of
commodity forms like money and prices in the 20th century socialist economies.
This has been cited by a number of participants as evidence that these countries
were really capitalist not socialist.

The official doctrines of the communist parties in the 50s and 60s certainly was
that money and price forms were something temporary that would be eliminated in
the long run but that they were necessary at the then current stage of economic
development.

What one has to ask is why price forms were retained?

One hypothesis, put forward by Stalin, was that they were retained because of
the need to purchase food from an agricultural sector which still operated on
the basis of cooperative production. Whilst this may have been one factor it does
not explain why money was retained in countries like the CSSR or Bulgaria where
agriculture was more predominantly state organised.

I think that there were two much more basic reasons why it was historically
not possible at that time to get rid of money.

1 - the economic calculation problem
2 - the income differences between the sexes and between different grades of labour

In any economy it is necessary both to allocate resources in aggregate ( when drawing up budgets) and to
compare different aggregates of inputs when making choices of techniques.

The state and subordinate organisations have to divide social resources between different
ends -- so much to education, so much to health, so much to new investment in transport etc.
Similarly if decisions are being made about transport, at least to a first level of approximation
one needs to know which way of organising transport is going to be socially cheaper.
For the discussion and decision making to be managable it has to be expressed in some
uniform unit of account. In current society this unit of account is money and that was one
possible unit of account in the socialist countries. There are a couple of other schemes of
accounting now known.

The first obviously is labour hours, the second was not discovered until the end of the 1930s
and did not become widely known until the late 50s -- Kantorovich's Objectively Determined
Valuations.

So the question of why money was retained comes down to asking why it was not replaced by
one of these other alternatives.

The first thing to consider is the purely technical difficulty of introducing on a society wide
scale an entirely new system of accounting and control. Technically it would only be possible
to compute the ODV's proposed by Kantorovich once you had a continent wide system of computers
and communications -- essentially you would need to invent the internet. Glushkov told Soviet
political leaders that it would be possible to attain the communist goal of abolishing money
and doing all calculations in kind but to do that they would have to embark on a 20 year development
programme of computer technology that would cost more than the space and nuclear programmes
combined.

Labour value accounting is somewhat less demanding in terms of calculation than Kantorovich's
proposals. One can argue that a reasonable stab at it could have been made by paper and ink
methods, though the values calculated would have been a bit out of date and a bit inaccurate.
But then we run up against the problem that some participants have raised in criticising
the proposals that Allin and I have made to do cost calculations in labour hours.

When people raise this they typically say something like : how can you count the labour of
a brain surgeon as the same as that of hospital porter. I dont want to go into the details
of a reply to this objection at the moment, but merely to point out that the very existence
of this objection signals something -- the contradiction in interests between different categories
of workers. Under the wage system, where payments are in proportion to the price of labour
power, there is a spread of wage and salary rates. Types of labour power that are expensive
to train or are otherwise in short supply can command higher wages. Higher wages can also
typically be commanded by male workers than female workers, and predominantly male jobs
historically paid more than traditionally female job categories.

Going over to labour time accounting tends to undermine the social legitimacy of wage
and salary differentials, and has a leveling presupposition.
To treat an hour of one persons work as an hour irrespective of their sex or job category
would have required a big political struggle within the working population, and would
have raised all sorts of issues to do with incentives.

This, I think, is why communist leaders shied away from such a radical step.

It did not matter whether Kosygin or Tony Cliff or Ernest Mandel was in charge of
economic policy in a socialist country in the 50s and 60s, whoever they were and
which ever the country, they would have had to retain money accounting unless they
were willing to face the huge social conflict within the working class that would
have been implied by shifting to labour value accounting.

On differences in measured labour intensities: Artesian mentions our point about the possibility of a socialist economy recognising differences in labour intensity when making payments. It is important to recognise that these are only appropriate within a given category of work where there is either some objective way of measuring individual productivity or where members of a work team can make such assessments between them.
In a great many jobs this is hard to do in any objective way and in these cases there would be no case for not treating elapsed hours and paid hours the same.

Your notion of "socialist labor" never engages with this, which becomes, IMO, painfully evident when you say your scheme depends on workers being "sufficiently diligent and productive-- or if they choose [! emphasis added] to be less productive that their personal consumption is correspondingly limited." You then go on to propose grading labor, A,B, C, and why not D, and F?

As if productivity is not a social product; as if productivity is not determined by the advancement of social labor; as if productivity were the result of individual efforts and talents, rather than the social application of all the efforts and talents of the producers.

You are obviously right when discussing average social productivity, but there can be big differences in individual productivity in some lines of work.
We are obviously influenced in our perceptions by our own particular line of work.
In the software industry there are very large individual differences in productivity --
easily a 10 to one difference between the best workers and the worst.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html

S.Artesian

29th June 2011, 22:44

Which is exactly the contradictions that Paul is talking about that caused this thread to exist. You have arrived at the same conclusion that I arrived at: that his contradictions within socialism are the result of the fact that he is reproducing the capitalist division of labor within what he calls socialism.

So what do we call a society where industry is nationalized but the contradictions of capitalism still exist? State capitalism or, dare we say it, stalinism.

RED DAVE

Yes, I guess you can call it that, but for the life of me, I can't imagine [which may be a purely personal shortcoming] a capitalism without a capitalist class acting, individually and collectively, in the service of private accumulation.

And I can't imagine a private accumulation where money cannot purchase and dispose of labor power without regard for need, use and only according to the diktat of accumulation.

My view is that the bureaucracy is the historical analogue of the bourgeoisie-- different origin, same function.

But one thing is for sure, what Paul is describing in the first chapters of his work, and what Paul describes as "socialism" in his introduction [referring to the fSU] is not socialism and cannot become socialism.

S.Artesian

29th June 2011, 23:13

You are obviously right when discussing average social productivity, but there can be big differences in individual productivity in some lines of work.
We are obviously influenced in our perceptions by our own particular line of work.
In the software industry there are very large individual differences in productivity --
easily a 10 to one difference between the best workers and the worst.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html

Yes, indeed, we are influenced by our own particular work and.... how we "abstract" expand, universalize that experience into our conceptions of general social labor.

I think if we look at most sectors, [and again this is expanding my own view, and not based on research of every sector] we will find most "individual productivity" a result of the social labor process, based on the organization of the work, the level of the technical component, and the contributions of the workers as a class.

Look at the example of the railroad crews-- suppose you reward the "good" crew with "more."

What do you say to the man/woman operating the machine that aligns the switches that routes the cars [wagons] into the proper classification tracks when he/she points out that the productivity of all the crews, of the operation as a whole depends on his/her expertise?

What do you say to the yardmaster who points out that the productivity depends in large part how well he/she positions the arriving trains on tracks that allow multiple parallel [non- interfering] movements with departing trains; how much productivity depends on him/her properly assigning the tracks to the classifications based on how many wagons are going to that same destination on any day ?

And how about the clerks who have to verify the freight car numbers with the transmitted routing information so that the proper classifications [called "statics'] are maintained for each car?

And the car inspectors who have to inspect the inbound train and classify defects for routing to the shops [called "bad order" cars] prior to further switching so you don't waste time putting those cars into the train going to the final destination, only to have to switch the cars out again for defects?

The whole point is that the class produces, through its individual labors, the social labor, the overall social productivity and the class consciously wants to preserve that cooperation, communication, interoperability so to speak.

Typical "industrial engineers," "human resource analysts" will agree with you about your 10:1 margin between "best and worst workers." They do it with statistics, with charts, with their bell shaped curves.... and so what? They do that with a specific class purpose in mind-- to divide the working class, to strengthen the "invisible" hands of the bourgeoisie-- to flog this notion of merit when in fact the notion of merit boils down to nothing more than reintroducing [I]piecework into every aspect of the operation.

Look, you're good at software code. I am great at railroad operations [and modest!]. There are people who worked for me who weren't very good at being conductors, or locomotive drivers. They were OK. They were safe. They were maybe a little below average in the measures of productivity-- on time performance, trains 6 minutes late, revenue collected, etc. But most of these people I dealt with could do things I couldn't do. Half of them were so musically talented with instruments and/or music composition, that I felt like a barbarian around them. Another part were talented painters, sculptors. Another few were multilingual. So should the "body communiste" diminish, or restrict, or cap the compensation of those with "less than average productivity" in our narrow sector of work [work as opposed to social labor ]?

Of course not. Only by social improvements in productivity, by maintaining the unity, the "equality" of the producers is it possible to create the basis for enhancing all those abilities so scattered, different, and widespread throughout the........species.

Are some always going to be better than others at some things? No doubt. And so what? Why should that allow, facilitate, create, require greater access to "perks" to greater consumption? Is the need of that higher performer in a certain sector any greater than the need of the "average" performer? No? Then the "reward" "satisfaction" must come from the advance in the social content of the labor that benefits all, not in individually adjusted compensation.

Die Neue Zeit

30th June 2011, 01:53

One hypothesis, put forward by Stalin, was that they were retained because of the need to purchase food from an agricultural sector which still operated on the basis of cooperative production. Whilst this may have been one factor it does not explain why money was retained in countries like the CSSR or Bulgaria where agriculture was more predominantly state organised.

That's interesting food for thought. I always thought that the Soviet Union had the highest levels of state farm production, especially given Khrushchev's sovkhozization drive.

I think that there were two much more basic reasons why it was historically not possible at that time to get rid of money.

1 - the economic calculation problem
2 - the income differences between the sexes and between different grades of labour

I don't think #2 is a solid reason. While he was still around this board, Mike Lepore the DeLeonist also advocated labour vouchers, but mixed it with income multiples (electricians getting X-multiple hours per hour more than, say, janitors).

There's one reason you didn't mention there that, while somewhat related to #1, is sufficient to merit its own statement: black markets (for corruption and such).

Glushkov told Soviet political leaders that it would be possible to attain the communist goal of abolishing money and doing all calculations in kind but to do that they would have to embark on a 20 year development programme of computer technology that would cost more than the space and nuclear programmes
combined.

Too bad there was too quick a shift towards production of not-so-durable consumer goods.

On differences in measured labour intensities: Artesian mentions our point about the possibility of a socialist economy recognising differences in labour intensity when making payments. It is important to recognise that these are only appropriate within a given category of work where there is either some objective way of measuring individual productivity or where members of a work team can make such assessments between them.
In a great many jobs this is hard to do in any objective way and in these cases there would be no case for not treating elapsed hours and paid hours the same.

I'm on the fence between your position and Mike's on labour-credit income multiples, but measures like Devine's or the pareconists' job rotation and Educational Training Income are among the keys to delegitimizing those multiples.

robbo203

30th June 2011, 07:33

I think you have slightly misunderstood my point. I do not think that the question 'was the USSR socialist in the way you pose it is meaningful since to give it meaning you would have to have a
prior and detailed theory of true socialism with which to compare it. Since you dont have that
what you are saying is just a matter of political allegiance -- you dont like the USSR so you say
it was not socialist..

This is a crass argument. Its not because I "dont like" the USSR that i consider the Soviet Union not to be socialist. On the contrary, I consider the Soviet Union not to be socialist because I apply a marxian approach to what was the Soviet Union and see that all the fundamental categories that define capitalism - generalised wage labor, commodity production (means of production were bought and sold between enterprises as well as final goods), money , profits, capital accumulation, class monopoly of the mean of production etc etc - were also to be found in the SU. That is that makes the SU capitalist and not socialist

In contrast I say that you can only study socialism by looking at real examples of it, and, outside
of a tiny group of left sectaries the system in the eastern block in the 50s to the 80s was generally
accepted both there and in the west to be socialism. It was a distinct social system with its own
contradictions and forms of growth etc that had been brought into being by the historically existing
socialist movement and as such its positive and negative features are those by which socialism
is judged...

Again this is nonsense. and incidentally you have contradicted yourself since you earliuer acknowleged that it is quite possible to study a form of society that did not yet exist. Personally speaking of you want to talk of "studying" in the sense of an empircial investigation then SU as an example is of little use for the purpose but there are other much more useful social forms that could be studied in the sense of providing prefigurative examples of a future spocialist society. I would say the anarchist collectives in Spain in the 1930s were far closer to socialism in that prefigurative sense than ever the SU was.

I am well aware that people do generally - and unfortunately - regard the SU as a working example of "socialism". However, I note that you have nothing to say in response to my point that historically speaking this is not how socialism used to be understood and that up until the early 20th century, "socialism" was a term used more or less synonymously with "communism". Socialism in other words meant a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. This was the general understanding of what socialism then meant and I have plenty of contemporary evidence to back up this claim.

At the end of the day as far as I am concerned it doesnt really matter what term you use. If you want to call the SU "socialist" then fine - I am fundamentally opposed to your "socialism" in that case. It was an exploitative class society that was operated not in the interests of the majority but in the interests of capital and the tiny class of privleged parasites who monopolised the means of production via their complete control of the state apparatus.

Your problem, as I see it, is that you uphold the SU as an example of socialism to follow. In your book you say the SU was basically socialist but flawed by its lack of demcracy. The implication to be drawn from this is that a democratised version of what happened in the SU is what is required. Well actually that would still make it a class-based exploitative capitalist society in which the prusit of profit was paramount - only a nicer, more cuddly, version of capitalism.

See, this is what I find so frustrating about your whole perspective. What marks your position out and makes it distinctive is your advocacy of labour vouchers and labour time accounting. Now I think the case that you present in favour of labour vouchers is naive and simplistic and you do not really get to grips with the many and varied problems that are likely to beset such a scheme. You are looking at it through the rose tinted spectacles of a computer scientist but the sociology and economics underlying your perspective is pretty feeble in my view. It is comparable to others who likewise envisage the solution to society's problems in terms of "technical fixes"

All the same, I can quite accept the a system of labour vouchers replacing money and wages would, if implemented, amount to a qualitatively distinct alternative to capitalism unlike what prevailed in the Soviet Union. Yet despite your emphasis on labour vouchers you yourself admit that nowhere in the so called socialist world was there ever a serious attempt to implement such a scheme. The one and only partial attempt was the shortlived experiment in the Chinese communes in the late 1960s. This was soon replaced by a system of market incetnives - obvious capitalism

So, to sum up, there is absolutely nothing about state capitalism - or what you would call socialism - that gives us any confidence at all that it would lead on to something that would truly be qualitatively distinct. In fact, state capitalism has proved to be a complete and utter dead end - a historical cul de sac going nowhere.

This is the massive great whopping contradiction that lies at the very centre of your whole perspective - you implicitly uphold state capitalism as the way forward, on the one hand, and, on the other ,you advocate a system of labour vouchers as a qualitively distinct alternative to capitalism but which you openly acknowlege the erstwhile state capitalist regimes had no intention of implementing and showed no signs of doing so.

This seems to me like the conceptual mistake a child makes on being taken to Santa's grotto and
then complains that that was not the real Santa Claus she saw, whereas it actually was the real Santa Claus, and she had been taking myth as the standard of reality.

We can define what the child expects from the 'real santa', a real beard and real elves as helpers, really living at the North Pole, but it is this collection of features that makes the girl's Santa ideal not real. Most proponents of the 'USSR was not true socialism' are I think, contrasting an ideal to reality, and finding - not surprisingly - that reality is not ideal.

So what are you saying here? That it is pointless having an ideal to work towards? If that is the case then perhaps you ought to be prepared to abandon your pet scheme of labour vouchers.....

I think your argument is utterrly nonsensical anyway. In fact its message is deeply onservative, when you think about it: accept the reality that we have and do not try to change it through the pursuit of some "ideal"

Give me Oscar Wilde 's inspiring thought in The Soul of Man under Socialism, any day over this insipid and depressingly conservative mantra:

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at. Progress is the realisation of Utopias"

Paul Cockshott

30th June 2011, 08:10

Robbo and Artesian, do you accept my point about the need for a unit of account to allow decisions over resources to be made?

S.Artesian

30th June 2011, 13:33

you dont like the USSR so you say it was not socialist..

You, however, assume what must be proven, that the fSU was socialist:

In contrast I say that you can only study socialism by looking at real examples of it, and, outside of a tiny group of left sectaries the system in the eastern block in the 50s to the 80s was generally accepted both there and in the west to be socialism. It was a distinct social system with its own contradictions and forms of growth etc that had been brought into being by the historically existing socialist movement and as such its positive and negative features are those by which socialism is judged...

Except the fact that both the fSU and its opponents characterize it as socialism doesn't mean it was socialism, it means they were opponents.

Your analysis of the fSU as socialist, and your definition of socialism, don't really pass the smell test. My understanding of your argument is that the fSU was socialist because the extraction of surplus was not based on private property in the means of production, and allocations were not determined by the market, but were planned through political decision making.

The origin, development, and resolution of the contradictions of this so-called socialism are assumed to be, identified, conflated with the so-called contradictions of socialism itself. So you kind of miss the boat from the getgo.

There is, to the point I've reached in your book, no critical analysis of the historical origin of the contradictions that both produced and constrained the Russian Revolution; no material analysis of how those contradictions dispossessed in a very real sense, the revolutionary class from the direct, and continuous organization of social production.

Instead, you tell us your "socialist" fSU was socialist because there was economic planning for the extraction of the surplus, and given the condition of the economy, extraction of the surplus itself depended in equal or unequal measure on both the "pioneering spirit" of the Soviet people, and the application of terror to those, I guess, exhibiting less pioneering spirit.

I know this may strike some as cynical, but I really discount "pioneering spirit" "positive mental attitudes" "confidence" etc. from being adequate explanations for the growth, or decay of an economic system. Sounds to me way too much like FDR's "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," or magical thinking of "Field of Dreams"--- "If I build it, they will come." Also sounds to me like faith healing, evangelism, Norman Vincent Peale and all the hucksterism that capitalism uses to separate fools from their money.

But of the real economic contradictions, and whether or not those contradictions preclude characterizing the fSU as "socialist" to begin with-- so far I've encountered nothing in your book.

So... what are the economic contradictions of socialism, Paul? That is to say, what are the social contradictions of socialism that must be inherent to socialism everywhere and always; that in fact make-up the basis for socialist accumulation, just as the contradictions of capitalism, the conflict internal to value, to capital accumulation, makes up the basis for capitalism and drives it forward to its necessary self-devaluation? And how do these socialist contradictions manifest themselves in the extraction of surplus, in the conditions of labor, and.........in the actions of classes.

S.Artesian

30th June 2011, 13:39

Robbo and Artesian, do you accept my point about the need for a unit of account to allow decisions over resources to be made?

To this, Paul, I have to say frankly, I don't accept your points about your units because your analysis is so ideologically determined, ideologically charged, that the actual social relations of production are... well........lost in the superficial "neutrality" of the mediation of labor-- the labor vouchers.

RED DAVE

30th June 2011, 15:01

To this, Paul, I have to say frankly, I don't accept your points about your units because your analysis is so ideologically determined, ideologically charged, that the actual social relations of production are... well........lost in the superficial "neutrality" of the mediation of labor-- the labor vouchers.Precisely.

Long before we get into the details of this method or that method of exchange under socialism, we have to consider the actual social and productive relationships that will require such a method. For Paul, the relationships are bureaucratic, undemocratic, and, so, his method reeks of bureaucracy and lack of democracy.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

30th June 2011, 17:00

In the debate so far a key issue that has been raised is the persistence of commodity forms like money and prices in the 20th century socialist economies.Stop right there.

No, absolutely not. Only in the minds of Stalinists or Maoists are there "20th century socialist economies." If this is an opening premise, then any argument after that is bullshit as the premise is false. Coming as you do from a CP background, this nonsense is expected, but it is time for you to drop it. Any discussion of the future of socialism that takes the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., as some kind of a model is stillborn.

Unless you can show that a society without workers control of the economy is socialism, everything you are posting is actually a backhanded form of apologetics.

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

30th June 2011, 17:06

Stop right there.

No, absolutely not. Only in the minds of Stalinists or Maoists are there "20th century socialist economies." If this is an opening premise, then any argument after that is bullshit as the premise is false. Coming as you do from a CP background, this nonsense is expected, but it is time for you to drop it. Any discussion of the future of socialism that takes the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., as some kind of a model is stillborn.

Unless you can show that a society without workers control of the economy is socialism, everything you are posting is actually a backhanded form of apologetics.

RED DAVE

Dave is right. The issue is not assuming that the contradictions in the fSU are contradictions inherent to socialism, essential to socialism-- after all, as Marx analyzes, in painful detail, the contradictions of capitalism, those contradictions are inherent in, and essential to capitalist accumulation.

So please tell us what those contradictions are, and their concrete manifestation in the relations of classes in the fSU, and why those contradictions and those relations are essential to, inherent in socialism.

robbo203

30th June 2011, 17:42

Robbo and Artesian, do you accept my point about the need for a unit of account to allow decisions over resources to be made?

No. Not at all. I dont buy the so called "economic calculation argument" of Herr von Mises at all, nor his free market recipes that derive from that. Do you? There is a perfectly satisfactory way of ensuring the efficient allocation of resources, using calculation in kind. From what I have read of your stuff I am not at all sure where you stand on calculation in kind. At any rate, the idea that you need a single universal unit of account - be it money or labour time - to permit commensurability between dfferent bundles of factors thus enabling you to chose - supposedly - the least cost combination, is a load of baloney in my view.

ar734

1st July 2011, 03:01

There is a perfectly satisfactory way of ensuring the efficient allocation of resources, using calculation in kind.

"Calculation in kind" is only another way of saying "barter" or specie (in kind) money. The modern form of money still functions as the universal equivalent of commodities because it is so convenient. Cockshott asked why the use of money and price has been retained in socialist economies. Name calling such as "Stalinist" and "baloney" are not arguments.

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 03:16

syndicat

1st July 2011, 03:42

the lower phase of communism is still communism. and that means it is not a class society. if the socialist movement is the movement for the self-emancipation of the working class...from domination and exploitation by another class...then, given the continued existence of a dominating, exploiting class in the fSU, it can't have been socialist/communist. Self-liberation presupposes, as a necessary condition, that workers have gained complete power over the labor process and the system of social production.

OTOH, i don't think the fSU was capitalist. i tend to think of it as a "bureaucratic mode of production." it lacked some of the key features of capitalism. for example, a tendency of managers to hoard labor rather than figure out ways to eliminate labor. but there is no reason to think there can't be class societies other than capitalism. why should we be particularly interested in the "contradictions" in the bureaucratic mode of production?

Die Neue Zeit

1st July 2011, 03:54

The transition to the communist mode of production requires the retention of money and generalized commodity production overall (from the Social Revolution all the way to Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR), yet also requires bureaucratic processes (including coordination as a function) to set up the necessary societal planning apparatus. Whether these processes are "troublesome servants" or "fearful masters" depends on the political and organizational strength of the working class.

Jose Gracchus

1st July 2011, 03:59

The tendency to continuously improve labor productivity using the reserve army of the unemployed is not a continuous feature of all points of capitalist society throughout its existence. Not to mention its actually factually false that this was an enduring tendency throughout the USSR at all stages in its own history. In the 1920s, lay-offs and unemployment were used repeatedly to discipline the labor force. The Eastern republics suffered from endemic unemployment that was certainly not 'horded' by managers. In my opinion, this was the result of the USSR, in its relative and sustained backwardness relative to the developed bourgeois economies, maintaining a 'war'-esque mobilization and extensive growth economic model, as well as the conditions imposed by relative autarky.

The transition to the communist mode of production requires the retention of money and generalized commodity production overall (from the Social Revolution all the way to Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR), yet also requires bureaucratic processes to set up the necessary societal planning apparatus. Whether these processes are "troublesome servants" or "fearful masters" depends on the political and organizational strength of the working class.

Nonsense. There's nothing socialist in content here. Especially in the cited works.

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 04:31

why should we be particularly interested in the "contradictions" in the bureaucratic mode of production?

Well, because if it's a new mode of production, then it's a new mode of production, with a new class, and that's pretty astounding, springing from the uneven and combined development of Russia. That's 1.

And because if it's a new mode of production, then we need to examine it to see what, indeed, the contradictions are that both drive its expansion and determine its contraction. That's 2.

And because if it's a new mode of production, then we need to determine if there exists a negation to that mode of production within its self-organization; if there are prospects for revolution. That's 3.

And because some characterize it as socialism. That's 4.

ar734

1st July 2011, 05:11

And he received his answer: because they weren't socialist economies. That's the point. He assumes what he needs to show.

If they weren't socialist economies then what were they? Do you believe the Soviet Union was capitalist? It may have been a degenerated workers' state, and a degenerated socialist state...and what about Vietnam or Cuba. Both, by any definition would be at least partially socialist. Yet price and money (maybe even labor) are still used there as commodity forms.

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 05:34

syndicat

1st July 2011, 05:43

In the 1920s, lay-offs and unemployment were used repeatedly to discipline the labor force. The Eastern republics suffered from endemic unemployment that was certainly not 'horded' by managers.

you mean under the NEP era, before the advent of the Five Year Plans and creation of Gosplan, which dates from 1928-29.

syndicat

1st July 2011, 05:46

Well, because if it's a new mode of production, then it's a new mode of production, with a new class, and that's pretty astounding, springing from the uneven and combined development of Russia. That's 1.

And because if it's a new mode of production, then we need to examine it to see what, indeed, the contradictions are that both drive its expansion and determine its contraction. That's 2.

And because if it's a new mode of production, then we need to determine if there exists a negation to that mode of production within its self-organization; if there are prospects for revolution. That's 3.

And because some characterize it as socialism. That's 4.

okay, but then let's look at it as a class system. not present it as "socialism".

from the experience of China, Russia and Yugoslavia, one could infer that the bureaucratic class came to view capitalism as a better system, from the point of view of their own interests. And as a ruling class in control of a repressive state apparatus, they had a good chance to make that change...and did so.

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 06:02

okay, but then let's look at it as a class system. not present it as "socialism".

from the experience of China, Russia and Yugoslavia, one could infer that the bureaucratic class came to view capitalism as a better system, from the point of view of their own interests. And as a ruling class in control of a repressive state apparatus, they had a good chance to make that change...and did so.

OK, let's not look at it as socialism. I agree.

robbo203

1st July 2011, 07:49

"Calculation in kind" is only another way of saying "barter" or specie (in kind) money. The modern form of money still functions as the universal equivalent of commodities because it is so convenient. Cockshott asked why the use of money and price has been retained in socialist economies. Name calling such as "Stalinist" and "baloney" are not arguments.

Calculation in kind is nothing of the sort. You are mixing up two very different concepts.

In fact, CIK unlike any form of accounting involving a universal unit of account - whether money or labour time - is absolutely indispensable to any kind of society. Visit your local supermarket and you will see it happening all the time. Shelf fillers monitor and count the baked beans and cooking oil on their shelves . Actually a lot of this is done automatically these days via autmated stock control systems to which the cash tills are linked to register the flow of goods and order fresh stock when required. This system of accounting in kind operates alongside monetary accounting. A socialist society will get rid of the latter but obviously retain CIK

You put your finger on the real reason for money - it convenience from the point of a commodity society vis a vis barter to enable exchange. Since there will be no economic exchange transactions in socialism - socialism being based on common ownership of the means of production - this reason falls away along with the need for money

Paul Cockshott

1st July 2011, 10:41

Precisely.

Long before we get into the details of this method or that method of exchange under socialism, we have to consider the actual social and productive relationships that will require such a method. For Paul, the relationships are bureaucratic, undemocratic, and, so, his method reeks of bureaucracy and lack of democracy.

RED DAVE

The issue is not one of exchange but of calculation. I was asking whether you accept the necessity of a unit of account for people in a socialist economy to do economic calculations associated with the allocation of resources. If resources are being allocated to education or health care, do you agree that there has to be a unit these budgets are to be calculated in.

Please stick to the issue, you may disagree with what I advocate in the way of direct democracy, and I may think your political proposals lay the way for Leninist one party tyranny but these are beside the point when dealing with the reasons why the socialist economies were forced to retain monetary calculation.

No. Not at all. I dont buy the so called "economic calculation argument" of Herr von Mises at all, nor his free market recipes that derive from that. Do you? There is a perfectly satisfactory way of ensuring the efficient allocation of resources, using calculation in kind. From what I have read of your stuff I am not at all sure where you stand on calculation in kind. At any rate, the idea that you need a single universal unit of account - be it money or labour time - to permit commensurability between dfferent bundles of factors thus enabling you to chose - supposedly - the least cost combination, is a load of baloney in my view.

There is a procedure for doing calculation in kind using computers and quite heavy number crunching, but

1 that was not practical anywhere in the world probably till the 1980s, the development of the forces of production ( in IT ) was not good enough till then,
2 the in kind calculation not sufficient to allow human beings to make decisions about comparative resource allocation -- the example I quoted before is deciding on the overall level of resource expenditure for health, education, public transport. For humans to make a decision about this it has to be presented in a form that is within our conceptual grasp - as quantities of a single unit either money of labour time, or in principle I suppose embodied KWHours.

The issue isn't what I think the fSU was. The issue is Cockshott's claim that socialism has economic contradictions, which means it reproduces those contradictions as it expands itself. That's what contradictions are as Marx analyzed them in capital. The contradictions are essential to the reproduction of the social relations that characterize the organization of production.

Of course, someone can argue that socialist contradictions are a different type of contradiction; don't really involve classes, the organization of labor, and the appropriation of surplus labor, but then we still need to explain the economic waxing and waning of the "socialist states."

Yes I mentioned the first of these contradictions between the growing complexity of the economy and the limited ability of society to carry out planning prior to the development of advanced computer technology.

Rowan Duffy

1st July 2011, 11:47

In fact, CIK unlike any form of accounting involving a universal unit of account - whether money or labour time - is absolutely indispensable to any kind of society.

Input output tables or Kantorovich style optimisations both make use of calculations in kind. They calculate how to distribute products amongst various intermediate producers for final output. Calculation in kind in itself however is unable to solve two fundamental problems.

(a) How much labour would the working class like to devote to a given plan? Labour is not a passive quantity that you can just decide the appropriate amounts of. People should be given as much freedom to decide how much they want to work as is sensible. However, since labour is a limiting reagent of all products* it makes sense to limit access to the social product based on individual decisions on this basis. As things become more abundant and efficiencies increase, the limiting reagent of labour naturally should recede in importance.

(b) How should we decide which products to produce? The question of deciding output products can be done in a number of ways. We can attempt to guess using statistical methods based on demand as is done in supermarkets as you say. However, this gives us no indication of the relative importance of goods when more than one good is scarce. Without an indicator of ranking, all scarce goods look equally important, even though one may be literally infinitely more important than another.

We can achieve this ranking through the aggregation of individual preferences orderings of goods or with indifference matrices. This might actually make sense for some things like housing or other long term decisions but as a requirement to be able to buy a stick of gum at the store seems like an extreme overkill and serious inconvenience in time expenditure and complexity for little benefit.

The "rationing" of goods based on the labour content makes a fair bit of sense since we can make our own decisions about which goods are more important to us "on the fly". It allows us to do calculation in kind in a way that reflects consumer preferences which consumers are faced with a choice of - essentially - where they think scarce labour should be devoted.

In summary calculation in kind requires a plan on the outputs. The plan on the outputs has to be decided by the limiting inputs and which outputs are most desired subject to the cutoff of scarce resources. The limiting input that humans should have the most power over is labour. The output should be decided by people. Calculation in kind is internal and does not tell us how to do the allocation of labour or the output schedule.

All types of CIK also suffer from a similar problem. There was recently someone who said: "There is central planning and there is the market. There are no other alternatives". While I think this is an overstatement, there is a kernel of truth.

The kernel of truth is that global social goals imply hard constraints on self-managment at the level of the firm or producer association. How hard these constraints are is a matter of concern. What good is self-management if all of the constraints are provided from the centre.

Of course markets imply similar constraints though they do not come from a centre, but from the "anarchy of the market".

Devine (Democracy & Economic Planning) makes an attempt to obviate this through negotiated coordination. Now personally I think his proposal is full of wavy hands and attempts to throw democracy at every problem, however, I think there may be something of substance here as well if we use it in cooperation with guidance of global goals. Calculation based on labour values can give us very strong guidance here.

When we are trying to decide on the input of investment in various firms we will need guidelines on productivity and ways of determining if some investment is productive. Obviously there are investments that should require no return in labour values - anything which is a public good should be of this type. However, were there are returns we can get information about how it relates to the social average labour devoted to productive goals by looking at the calculated labour values of the production as compares price. This is a tool for evaluation which is not available from "pure" CIK or prices.

This suggests that there may be ways to include firm autonomy and global goals while retaining flexibility required for self-activation and self-management.

Some of the problems that I consider "open" which we seriously need to consider for all planning systems:

a) The manner in which global (but also regional/sectional) social goals are expressed (Labour? Demand Schedules? Indifference curves?)
b) The extent and manner of firm-autonomy relative to global social goals
c) Firm formation and entrepreneurship
d) Methods of encouraging plan adherence without creating "infernal dynamics" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_infernal_dynamics)

For various systems with CIK:

a) Shturmovshchina
b) Output quality, variance and timing in horizontal links when inputs and outputs are directed from the centre
c) Tendencies towards information hiding and hording
d) Systemic lubrication for plan failure (without requiring extra-legal "fixers" etc. like in the USSR)

It should be remembered that all plans fail. The question is really how much they fail and about how well we deal with failure.

People need to stop complaining so much about how this or that system doesn't have X,Y or Z quality, and start thinking about what does have X,Y or Z quality. If we focused on more constructive development and less time on throwing rocks at proposals we'd probably be a lot better off.

* Aside from essentially zero-labour, non-rival (by physical nature or abundance relative to demand) goods like oxygen or dandelions.

RED DAVE

1st July 2011, 12:33

Long before we get into the details of this method or that method of exchange under socialism, we have to consider the actual social and productive relationships that will require such a method. For Paul, the relationships are bureaucratic, undemocratic, and, so, his method reeks of bureaucracy and lack of democracy.
The issue is not one of exchange but of calculation.Wrong again.

The fundamental issue is the class organization that will be using whatever medium of exchange is finally decided on, democratically.

I was asking whether you accept the necessity of a unit of account for people in a socialist economy to do economic calculations associated with the allocation of resources.It is not a matter of whether or not I accept the necessity of a unit, it's a matter of what the revolutionary working class democracy wants and accepts. Let me remind you that the original purpose for this thread is to examine contradictions you claimed would be present in a socialist economy. It's quite obvious to me that the contradictions that exist in your model, to use a term I'm not fond of, come from its lack of democracy, not from some kind of structural problem involving the method of allocation of resources.

If resources are being allocated to education or health care, do you agree that there has to be a unit these budgets are to be calculated in.Frankly, I don't know, and, frankly, neither do you. Remember that your model is undemocratic and bureaucratic, while mine is democratic and antibureaucratic.

Please stick to the issueI believe I am. The original issue of this thread was contradictions within a socialist society. I think it's pretty clear that you envision such contradictions because your economic model of socialism is a model that isn't aimed at the dissolution of classes but of perpetuating them.

you may disagree with what I advocate in the way of direct democracyI sure as shit do.

and I may think your political proposals lay the way for Leninist one party tyrannyYou have no basis whatsoever for such a claim. It's your model that is based on a one-party tyranny, not mine.

but these are beside the pointAre they? Let's see.

when dealing with the reasons why the socialist economies were forced to retain monetary calculation.(emph added)

And as the cat jumps out of the bag, my disagreements turn out to be very much to the point. One more time, you are sneaking in your apology for stalinism. There were no socialist economies. They were, use an awkward term, bureaucratic state capitalist. And I would no more use the methods they used for running a socialist economy than I would use the methods of a capitalist corporation.

RED DAVE

Paul Cockshott

1st July 2011, 12:40

It is worth thinking about what technology is needed for non transferable labour accounts.
It can obviously be done electronically using credit card technology, but achieving it with paper technology would have been much harder. Even in the west generalised chequing accounts only became possible after the invention of the random access disk in the 1950s, before that the labour required to look up and resolve accounts ruled out the spread of chequing accounts beyond the upper middle class.

t is not a matter of whether or not I accept the necessity of a unit, it's a matter of what the revolutionary working class democracy wants and accepts.
Well there is no general working class demand to get rid of money. But in any system however democratic there are practical limitations to what can be done. I am saying that it is impossible for a democratic forum to even discuss in a sensible way how much of a budget to allocate without it being expressed in some unit of account either money or time.

Let me remind you that the original purpose for this thread is to examine contradictions you claimed would be present in a socialist economy. It's quite obvious to me that the contradictions that exist in your model, to use a term I'm not fond of, come from its lack of democracy, not from some kind of structural problem involving the method of allocation of resources.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Cockshott http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2160323#post2160323)
If resources are being allocated to education or health care, do you agree that there has to be a unit these budgets are to be calculated in.
Frankly, I don't know, and, frankly, neither do you. Remember that your model is undemocratic and bureaucratic, while mine is democratic and antibureaucratic.

My proposal is for it to be settled by a direct vote of the whole population, why is that undemocratic?

And as the cat jumps out of the bag, my disagreements turn out to be very much to the point. One more time, you are sneaking in your apology for stalinism. There were no socialist economies. They were, use an awkward term, bureaucratic state capitalist. And I would no more use the methods they used for running a socialist economy than I would use the methods of a capitalist corporation.

It is naive to think that because you have good intentions any new socialist attempt will not run into many of the same problems as previous ones. It becomes even more likely that this will be the case if you refuse to study previous experience.

Zanthorus

1st July 2011, 12:51

Paul, could I request that when you want to reply to multiple users you click the http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/multiquote_off.gif button on the first few posts you want to quote, then then the quote button on the last, which will bring up all the posts of the users you are replying to as quotes in the reply box, rather than replying one post at a time which has lead to you double and triple posting throughout this thread (Also, if you want to add to something and someone hasn't posted in the mean time, use the edit button). I've taken the liberty of going back through the thread and merging the posts where you had previously done this.

EDIT: This request also applies to S. Artesian whose double-posted occasionally. It is really needless to make a new post if someone hasn't replied since you made your last one unless the thread is old and inactive.

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 14:13

Rowan Duffy

1st July 2011, 15:11

Possibly relevant to this discussion is this piece on Neurath, Calculation in Kind Labour vouchers and Kautsky.

http://www.chaloupek.eu/work/NeurathFin.pdf

syndicat

1st July 2011, 16:04

Devine (Democracy & Economic Planning) makes an attempt to obviate this through negotiated coordination. Now personally I think his proposal is full of wavy hands and attempts to throw democracy at every problem, however, I think there may be something of substance here as well if we use it in cooperation with guidance of global goals. Calculation based on labour values can give us very strong guidance here.

Albert & Hahnel's version of negotiated cooordination is more clearly stated and more adequate, as I see it. Devine makes a distinction between two different forms or aspects of a market which are stated in such a vague way I can't make any sense of it.

there is no such thing as "labor values" if you mean this in the Marxist sense of one hour of any kind of labor being equal in value to one hour of any other kind of labor. That's because one hour of labor X may be worth more than another hour of labor Y.

The value of labor depends on the value of what they create. And this depends upon the strength of desire or preference for the products. An hour of brain surgery isn't worth the same as an hour of cleaning or sewing clothes. This is NOT an argument for people being paid differently. There is no reason people should be remunerated by the value of their labor. The value of their labor is a social product since it depends on their education, on who they're working with, the means of production they have, and other things not created by that person.

We can't measure social opportunity costs without people being able to make decisions based on their preferences about what they want produced. This requires finite budgets that people have to stick to. Without that, people don't have to make hard choices where they can't have both A and B but must choose one or the other....thus indicating to the economy which they prefer or desire more strongly.

And without measures of social opportunity costs there can't be an efficient economy. An economy is efficient if it's effective for the population in producing what they most prefer.

In kind calculation won't work because we need a numeric scale on which all products can be measured. That's because production of anything whatever is a trade off. There are innumerable other things that could have been produced with the labor and resources that went into creating it.

Rowan Duffy

1st July 2011, 16:33

there is no such thing as "labor values" if you mean this in the Marxist sense of one hour of any kind of labor being equal in value to one hour of any other kind of labor. That's because one hour of labor X may be worth more than another hour of labor Y.

There is an operational meaning that has to do with the average labour time used in the production of a good.

How can one hour of labour X be worth more than another hour of labour Y unless we have a measure of better? How can we know which is better? In order to do that, you have to pick some method of determination.

The acquisition of goods based on a limited budget of labour hours in proportion to the labour time expended by the individual (average socially necessary or whatever you want to call the operational definition) is one way to do so.

Since it has an operational definition you can't show it doesn't exist. You'll have to show that it is not desirable.

The value of labor depends on the value of what they create. And this depends upon the strength of desire or preference for the products. An hour of brain surgery isn't worth the same as an hour of cleaning or sewing clothes. This is NOT an argument for people being paid differently. There is no reason people should be remunerated by the value of their labor. The value of their labor is a social product since it depends on their education, on who they're working with, the means of production they have, and other things not created by that person.

The point is to make access available in proportion to the extent to which people engage in socially useful work and to determine what the value of things are in terms of peoples preferences in the expenditure of this.

The argument against differential pay disappears and the question of determination of a good A as being of greater social use than good B is also dealt with.

In kind calculation won't work because we need a numeric scale on which all products can be measured. That's because production of anything whatever is a trade off. There are innumerable other things that could have been produced with the labor and resources that went into creating it.

As I've been trying to point out, in kind calculation is not exclusive of a measure. It however requires a measure for us to pick out one among many plans which is in some sense "optimal".

I'm not sure the measure requires a numeric scale though. It seems possible that there are other ways to aggregate preferences that would lead to acceptable outcomes when truncated to reflect absolute scarcity.

syndicat

1st July 2011, 16:54

to determine what the value of things are in terms of peoples preferences in the expenditure of this.

this is inconsistent with your "operational definition" of "labor values". if value is determined by people's preferences or strength of desire...and this can only be measured via choices in a situation of a finite budget...then one hour of labor may have a different value than another hour of labor.

Die Neue Zeit

1st July 2011, 17:02

The point is to make access available in proportion to the extent to which people engage in socially useful work and to determine what the value of things are in terms of peoples preferences in the expenditure of this.

The argument against differential pay disappears and the question of determination of a good A as being of greater social use than good B is also dealt with.

I pointed out two delegitimizers re. pay differentials and multiples above. How exactly is this the knockout blow? [Again, I'm still on the fence.]

Jose Gracchus

1st July 2011, 17:05

you mean under the NEP era, before the advent of the Five Year Plans and creation of Gosplan, which dates from 1928-29.

Is it your view that the NEP era USSR was in fact a capitalist state?

Paul Cockshott

1st July 2011, 17:57

i think you are confusing the subjectivist concept of value with that in the labour theory of value. In the latter subjective desires play no part in value determination.

ar734

1st July 2011, 18:10

"Partially socialist"? What's that? Like being partially pregnant? "Partially socialist" is pretty convenient for some. Cockshott for example thinks post WW2-pre-Thatcher Britain was, at times, about 33% socialist, IIRC.

The issue isn't what I think the fSU was. The issue is Cockshott's claim that socialism has economic contradictions, which means it reproduces those contradictions as it expands itself. That's what contradictions are as Marx analyzed them in capital. The contradictions are essential to the reproduction of the social relations that characterize the organization of production.

Of course, someone can argue that socialist contradictions are a different type of contradiction; don't really involve classes, the organization of labor, and the appropriation of surplus labor, but then we still need to explain the economic waxing and waning of the "socialist states."

A contradiction in the Soviet Union was the ownership of the entire means of production by the state and the resulting antagonism between the bureaucracy and the workers. China has scaled back the ownership by the state to only the biggest industries, banks, etc. The Chinese have a mixed economy, partly socialist partly capitalist.

It's not a question of being partially pregnant. It takes a while for a pregnancy to develop. If you try to shortcut the process you can end up with a terminated pregnancy, a bit like the Soviet Union. The waxing and waning of the "socialist" states are the contractions of the newly developing society within the body of the old society.

Rowan Duffy

1st July 2011, 18:13

this is inconsistent with your "operational definition" of "labor values". if value is determined by people's preferences or strength of desire...and this can only be measured via choices in a situation of a finite budget...then one hour of labor may have a different value than another hour of labor.

It is not inconsistent, though it is perhaps subtle.

The reason the labour theory of value works is that subjective viewpoints have a very weak impact on value. The subjective valuation of goods can determine whether a good is produced relative to the capacity to expend money. An example is if someone makes a mud-pie. It will not clear the market at any price and mud-pies will no longer be produced. However, food will not be infinitely high in price despite being a requirement. We will want food in excess of all goods, until we get it at the quantity desired. Then we will want other things. This however does not make the price greater than the price of all other things. The price is in fact dependent on something else. It is dependent on the amount of labour that must go into the production of food (accounting for the bulk of price) + some possible amounts due to rent if there are absolutely scarce resources involved in the production.

Now, the question of how we exercise our subjective preferences of scarce goods is a question of making our values known subject to the constraints of the ability to produce them.

Labour value (in its operational definition) is a reasonable measure of how hard things are to produce, and as a measure can be used to create an optimal plan for calculation in kind subject to some agreed outputs.

The agreed outputs must be chosen by people. Labour value can also be used as the substance we apportion from the amount we agree to work, to the amount of output we want of various types.

So, it serves as a notion of optimality, in terms of how we can minimise labour usage for a given output and it serves as a marker for which products we think are most valuable to produce.

ar734

1st July 2011, 18:25

RED DAVE

1st July 2011, 18:50

A contradiction in the Soviet Union was the ownership of the entire means of production by the state and the resulting antagonism between the bureaucracy and the workers.Okay.

China has scaled back the ownership by the state to only the biggest industries, banks, etc. The Chinese have a mixed economy, partly socialist partly capitalist.Wrong.

(1) China was never any kind of socialism. The workers never controlled the economy. It was bureaucratically controlled as in the USSR.

(2) China is now a fully captalist nation. It's level of state control is about the same as in the USSR. Both went from state capitalism to private capitalism.

It's not a question of being partially pregnant. It takes a while for a pregnancy to develop.True, but a woman is either pregnant or not. And a country is either socialist or not. Either the working class has control of the economy or some other class. In he cases of Russia and China, it is clear that it was some other class.

If you try to shortcut the process you can end up with a terminated pregnancy, a bit like the Soviet Union.Both China and Russia are fully capitalist. There is no meaningful disrinction between them.

The waxing and waning of the "socialist" states are the contractions of the newly developing society within the body of the old society.Nice fantasy, but it ain't like that.

RED DAVE

Jose Gracchus

1st July 2011, 19:01

S.Artesian

1st July 2011, 19:47

A contradiction in the Soviet Union was the ownership of the entire means of production by the state and the resulting antagonism between the bureaucracy and the workers. China has scaled back the ownership by the state to only the biggest industries, banks, etc. The Chinese have a mixed economy, partly socialist partly capitalist.

So then, your assumption again, like Paul's, is that state ownership in and of itself defines, and defines the degree of , socialism.

But if that is socialism why is there a contradiction between that and the workers? After all, Marx proposed in his critique of capital, that the overthrow of private property and the organization of socialism would resolve the contradiction between ownership and labor.

Let's be clear. When Marx describes the contradiction of capital, or eve better, capital itself as a contradiction, the contradiction exists between the organization of the means of production of private property and the social organization of labor as wage-labor. As a matter of fact, the property and the organization of labor are in contradiction because they create each other, each can only exist in each other, they share an antagonistic identity that drives capitalist accumulation.

Now that contradiction is resolved in the overthrow of property and the emancipation of labor through workers own actions. So what is this "new contradiction" that, a) exists in socialism b) is an antagonistic identity of property and labor 3) and must reproduce itself as the system expands. And.. not only what is it-- but more importantly for a Marxist analysis what is the need, the historical necessity for the contradiction and this specific organization of production based on the contradiction?

It's not a question of being partially pregnant. It takes a while for a pregnancy to develop. If you try to shortcut the process you can end up with a terminated pregnancy, a bit like the Soviet Union. The waxing and waning of the "socialist" states are the contractions of the newly developing society within the body of the old society.If you wind up with a terminated pregnancy, you are no longer pregnant. You don't deliver the fetus. If that's "a bit like the Soviet Union" it can only mean that the fSU was not socialist, or aborted socialism, not that it was socialist.

The wages of the launderer, the salary of the surgeon is set by supply and demand, at least under 18th century capitalism. Today the prices of labor is set like all commodities, by monopoly bureaucracy, by the giant corporation or the state.Not hardly. Supply and demand explain nothing. Never explained anything. "Monopoly bureaucracy" doesn't really exist in capitalism, and does not abrogate the fundamental representations of valorisation, value production through cost-price, prices of production-- all those everyday manifestations of the labor theory of value.

EDIT: Just saw this:

Yes I mentioned the first of these contradictions between the growing complexity of the economy and the limited ability of society to carry out planning prior to the development of advanced computer technology.

That's NOT a contradiction as Marx used the term to explore and demonstrate the critique that was immanent to capital. That might be a technical difficulty, and obstacle, but that is not a contradiction and CANNOT explain the historical laws of movement of any economic organization. See previous remarks on Marx's utilization of "contradiction."

robbo203

1st July 2011, 22:54

There is a procedure for doing calculation in kind using computers and quite heavy number crunching, but

1 that was not practical anywhere in the world probably till the 1980s, the development of the forces of production ( in IT ) was not good enough till then,
2 the in kind calculation not sufficient to allow human beings to make decisions about comparative resource allocation -- the example I quoted before is deciding on the overall level of resource expenditure for health, education, public transport. For humans to make a decision about this it has to be presented in a form that is within our conceptual grasp - as quantities of a single unit either money of labour time, or in principle I suppose embodied KWHours.

This is, of course, the argument that Mises used for having a single unit of account. In his case, money; in your case, labour time . I think you are both in error and I believe your error stems from the way in which you conceptualise socialism as a centrally planned economy. This is implied in your quite astonishing claim that calculation in kind "was not practical anywhere in the world probably till the 1980s, the development of the forces of production ( in IT ) was not good enough till then, Presumably, by that you mean that that was when the "number crunching" ability of modern compters reached the point at which they could handle vast quantities of data presumably required to operate such a centrally planned economy in the classic sense of the term. The idea that socialism might not be a centrally planned economy in that sense at all - society wide planning - seems to have entirely escaped you

It is clear to me that from your comment above you do not really understand what is meant by calculation in kind at all. Back in the 1920s or 1890s or 1760s or whatever date you care to suggest , there were people using calculation in kind in their everyyday lives. The little shopkeeper or, for that matter. the big supermarket in the 1960s , 50s or whenever, was monitoiring the rate at which stock was removed from their shelves. Stock sold needed replanishing. What did that entail? It entailed counting the number of tins of baked beans on your shelf and saying to yourself that if tins of baked beass are being sold at the rate of 10 per weelk that perhaps means you ought to consider ordering fresh stock before next week if you have only 3 tins left . After all, you dont want people coming into your shop and asking for baked beas when youve completely run out of thes tuff.

Now, what on earth do you imagine this shopkeeper was doing if not engaging in calculation in kind?. I can understand that, as computer scientist, you would have us all believe that the world is vastly more complictaed than it actually is and that it really requiires the perceptive mind of an academic to fathom it all out in the abstuse language of peer reviewed journals that only academics in their ivory towers have access to. Well, I belong to the common-or-garden school of thought that prefers to call a spade and spade and I can smell bullshit a mile off when I meet it. Your demonstrably false claim about the alleged impracticality of Calcuclation iin Kind prior to the 1980s reeks precisely of that.

Rowan Duffy

1st July 2011, 23:02

Regardless of the role of subjective desires in the real economy today, do we not want workers to have meaningful say in what they want, besides the passive choice to buy or not to buy at the point-of-purchase, whether it be with currency or labor vouchers?

Yes, choice among commodities currently on offer is insufficient. It doesn't take into account how to direct investment in innovation and the creation of new commodities. It does not talk about how to assess externalities, it does not deal with collective spending and it does not deal with questions of the production of public goods. It does not deal with questions of the desirable level of relative firm autonomy and self-management. There are a lot of questions that it leaves open.

What it does do is give a method of indicating which plans would be most suitable for the production of commodities that make up the bulk of capitalist generalised commodity production.

Paul Cockshott

1st July 2011, 23:37

The idea that socialism might not be a centrally planned economy in that sense at all - society wide planning - seems to have entirely escaped you
If it does not rely on society wide planning it will rely on the market and be rapidly on the way back to being what Smith called comericial society.

It is clear to me that from your comment above you do not really understand what is meant by calculation in kind at all. Back in the 1920s or 1890s or 1760s or whatever date you care to suggest , there were people using calculation in kind in their everyyday lives. The little shopkeeper or, for that matter. the big supermarket in the 1960s , 50s or whenever, was monitoiring the rate at which stock was removed from their shelves. Stock sold needed replanishing. What did that entail? It entailed counting the number of tins of baked beans on your shelf and saying to yourself that if tins of baked beass are being sold at the rate of 10 per weelk that perhaps means you ought to consider ordering fresh stock before next week if you have only 3 tins left . After all, you dont want people coming into your shop and asking for baked beas when youve completely run out of thes tuff.

Now, what on earth do you imagine this shopkeeper was doing if not engaging in calculation in kind?.

Shop keepers did do calculation in kind, but they also were obliged to supplement it with monetary calculations. They could not just go on ordering the same amount of things if the prices rose or their credit would run out.

The in kind calculations work so long as other economic conditions do not change, once there are changes, in a market economy these changes are signalled in part by changes in prices -- (only in part I agree, since there is additional information available to the shop in the form of the wholesaler saying that they currently hold no stocks of such and such a product) and people have to respond to these new prices.

The problem with in-kind calculation comes in dealing with

1. changing conditions : new techniques of production, new products, the effects of supply disruptions. At this point you can not just go on ordering the same thing again and again, you have to decide what combination of inputs is going to be most socially advantageous. Capitalism does that in money terms. It can also be done using labour values. Or it can be done using linear programming as Kantorovich did. But linear programming can only dispense with money prices as an input data if it is applied on the basis of an integrated plan accross the whole society. If you have invented some alternative method for making these decisions that is simple to implement and can be done in kind there is potentially a Nobel prize in it for you too.

2. making social aggregate decisions of the type I have pointed out 3 times now : choice of aggregate level of health, education, transport provision if a committee however it is formed or elected is to allocate resources between such uses on a citywide or region wide basis it is going to have to set a budget either in money or in labour. It is not remotely possible for a committee making this decision to consider all the possible in-kind mixes of resources that would be required for different combinations of new schools, new hospitals and tramways. It is a hard enough social problem to make an aggregate budget decision in money or labour. It you were to force them to specify it all in terms of physical resources, then the problem of allocating would become impossibly complex.

Perhaps you can outline how you think these aggregate decisions can be made without the committee having any monetary or labour units to guide them?

syndicat

1st July 2011, 23:55

The reason the labour theory of value works is that subjective viewpoints have a very weak impact on value. The subjective valuation of goods can determine whether a good is produced relative to the capacity to expend money.

we've been thru this before. you've never provided a clear definition or explication of what "subjective" means. preferences are observable in behavior. as with other mental properties, we posit them to explain behavior.

your second sentence has no meaning apart from a context. you also don't explain what you mean by "value" when you say "subjective viewpoints have a very weak impact on value." The fact is, how people evaluate options or potential items of consumption is what determines the value to them of those options or items of actual or potential production. and people "evaluate" in this sense when they make a choice in a context where they can't have both A and B but must choose between them.

Labour value (in its operational definition) is a reasonable measure of how hard things are to produce, and as a measure can be used to create an optimal plan for calculation in kind subject to some agreed outputs.

completely incorrect. that's because there are other social opportunity costs besides hours of labor. there are environmental effects and resource issues. the value of different hours of labor varies, as I've pointed out before. that's because the value of an hour of labor depends on the value of what it produces.

Marx used "value" in a peculiar -- now obsolete -- sense. this is the social investment in producing things or the social cost of production....in the context of a market economy, that is, a system of commodity production.

but if we know how people value their free time, the resources used in production, external environmental effects, and the products to be produced, we don't need Marx's obsolete concept of "value".

ar734

2nd July 2011, 03:52

Both China and Russia are fully capitalist. There is no meaningful disrinction between them.

This means that Russian ownership of Gazprom is the same as Rockefeller ownership of Standard Oil. Rockefeller used to give dimes away to people on the street. Gazprom sells oil and gas at about a 40-50% subsidy in Russia. I suppose you can make a connection.

robbo203

2nd July 2011, 11:24

If it does not rely on society wide planning it will rely on the market and be rapidly on the way back to being what Smith called comericial society.?

Sorry but this is rubbish. Its the kind of argument that the anarcho capitalists are fond of peddling.. "Society-wide planning" - that is to say, the a priori coordination of all society's inputs and outputs within a single vast plan - is , as Ive explained many times before, literally impossible for a number of reasons and this has little to do with computing capacity. The logic of your claim above is that in the absence of such society-wide planning we have no choice but to embrace the market. You are at one with the anarcho-caps in your thinking here.

Actually, though you dont seem to realise this yet, your own perspective contradicts this claim since you too advocate some sort of feedback mechanism which is precisely what a centrally planned economy in the above sense lacks. It is entirely possible for a non market socialist economy to incorportate spomething like a self regulating system of stock control through which the polycentric production decisions of society - some no doubt relatively centralised; many others, localised - would meld together and spontaneously adjust to each other. In fact not only is that possible, it is, quite simply, the only realistic apprprach available to such a society - or indeed any society.

Shop keepers did do calculation in kind, but they also were obliged to supplement it with monetary calculations. They could not just go on ordering the same amount of things if the prices rose or their credit would run out.

So does this mean you now concede that you were wrong in asserting that calculation in kind was not possible before developments in the computer industry the 1980s? Of course shopkeers have to supplement CIK with monetary calucaltions. Silly me - how could I have possibly overlooked that we still live in a capitalist society in which monetary calculations are indispensable. Nevertheless it doesnt invalidate the point that they can still perform in kind calculations even without having clapped eyes on a computer at all, does it?

The in kind calculations work so long as other economic conditions do not change, once there are changes, in a market economy these changes are signalled in part by changes in prices -- (only in part I agree, since there is additional information available to the shop in the form of the wholesaler saying that they currently hold no stocks of such and such a product) and people have to respond to these new prices.

Once again you are presenting a quite false argument. CIK is possible whether or not economic conditions change or remain static. You fail to see this because, as I say, you are fixated on this strange notion of society wide planning . Once the society wide plan has been formulated then, yes, effective implementation of the plan requires that it should not be subject to change. If you start modifying the plan in response to micro level changes then, because everything in the plan is necessarily interconneted, you no longer in effect have a single vast plan. This is the basis of your absurd suggestion that CIK is only possible "so long as other economic conditions do not change".

Think about what you are saying here for a moment. You have just admitted that "Shop keepers did do calculation in kind". What does that mean? It means that if the demand for lemonade increases during the hot summer months, the shopkeeper orders more bottles from the wholesaler. There is in other words, a changed economic condition in this case brought about the change in the weather which causes a change in consumer spending habits. The shopkeeper anticipates and responds to this by performing calculations in kind - counting the number of bottles of lemonade in stock, monitoring the rate at which it leaves the shelves and adjusting the physical orders transmitted to the wholesaler. In other words, CIK and changing economic circumstances happily coexist

The problem with in-kind calculation comes in dealing with
1. changing conditions : new techniques of production, new products, the effects of supply disruptions. At this point you can not just go on ordering the same thing again and again, you have to decide what combination of inputs is going to be most socially advantageous. Capitalism does that in money terms. It can also be done using labour values. Or it can be done using linear programming as Kantorovich did. But linear programming can only dispense with money prices as an input data if it is applied on the basis of an integrated plan accross the whole society. If you have invented some alternative method for making these decisions that is simple to implement and can be done in kind there is potentially a Nobel prize in it for you too..

Again you say this but without any real understanding of what calculation in kinds actually involves. There is absolutely no reason why new techniques of production, new products or the effects of supply disruptions cannot be responded to by means of calculation in kind.. In point of fact without CIK you cannot even begin to deal with such things.

How for example would you be able to contemplate bringing into existence some new produuct without some knowlege of the availability of its constituent components/inputs?. Like I said CIK is indispensable to any system of decisionmaking - whether it be socialist or capitalist or even feudal. You talk about the effects of supply disruptions but the very terms in which you talk of this implies calculation in kind.. Supplies are said to be "disrupted" precisely becuase there is less of the thing that you want "supplied". In other words you are talking about physically counting things. Thats calculation in kind!

2. making social aggregate decisions of the type I have pointed out 3 times now : .choice of aggregate level of health, education, transport provision if a committee however it is formed or elected is to allocate resources between such uses on a citywide or region wide basis it is going to have to set a budget either in money or in labour It is not remotely possible for a committee making this decision to consider all the possible in-kind mixes of resources that would be required for different combinations of new schools, new hospitals and tramways. It is a hard enough social problem to make an aggregate budget decision in money or labour. It you were to force them to specify it all in terms of physical resources, then the problem of allocating would become impossibly complex.
Perhaps you can outline how you think these aggregate decisions can be made without the committee having any monetary or labour units to guide them?

You may have pointed out 3 times before that "social aggregate decisions " will still have to be made but whether you said this 3 times or 30 times before the argument is still a complete and utter red herring. It is based on a fundamental conceptual confusion of the nature of a socialist economy. Your mistake lies in projecting into a non market socialist economy the economic impertives of a capitalist exchange economy.

I flatly deny that "social aggregate decisions" of the kind you refer to will have to be made in a socialist economy. The efffective economisation of resources in a socialist society will proceed on quite a different basis to what happens in capitalism. It is what I call a "lateral" approach to resource economisation as opposed to the "vertical" approach you advocate. The presumption is that in capitalism you need to compare different bundles of factors with a view to arriving at the least cost combination. This implies commensrability and hence a single unit of account to which all factors can be reduced. You uncritically apply this reasoning to a socialist economy.

In socialism, commensurability will actually no longer be an issue. What you would be looking at instead is relative availabity or scarcity of any particular input. This is a function of 1) the technical ratio or make up of the product of which that factor is an input and 2) the total demand for that product. Seen from this ppoint of view, the relative scarcity of any factor within any given bundle or combination of factors can be compared to the relative scarcity of any other compoment factor, that factor being the most scarce in these terms being called the limiting factor. It is called the llmiting factor becuase it determines the limits of how much of a given product you can produce. In agricultural science where the term was originally introduced (by Justius von Liebig) the traditional limiting factor inhibiting agricultural output was nitrogen fertiliser. The development of alternative artifical sources of fertiliser tended to mean some other factor (e.g. water supply) becoming the limiting factor.

This briefly hints at the way in wehich a socialist society will apprach the question of economising on resources - by economising most on what is most" relatively scarce" within any combination of factors- and not by approaching the matter via some form of aggregate decision making with a view to arriving at some overall least cost combination between different combinations. The latter is in fact a very blunt approach which conceals more information than it reveals. . Think of how the use of money as a single unit of account - the same would appliy to labour values - overlooks external costs( or "externalities") for example.

You say " choice of aggregate level of health, education, transport provision if a committee however it is formed or elected is to allocate resources between such uses on a citywide or region wide basis it is going to have to set a budget either in money or in labour" and that to do this in the form in calculation in kind would be "impossibly complex". This is quite confused.

In the first place the very data upon whcih your hypothetical committee would have to base its decisions could only come from calculation in kind - from counting things in kind. We would not be able to know how much more of a given resource is required unless we know what weve got to allocate to begin with. Like I said no society can do without calculation in kind

Secondly your very reference to the idea of setting a budget is the dead give away that you do not grasp the point that the very idea of a " budget" or a "common fund" or an " income" would simply no longer apply in a socialist society. They would be meaningless concepts that only have meaning in the context of a society in which there is a single universal unit of account which in turn presupposes a system based on economic exchange of one sort or another.

Thirdly you talk of this committee having to make spending choices between things like health, education, or transport provision but these choices are not enabled by the existence of a single unit of account. On the contrary, how much you decide to allocate to each depends on your ranking of thses things which stands independently of any system of accounting. In a socialist society where there is no economic exchange and where therefore there can be no single unit of accounting to facilitate exchange. such a ranking of end uses will also of course affect the allocation of resources with those resources deemed scarce being proritised for high priority end uses

RED DAVE

2nd July 2011, 13:41

This means that Russian ownership of Gazprom is the same as Rockefeller ownership of Standard Oil. Rockefeller used to give dimes away to people on the street. Gazprom sells oil and gas at about a 40-50% subsidy in Russia. I suppose you can make a connection.Stop being silly. The Saudi Arabian government receives all the oil profits from its country. Gas in that country is dirt cheap and the population recieves free education and medical benefits.

It's aill capitalism, just like under Rockefeller. There is no difference in terms of class ownership, unless you're deluded enough to think that Russia is some kind of socialism.

RED DAVE

Zanthorus

2nd July 2011, 13:53

but if we know how people value their free time, the resources used in production, external environmental effects, and the products to be produced, we don't need Marx's obsolete concept of "value".

This was one of Marx's major points though, that an economy where labour was not organised as wage-labour but as associated labour would not need the mediation of value to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production, but could do this consciously and in accordance with a definite plan.

S.Artesian

2nd July 2011, 14:11

This was one of Marx's major points though, that an economy where labour was not organised as wage-labour but as associated labour would not need the mediation of value to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production, but could do this consciously and in accordance with a definite plan.

Exactly. "All economy is the economy of time." The problem here is that with capitalism, money, and even labour vouchers-- which are demystified money that still measures value,
you do not get the application of social labor time to social need. You get cost-benefit accounting, you get value and valuation, you get administering the distribution of such time, and the products of such time-- but you don't get socialism.

ZeroNowhere

2nd July 2011, 14:26

S.Artesian

2nd July 2011, 15:22

Die Neue Zeit

2nd July 2011, 16:19

NewSocialist

2nd July 2011, 17:36

The topic of this thread reminded me of a passage from Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed (pp. 41-42):

A socialist state even in America, on the basis of the most advanced capitalism, could not immediately provide everyone with as much as he needs, and would therefore be compelled to spur everyone as much as possible. The duty of stimulator in these circumstances naturally falls to the state, which in its turn cannot but resort, with various changes and mitigations, to the method of labor payment worked out by capitalism. It was Marx who wrote in 1875: "Bourgeois law . . . is inevitable in the first phase of the communist society, in that form in which it issues after long labor pains from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure and the cultural development of society conditioned by that structure."

In explaining these remarkable lines, Lenin adds: "Bourgeois law in relation to the distribution of the objects of consumption assumes, of course, inevitably a bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of compelling observance of its norms. It follows (we are still quoting Lenin) that under Communism not only will bourgeois law survive for a certain time, but also even a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie!" This highly significant conclusion, completely ignored by official theoreticians, has a decisive significance for the understanding of the nature of the Soviet state—or more accurately, for a first approach to such understanding. Insofar as the state which assumes the task of socialist transformation is compelled to defend inequality—that is, the material prilvileges of a minority—by methods of compulsion, insofar does it also remain a "bourgeois" state, even though without a bourgeoisie. These words contain neither praise nor blame; they merely name things their real names.

The bourgeois norms of distribution, by hastening the growth of material power, ought to serve socialist aims—but only in the last analysis. The state assumes directly and from the very beginning a dual character: socialistic, insofar as it defends social property in the means of production; bourgeois, insofar as the distribution of life's goods is carried out with a capitalistic measure of value and all the consequences ensuing therefrom. Such a contradictory characterization may horrify the dogmatists and scholastics; we can only offer them our condolences.

So it appears that even Trotsky would agree with Prof. Cockshott, in that socialism will indeed possess its own contradictions, at least initially.

S.Artesian

2nd July 2011, 17:42

So it appears that even Trotsky would agree with Prof. Cockshott in that socialism will indeed possess its own contradictions, at least at first.

Except those are not contradictions as Marx understood, explained, developed in his critique of capital.

ar734

2nd July 2011, 23:24

Stop being silly. The Saudi Arabian government receives all the oil profits from its country. Gas in that country is dirt cheap and the population recieves free education and medical benefits.

It's aill capitalism, just like under Rockefeller. There is no difference in terms of class ownership, unless you're deluded enough to think that Russia is some kind of socialism.

RED DAVE

Saudi Arabia is a kind of tribal, semi-feudal society. Russia may not be socialist, but it is clearly not completely capitalist unless you believe Putin is Rockefeller. State capitalism seems to be the best description.

ar734

2nd July 2011, 23:28

Except those are not contradictions as Marx understood, explained, developed in his critique of capital.

Again, Trotsky offers his condolences to the dogmatists.

S.Artesian

2nd July 2011, 23:48

Again, Trotsky offers his condolences to the dogmatists.

Nice. Marx's methodology and analytic critique of the contradictions immanent in capitalism is now "dogmatism."

Yet another pseudo-"pragmatist" mistaking Trotsky's shortcomings for his strengths.

Russia may not be socialist, but it is clearly not completely capitalist unless you believe Putin is Rockefeller. State capitalism seems to be the best description.

Fucking pricelss-- not completely capitalist? How does it differ from "completely capitalist" countries like France, Singapore, Mexico, Venezuela. Or maybe those countries aren't "completely capitalist."

S.Artesian

3rd July 2011, 05:52

It isn't money in the real sense if it doesn't circulate. Cockshott isn't proposing that. It's only "money" in the sense of consumers buying goods with them (and, in PC's case, exchanging it for long-term savings certificates and such).

Wait, buying goods with them isn't "circulation"?

If all the circulation was contained within the Soviet Union... maybe, but only just maybe. However, just as there is no such thing as socialism in one country, there is no such thing as money circulation in one country.

Does anyone recall that the fSU did not exist in isolation, but had developed pretty extensive trading relations with various countries at various times?

And exactly how was the fSU to conduct those trades? With "money that didn't circulate"? Or through hard currency exchanges of oil and gas for marks, schillings, dollars, etc?

And how then do you stop that hard currency exchange from eating away at your economy from the inside and the outside? You can't. If "your money" -- the ruble, the Lenin, the Mao, whatever you want to call it isn't "circulating," is restricted in what it can purchase, you can bet there's some other money out there that isn't so restricted. Some other money that can get you those blue jeans, Marlboros, Rolling Stones tapes, whatever.

Same thing with "labor vouchers."

The problem here with these notions of "non-capital" money, "real time " labor vouchers for cost accounting, is that you never get beyond labor as a means of exchange for subsistence, or "subsistence plus."

You never get to production based on need, but only to different iterations of production based on cost.

Rowan Duffy

3rd July 2011, 14:21

we've been thru this before. you've never provided a clear definition or explication of what "subjective" means. preferences are observable in behavior. as with other mental properties, we posit them to explain behavior.

I've linked before to the subjective theory of value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_value_theory) on wikipedia.

It's true that preferences are observable behaviour. However, that doesn't mean that they determine value.

your second sentence has no meaning apart from a context. you also don't explain what you mean by "value" when you say "subjective viewpoints have a very weak impact on value." The fact is, how people evaluate options or potential items of consumption is what determines the value to them of those options or items of actual or potential production. and people "evaluate" in this sense when they make a choice in a context where they can't have both A and B but must choose between them.

Subjective opinions and evaluations of a good have a weak impact on value. I gave some examples but it basically goes like this.

A) Changes in subjective valuations can impact price over the short term. Fads or global external changes of various sorts can cause this to occur. If production doesn't have time to catch up with the demand, prices can rise. If a good is purely based on short term subjective preference, such as toys which become popular, the price may never reflect value.

B) Subjective valuations can determine what is produced. If something is affordable* and has use-values then people will purchase it. If something is either not affordable or has no use-value then it will not be produced. Affordability is relative to income.

Those two aspects influence pricing. This is what I mean by a "weak" impact.

Since incomes are finite, we have to truncate our demands subject to this constraint, hence only affordable goods are produced. In this way indifference curves represent something real. If we can have X quantity of good A or Y quantity of good Z, that will impact which we choose and subsequently it will impact which goods are produced.

However, the price of that good is only related to the aggregate preferences ordering in the short term. The real cost of the good is determined by the objective factors related to its production.

You keep saying that the labour theory of value is obsolete. The fact of the matter is that it's predictive of price. The subjective theory of value is entirely untenable. It simply is not possible to take aggregate preferences and determine price. If you think that this is incorrect, it is necessary to provide some empirical evidence.

This is essentially just a discussion on the viability of the LTV as a theory. If you really want to have a discussion on this, it should probably be done elsewhere.

Rowan Duffy

3rd July 2011, 16:52

This was one of Marx's major points though, that an economy where labour was not organised as wage-labour but as associated labour would not need the mediation of value to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production, but could do this consciously and in accordance with a definite plan.

If Marx made that point then he was wrong.

There is planning, partial planning or no planning. The first two are going to require a system of accounting and measures to determine which plans are more optimal. It is simply impossible to go through every permutation of every good and decide if we want to produce it subject to the constraints provided by every other possible choice. Choosing no planning will be a disaster, and will almost certainly result in a return of the market.

EDIT: It may be possible to use measures other than labour value, hence it's not necessarily wrong. However, nobody appears to be proposing a more suitable measure.

Zanthorus

3rd July 2011, 16:55

Rowan Duffy

3rd July 2011, 17:32

syndicat

3rd July 2011, 17:39

However, the price of that good is only related to the aggregate preferences ordering in the short term. The real cost of the good is determined by the objective factors related to its production.

nope. social opportunity costs have a meaning only in relation to what people want.

Rowan Duffy

3rd July 2011, 18:00

nope. social opportunity costs have a meaning only in relation to what people want.

Obviously, that's true because the statement is a tautology. However, it isn't evidence that STV is predictive of price. Seeing as how there is empirical evidence to the contrary, you need to either refute that or supply supporting evidence for your theory.

Zanthorus

3rd July 2011, 18:36

Using "Ricardian" as an insult is absurd.

No it isn't, it is fairly commonplace for value-form theorists to accuse the proponents of the 'orthodox' interpretation of being Ricardian since they focus primarily on the substance of value of as socially necessary labour-time while ignoring the innovation which Marx made with regards all prior incarnations of the labour theory of value which was the study of the form of value, that is how value is expressed in the everyday world of apperances through the act of exchange. It is entirely appropriate to accuse people who take a substantialist position on the theory of value of being Ricardian unless you can show that Ricardo also secretely had an analysis of commodity fetishism and the value-form, which is highly unlikely because that would've made Ricardo a socialist rather than an apologist for capital.

Marx was essentially starting off as a Ricardian socialist

Not in the slightest. The analysis of how social labour is mediated for the individual in a commodity producing society through the money-form is present as early as the Comments on James Mill and the 1844 Manuscripts. As even the orthodox interpreters of value theory could have told you, Marx began his intellectual journey as a Hegelian, and his critique of political economy developed from the inversion of Hegel's dialectic. The analysis of the substance and form of value is the classic Hegelian distinction (which can be traced through philosophy back to Hegel) between essence and appearance. Marx's encounter with Ricardo came after his encounter with Hegel and after his conversion to socialism. Let's also not forget that Marx is explicitly critical of the Ricardian socialists throughout, for example, the Theories of Surplus-Value.

Some of them have proved to be of little use (for instance, prices of production).

The idea that goods trade at prices of production wasn't necessarily an innovation on Marx's part, it was already present to some extent in Smith and Ricardo, however Ricardo never managed to figure out a way to reconcile the prices of production analysis with the labour theory of value (If I recall correctly when he died they found that he had been working on a paper that would try and solve the issue). Marx's unique merit was to reconcile the two in a logically consistent way by the strict distinction between the substance and the form of value, or to put another way, between value and price.

Who cares what Marx said if he was wrong?

Because first of all Marx's analysis is not something you can chop up until little pieces and then accept this part and throw away the other part, it forms a distinct logical whole and while it may be the case that certain parts may be logically irrelevant to the overall argument, when it comes to something that was as central to Marx's understanding as value, you're going to have to do a lot of explaining to show how that fundamental pillar can be knocked out of Marx's analysis and yet leave the rest standing. And second of all you haven't shown that Marx was wrong.

'Production through the mediation of value', presumably means exchange-value and would occur if we were using labour time accounting.

No it wouldn't, you can't have exchange-value if you don't have exchange between private entities. You are confusing socially equated labour in general with it's specifically capitalist form of abstract labour, the latter of which only exists where the labour of the individual is not a direct component part of the total social labour i.e. where production isn't planned.

RED DAVE

3rd July 2011, 18:57

(1) Let me try to inject a different point of view, especially into the discussion of socialism and exchange. But before I do so, let me point out that PC has entirely failed to demonstrate (a) that the USSR, etc., was any kind of socialism or (b) that there are any fundamental developmental contradictions within socialism. The remnants of the stalinist world view die hard.

(2) What I propose is to look at a socialism economy as it will actually work: not from the top, where a few godlike planners have to cope with the difficulties of gathering information and the heavy burdens of carrying out decisions made by "the whole population." Instead, let's look at the bottom, where billions of workers (socialism, comrades, will be global, or it will not be at all) are actually performing the work they do, which includes not only the production of use-values but also record keeping, transportation, storage, etc.

(3) What I'm saying is that the problems of information gathering and decision making are only problems if one looks at them from a top-down, bureaucratic POV. If we are at the bottom, with the working class actually doing the work, what looks like problems to the bureaucrat are actually the normal functions attendant on doing work. Problems of work, organizing work, exchange of use-values, acquiring the wherewithal of life on a daily basis, building schools, roads and the like are what working people do. They are not a nightmare of figures that has to be mastered or a set of commands that have to be issued from on high.

(4) If we try to envision this vast network, involving billions of people, self-organized in workplaces, buildings, homes, farms, schools, neighborhoods, cities, towns, countries, etc., relating to each other democratically, making, shipping, receiving and consuming use-values, that's an economy. If this same group of people, using the same networks over which the use-values flow, now, consciously and deliberately, uses the network that they have created as a medium of communication and control, we have the basis for a socialist economy already established at the workplaces.

(5) This is, I hope, a diametrical opposite to the bureaucratic state capitalism, often called stalinism, which characterized the economies of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, the DPRK, Vietnam, etc., almost all of which have evolved into capitalism. All of these, in my opinion, basically used the top-down planning methods of the capitalist economy, whether the state sector or private sector, as a model. What I have envisioned is also completely opposed to capitalism or any kind of market socialism bullshit.

(6) This constitutes a very preliminary set of ideas. I was helped in formulating by an important point by S.Artesian. I originally thought that money could be used as a preliminary communication medium and rough guideline to set up the socialist network. He helped to remind me that the relationships of production under socialism are democratic and whatever democratic organizations that the workers set up to run the workplaces and the political life of the nations and the world, will do well to run the economy as whole.

RED DAVE

Kotze

3rd July 2011, 19:01

I have basically no idea what in that post contradicted what I just said, except maybe you think that 'accounting and measures' amounts to production through the mediation of value, in which case you've nicely shown how your transhistorical Ricardian understanding of value is completely at odds with Marx's but whatever.Exactly, how much labour it takes to produce something did not have any importance before capitalism lol, and it will not have any importance after capitalism duuude, because assuming it will continue to be important would be transhistorical and idealist or something; nevermind that assuming it won't continue to be important is basically the post-scarcity horseshit that robbo203 is peddling, only difference is Zanthorus always adds an extra serving of obscurantism.

No wait, I guess Zanthorus is right, because capitalism has nothing to do with a minority leeching off the workers, oh what was this minority in capitalism called again, I forgot it, man, it's probably not important anyway because capitalism is really about the self-expanding, self-valorization, self-something of abstract labour or of dead labour or was it of value, wait, I have it, it's the most complicated process involving specific terms where those terms are the most important where it's the hardest to figure out what could be meant by them. The harder it is to understand what somebody says, the closer to truth we get, which is also why feng-shui wristbands which concentrate the zero-point energy of the aether are the best medicine.

To find out whether something is true, all that matters is whether Marx believed it; and who could be a better expert on Marx, and a perfect moderator for this forum, than somebody who doesn't even seem to posess the knowledge in economics and the German language you could expect from an interested layperson. It remains a mystery to me how somebody can read so much and understand so little. Zanthorus doesn't understand two plus two, but if anyone ever wants to know what Rosa Luxemburg's favourite cereal was or whatever, I will certainly recommend him.

'Production through the mediation of value', presumably means exchange-value and would occur if we were using labour time accounting. That's perfectly true, but why would it not be socialist or undesirable? What would you suggest?He doesn't suggest anything because he doesn't understand anything.

If I wanted to troll discussions about aerodynamics by saying, your design suuucks, over and over again, the engineers would soon ask me to be more specific with my criticism, and then figure out I know next to nothing about aerodynamics. Among the "Marxist intellectuals" of today however, this sort of criticism is tolerated and even encouraged, all in the name of hard-nosed realism, because making predictions is utopianism blahblahblah.

ar734

3rd July 2011, 19:07

Fucking pricelss-- not completely capitalist? How does it differ from "completely capitalist" countries like France, Singapore, Mexico, Venezuela. Or maybe those countries aren't "completely capitalist."

Your problem is that you expect a society to go from capitalism to socialism in an instant, you are the Magical Socialist. You want a fully developed socialist society to emerge from the womb of capitalism. You are a kind of pro-lifer who believes socialism begins at conception.

In France 80% of the electrical power comes from state owned nuclear plants. Aside from what may be the danger to the ecology, it is to ignore reality to claim that France is a capitalist country. It is obviously some type of mixed economy. It certainly can regress to full capitalism.

Zanthorus

3rd July 2011, 19:12

Exactly, how much labour it takes to produce something did not have any importance before capitalism lol, and it will not have any importance after capitalism duuude,

I have never once in this board claimed anything like this. What I have claimed is that the distribution of social labour-time to the branches of social production has nothing to do with this being achieved by value. You seem to lack even the most basic level of reading comprehension.

basically the post-scarcity horseshit that robbo203 is peddling,

I have frequently criticised robbo203's post-scarcity fantasies so I have no idea how I could be peddling it.

The rest of your post consists of slurs and adhominems and I'm not replying to anyone who can't debate by making points as opposed to going off on irrelevant rants about their opponents.

syndicat

3rd July 2011, 19:27

(3) What I'm saying is that the problems of information gathering and decision making are only problems if one looks at them from a top-down, bureaucratic POV. If we are at the bottom, with the working class actually doing the work, what looks like problems to the bureaucrat are actually the normal functions attendant on doing work. Problems of work, organizing work, exchange of use-values, acquiring the wherewithal of life on a daily basis, building schools, roads and the like are what working people do. They are not a nightmare of figures that has to be mastered or a set of commands that have to be issued from on high.

(4) If we try to envision this vast network, involving billions of people, self-organized in workplaces, buildings, homes, farms, schools, neighborhoods, cities, towns, countries, etc., relating to each other democratically, making, shipping, receiving and consuming use-values, that's an economy. If this same group of people, using the same networks over which the use-values flow, now, consciously and deliberately, uses the network that they have created as a medium of communication and control, we have the basis for a socialist economy already established at the workplaces.

(5) This is, I hope, a diametrical opposite to the bureaucratic state capitalism, often called stalinism, which characterized the economies of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, the DPRK, Vietnam, etc., almost all of which have evolved into capitalism. All of these, in my opinion, basically used the top-down planning methods of the capitalist economy, whether the state sector or private sector, as a model. What I have envisioned is also completely opposed to capitalism or any kind of market socialism bullshit.

yes, i would agree with this. the concept of "participatory planning" developed by Hahnel & Albert was an attempt to theorize, from the point of view of professional economists, how this networked socialism could work.

In order for it to work and preserve the real power of ordinary working people, the power of discussing and making plans and the like needs to be focused on the places where people are and can participate in, and understand, the discussions and decisions...workplaces, houses, neighborhoods, etc.

"participatory planning" is a conception of how these very numerous centers of local decision-making and planning can "adjust" to each other in the context of democratic grassroots-based society-wide planning without presupposing a market or commodity exchange, where producer groups would be forced to seek surpluses and forced to compete with each other, and without presupposing top-down planning & decision-making that empowers a bureaucracy.

syndicat

3rd July 2011, 19:33

Obviously, that's true because the statement is a tautology. However, it isn't evidence that STV is predictive of price.

technically, it's not a tautology because a tautology is true solely in virtue of propositional logic form. for example, Either A or not A. but my statement is a universal generalization. universal generalizations can't be tautologies.

maybe you mean that it's true in virtue of what social opportunity costs are. and that's true. in which case it is true.

I wasn't advocating any theory of prices within capitalism. if, according to you "Subjective Theory of Value" (whatever that is) is supposed to be a theory of prices in capitalism, then it logically follows I wasn't advocating "STV".

within capitalism, prices are determined by the various forms of power, things that affect the bargaining power of agents, within the market. this can be quite various: degree of monopoly or monopsony for example, class power such as ownership of means of production, possession of scarce skills, how much money you have available, etc. withhin capitalism wants don't determine prices by themselves because it depends on how much power you have to back up your wants.

labor time is a human cost of production because we don't want to work any more than we have to. but within capitalism it counts as a cost variously depending on the bargaining power of workers, that is, how much they can force the employer to pay them, how far they can go in forcing enhanced working conditions etc. in general capitalists are able to suppress wages due to their class monopoly over means of production. no profit would be possible otherwise.

SocialistAction

3rd July 2011, 20:01

Except those are not contradictions as Marx understood, explained, developed in his critique of capital.

From what I understand, a contradiction (in the general context of which Marx's critique of capital applies) refers to "those oppositions that are both necessary for, and yet destructive of, particular processes or entities." (Heilbroner, R.L. Marxism: For and Against, 1980.)

Therefore, I would imagine that a 'socialist' society could very well maintain certain economic contradictions — depending, of course, on how one chooses to define what policies are in essence 'socialist'.

Paul Cockshott

3rd July 2011, 20:28

Is it being argued, then, that the labour vouchers used in Marx's initial phase of communism are essentially a form of money (as otherwise there would need to be another form of money if regular value-production were to take place), and hence that in discussing them one presupposes commodity production by default?

I think Marx makes a clear distinction between money and labour vouchers in Capital

The question—Why does not money directly represent labour-time, so that a piece of paper may represent, for instance, x hour's is at bottom the same as the question why, given the production of commodities, must products take the form of commodities? This is evident, since their taking the form of commodities implies their differentiation into commodities and money. Or, why cannot private labour—labour for the account of private individuals—be treated as its opposite, immediate social labour? I have elsewhere examined thoroughly the Utopian idea of "labour-money"in a society founded on the production of commodities (l. c, p. 61, seq.). On this point I will only say further, that Owen's "labour-money," for instance, is no more "money" than a ticket for the theatre. Owen presupposes directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities. The certificate of labour is merely evidence of the part taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his right to a certain portion of the common produce destined for consumption. But it never enters into Owen's head to presuppose the production of commodities, and at the same time, by juggling with money, to try to evade the necessary conditions of that production.

RED DAVE

3rd July 2011, 20:47

In France 80% of the electrical power comes from state owned nuclear plants. Aside from what may be the danger to the ecology, it is to ignore reality to claim that France is a capitalist country. It is obviously some type of mixed economy. It certainly can regress to full capitalism.Nonsense.

The existence of nationalized industry has nothing to do with socialism per se, and is full compatible with capitalism. The key issue isn't nationalization but workers control. In the absence of this you may have state capitalism (stalinism), fascism, corporate capitalism or what have, but you ain't got socialism.

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

3rd July 2011, 21:12

yes, i would agree with this. the concept of "participatory planning" developed by Hahnel & Albert was an attempt to theorize, from the point of view of professional economists, how this networked socialism could work.Okay, maybe some academic leftists have come up with something like this. Cool. But "participatory planning" was developed by the working class as capitalism was being built and as it runs now.

One argument of capitalists is that, given the antiquity of trade relationships and commerce, capitalism and competition are ancient and in line with human nature. What they fail to remember is that cooperation and planning are even older.

My real point is that the planning and running of the economy has been done from the giddy-up by working people. Every time a workeer tells their boss that the parts bin is half empty, every time an order is placed from a McDonalds for Big Mac patties, every time a tanker is filled and sent from the Middle East to Japan, an intricate net of relationships is evoked. the capitalists fantasize that they understand and run it. In truth, of course, it is run by workers but controlled, usually badly, by the bosses, from the line foreperson up to the boardroom.

In order for it to work and preserve the real power of ordinary working people, the power of discussing and making plans and the like needs to be focused on the places where people are and can participate in, and understand, the discussions and decisions...workplaces, houses, neighborhoods, etc.Not only that put the power to make all decisions and carry them out needs to be so focuses. We need to hammer on this again and again as a counter-voice to the bureaucratic bullshit that passes for socialism around here.

"participatory planning" is a conception of how these very numerous centers of local decision-making and planning can "adjust" to each other in the context of democratic grassroots-based society-wide planning without presupposing a market or commodity exchange, where producer groups would be forced to seek surpluses and forced to compete with each other, and without presupposing top-down planning & decision-making that empowers a bureaucracy.Right.

Let me just reiterate a point: participatory planning is not a conception. The workers do it right now as they, as a class, do the actual work of capitalism. Socialism will replace the top-down bureaucratic planning of all forms of capitalism, with bottom-up democratic planning.

"We have been nought; we shall be all!"

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

3rd July 2011, 21:21

From what I understand, a contradiction (in the general context of which Marx's critique of capital applies) refers to "those oppositions that are both necessary for, and yet destructive of, particular processes or entities." (Heilbroner, R.L. Marxism: For and Against, 1980.)Basically correct. And we do not expect that destructive processes will be present under socialism, except insofar as they result from the remnants of capitalism.

Therefore, I would imagine that a 'socialist' society could very well maintain certain economic contradictions — depending, of course, on how one chooses to define what policies are in essence 'socialist'.These contradictions would, as I said above, result from still-remaining capitalist antiques, such as capitalist consciousness, economic equality between countries, etc.

What PS is talking about is contradictions within socialism itself. Therefore, we can conclude that his model of socialism is not based on the democratic power of the working class, whose purpose is to dissolve existing and surviving economic contradictions, but from something else: state capitalism, where contradictions certainly exist[ed] in the thing-in-itself.

RED DAVE

Paul Cockshott

3rd July 2011, 21:54

A number of questions have been raised by different people that I would
like to comment on.
THE CONCEPT OF VALUE

Zantharous said:This was one of Marx's major points though, that an economy where labour was not organised as wage-labour but as associated labour would not need the mediation of value to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production, but could do this consciously and in accordance with a definite plan.
---------------

The sentiment here is one I would agree with but I think this is a terminological confusion. What you mean is that it would not need the mediation of exchange value to distribute social labour time among the branches of production. Value is labour time, so if we take your statement at face value what it says is that :
"an economy where labour was not organised as wage-labour etc would not need the mediation of labour time to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production."
I think what you mean is that :"an economy where labour was not organised as etc would not need the mediation of exchange value to distribute social labour-time among the branches of production."

It is quite important to distinguish between three different concepts:
1. Use value: the precondition of exchange value
2. Exchange value: the exchange ratio of two commodities
3. Value itself : measured in hours of social labour time,

In a society of private producers, value has exchange value as its form of representation, but this is something historically conditioned. In communist society value can be used directly in an unmediated form as quantities of time in social accounting.

The need for this accounting does not disappear so long as goods still require substantial marginal quantities of social labour for their production. The human population is the most important disposable resource of a society, and economic decisions are ultimately decisions about people and what people do with their time. Both from a social point of view and from an individual point of view time is a limited resource. Society can only make use of a certain number of million person hours each year per million inhabitants, and as for us as individuals, we are all mortal so our time is limited.
To provide an improving standard of life under natural conditions which may well be getting worse, society has to be very careful with its use of time. It needs to be able to chose the methods of production that use the least labour, subject to the natural resource constraints imposed on us.

Robbo remarked that: "your very reference to the idea of setting a budget is the dead give away that you do not grasp the point that the very idea of a " budget" or a "common fund" or an " income" would simply no longer apply in a socialist society. They would be meaningless concepts that only have meaning in the context of a society in which there is a single universal unit of account which in turn presupposes a system based on economic exchange of one sort or another. "

He is arguably right to reject the ides of 'common fund' or 'income', as these are perhaps to explicitly monetary, but he is surely wrong to reject the idea of a single unit of account. Social labour time is such a unit of account and a budget in terms of social labour time directly measures the fundamental resource available to society.
The examples I have been giving have deliberately been taken from activities which, in British society have at times been largely socialised : health care, education, and at times and places public transport. If a regional council, however democratic its setup, is to decide upon how many new hospitals, schools and tramways to construct, it needs at the top level to know what the labour implications of different health care, education and transport plans are. If labour is allocated to these activities it is not available to meet other needs, including producing food, clothing, houses etc.
Bearing this in mind the region does have a budget -- the number of working hours per year that its citizens have chosen should be set aside for social services rather than individual consumption. If it attempts to provide services that use more labour, then people will have to be taken away from producing other necessities.

A budget set in terms of total labour hours per annum for health, education and transport would only provide the top level democratic control. Beyond that the health board, the education board -- again however democratically elected -- would have to work out a detailed plan for the delivery of health care and education within that budget. At this point all sorts of in-kind calculations would certainly come into play and before a plan could be finally accepted and acted on, the implications of the plan in terms of material balances in the whole economy would have to be checked, either with a central planning agency, or perhaps via a distributed software network.

The point I want to emphasises is that an ecconomy of associated producers needs both value ( ie labour time ) calculations and other more detailed in-kind calculations.

But value calculations only become practical if the contradiction between different grades of labour is addressed.
In contemporary society there are marked differences between the pay rates of skilled and unskilled workers, and between male and female workers. So long as a socialist economy retains payment in money rather than direct payment in hours, these differences can continue to appear as natural and justified under the rubric of 'payment according to labour'.
There is a strong vested interest on the part of the better paid to retain such a system, even if all income accrues to labour and none to capital.
The better paid are not necessarily just the skilled workers. It can be the labour aristocracy - sections of manual workers who do particualarly arduous or heroic work -- miners, oil rig workers etc.
It can be the whole urban industrial working class as against the peasantry.
These are class contradictions and one of the material bases of class struggle under socialism.

If money and pay differentials are retained a contradictory pressure arises in a socialist country to compensate for the lower wages that those at the bottom of the pay scale get in other ways. The working class demands cheap food and subsidised housing in order to allow those on the lowest wages to have an acceptable living standard.

This is a new contradiction between wage differentials demanded by the elite workers and subsidies demanded by the mass of workers. This contradiction in turn brings on a whole list of other effects which I will go into in later posts.

robbo203

3rd July 2011, 22:09

Exactly, how much labour it takes to produce something did not have any importance before capitalism lol, and it will not have any importance after capitalism duuude, because assuming it will continue to be important would be transhistorical and idealist or something; nevermind that assuming it won't continue to be important is basically the post-scarcity horseshit that robbo203 is peddling, only difference is Zanthorus always adds an extra serving of obscurantism..

Would you care to spell out what exactly you think this "post-scarcity horseshit" is that I am supposed to be peddling?

I have been at pains to point out on this site (and elsewhere) that the notion of socialism/communism as a society of cornucopian super-abundance is a false and misleading one - and also a highly regretable one insofar as it might inadvertently pander to the kind of consumerist values that animate capitalism. My claim is, in fact, a rather more modest and a realistic one. I think it was Gandhi who said we can produce enough to satisfy everyones need but not their greed. That, in essence, is what I assert too.

I hold that that we now do indeed have the technological capacity to satisfy the basic needs of everyone on this planet for food, shelter, sanitation and so on. However, it is capitalism that is increasingly thwarting and dissipating this potential. There is, for example, absolutely no reason why anyone today should starve. Do you realise just how monumentally wasteful is the whole food prpduction system we have today? Do you realise just how much scope there is for increased output per hectare and I am not talking here of capital intensive inputs (which I am not a great fan of) such as terminator seed technology which is all about what benefits agribusiness rather than the poor peasant farmer in the Third World?

Mostly, but not entirely, the productive possiblities at our disposal are not being realised , and are increasingly failing to be realised, because of the huge and ever growing proportion of work undertaken today that is entirely socially useless (and in fact diverts human labour and resoruces away enhancing human wellbeing) but is nevertheless indispensable to the operation of the capitalist system itself. It has been conservatively estimated that, with the abolition of the capitalist money system and the introduction of a system based on direct production for use, we could probably double the productive capacity to satisfy our basic needs globally by freeing up all that labour and material resoruces currently tied up in socially useless , but systemicallly necessary, activities of all kinds. Think of a world without arms producers, bankers, insurance companies, salespeople, tax collectors , wage departments and a thousand and one other such occupations and you will begin to see what I mean.....

This is the kind of perspective that I am coming from. If you think its "horseshit" well then lets hear the counter arguments. But be warned - I have more that enough facts and figures at my fingertips to flatten any such counter arguments.

So I am not prompting the idea of free access communism on the assumption that scarcity in some absolutist sense has, or is likely to be banished and that we stand on the threshold of some kind of comsumerist paradise in which we can all gratify our every whim. That is not my position at all - just to be clear. Nor is it the case that free access, or higher, communism as Marx called it in the Critique of the Gotha Programme is somehow reliant upon the material prospects of such a consumerist paradise. To the contrary, I consider the anthropologiical thinking underlying this highly contrived and tendentious interpretation of free access communism - as necessitating material superabundance - to be extremely impoverished and naive. Free access communism is not going to be brought to the point of collapse by the fact that we cannot all have a porshe or ferrari parked outside our front door.

This is the kind of feeble and pathetic criticism of free access communism one can expect from the pro market ideologues; it galls me when you hear in effect the very same sentiments being expressed by people claiming to be "revolutionary socialists", if you please. When you cut through the crap what they are basically doing is singing from the self same hymn sheet as market apologists who assert that human beings are fundamentally tarnished with the sin of "human nature" which is to be irrredeemably greedy, lazy and downright anti-social

So, no, I dont say free access communism (socialism) will be a world without scarcities - end of story. I specifically qualify what I mean when I talk about post scarcity - I am referring to the very real possiblity of society being able to satisfy the basic needs of individuals today, to enable us all to have a decent life. I am arguing for a reasonable definition of what this means, not some hopelessly over-the-top fantasy world.

Scarcity in the technical sense implied in the notion of opportunity costs will of course always be with us, by definition. If you decide to use a particular resource for a particular end that means you forego the opportunity to use it for some other end. You cannot satisfy both ends and you have to chose which end you will satisfy.

I am fully aware of this argument and in fact have been at pains to demonstrate how the notion of opportunity costs would be incorporated in the very process of resource allocation in a communist society. This is pretty much old hat as far as I am concerned.

The problem with critics like you who glibly accuse me of peddling some kind "post scarcity horsehit" is that you have not actually taken the trouble to find what exactly it is that i am peddling but prefer instead to put words in my mouth which I have not actually uttered

RED DAVE

3rd July 2011, 22:23

This is a new contradiction between wage differentials demanded by the elite workers and subsidies demanded by the mass of workers. This contradiction in turn brings on a whole list of other effects which I will go into in later posts.Still don't get it; probably never will.

The wage differential between "elite workers" (whatever that means) and "the mass of workers" is a remnant of capitalism. This is the kind of contradiction that the working class is desitIined to eliminate under socialism. It is not a feature of socialism.

Stalinsm, which you think was some kind of socialism, could not deal with the problem of wage differentials because it was a class society.

Workers under socialism will not "demand subjsidies." Your very formulation reveals your bureaucratic stance. Workers under socialism will work together, through their control of society, to eliminate these economic contradictions.

Stalinism dies hard.

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

4th July 2011, 01:02

A) Using "Ricardian" as an insult is absurd.

Marx was essentially starting off as a Ricardian socialist and developing his theory in that framework. Some of Marx's contributions represent an improvement (for instance, the clear distinction between use-value and exchange-value). Some of them have proved to be of little use (for instance, prices of production).

Nope, Marx did not start out as a Ricardian socialist-- that's just inaccurate and show's very little understanding of the real point of Marx's critique of political economy. Marx started out with the critique of Hegel, and then moved into the critique of political economy. Ricardo represented, to Marx, the most advanced and thorough expositor of bourgeois political economy, and therefore the best example of the inadequacy of political economy as a system, as a whole; as a representation of class interests of the bourgeoisie dressed up as ahistorical, "natural" interests.

Marx no more criticized political economy to perfect it than he criticized capital to perfect it, although that point seems to escape a lot of people who somehow want the commodity without the capital; who want the labor theory of value without maintaining the class organization of labor in a working class; who want accumulation of value through value measure, but not the accumulation of capital.

B) Who cares what Marx said if he was wrong?

I do. If he was wrong, show us where he was wrong. It's important to know where Marx was wrong, don't you agree? And why he was wrong.

'Production through the mediation of value', presumably means exchange-value and would occur if we were using labour time accounting. That's perfectly true, but why would it not be socialist or undesirable? What would you suggest?

I think it's incredibly weird that people think the problem in capitalism is that goods reflect their labour time. That's not the crux at all. The main problem is that the capitalists own the means of production and exploit labour.

I think its incredibly hilarious that some think and act as if exchange value production and value accounting can be separated from the "main problem"-- which the capitalist ownership of the means of production... not "and exploit labor" but to exploit labor.

"Yeah we want the commodity, but not the capital," proclaim our not so new Proudhonists.

The labor theory of value is not transhistorical but is specific to captalism, that is to say to labor organized as the commodity of wage-labor.

We should all be able to read between the lines of Cockshott's exposition, its so called allegiance to "real democracy" in his Towards a New Socialism and recognize the law of value acting in the guise of "costs' in that work.

TaNS ends itself easily to the necessity of restricting consumption, limiting costs, without engaging with that historical quality that distinguishes Marx from political economy, and socialism from capitalism-- the emancipation of labor.

Read for example Cockshott's analysis of "skilled labor," complex labor, the labor of engineers etc.-- where we get this gem:

In the context of long run planning, what matters is not the present availability of specific types of skilled labour, but rather the cost of production of those skills. And just as the value of machines can be calculated in terms of the amount of labour time required to make them, for the purposes of long term economic calculation, so can human skills.

We can envision the establishment of a baseline level of general education:
workers educated to this level only will be regarded as ‘simple labour’, while the
labour of workers who have received additional special education is treated as
a ‘produced input’, much like other means of production. This notion of skilled
labour as a produced input may be illustrated by example.

Suppose that becoming a competent engineer requires four years of study
beyond the basic level of education. This four-year production process for skilled
engineering labour involves a variety of labour inputs. First there is the work of
the student—attending lectures, study in the library, lab work, etc. As stated
earlier, this is regarded as valid productive work and is rewarded accordingly. It
is counted as a ‘simple labour’ input. Second is the work of teaching, distributed
over the number of students being taught. This is a skilled labour input. Third,
there is the ‘overhead’ work connected with education (librarians, technicians,
administrators). This may be a mixture of skilled and simple labour.

This illustrates the general point that the production of skilled labour will
typically require both simple and skilled labour as inputs. Measuring the current
simple labour input is in principle quite simple; the more difficult question is
how we treat the input of skilled labour. If skilled labour embodies a past labour
input it will count as some multiple of simple labour, but how is the multiplier
determined?

The very same question arises in relation to the evaluation of the skilled
(e.g. teaching) input into the production of our skilled engineering labour, as in
relation to the subsequent evaluation of the qualified engineer’s labour. In the
following discussion and the appendix to this chapter we deal with both aspects
at once, employing the simplifying assumption that all ‘skilled’ labour requires
the same quantity of labour input for its production.

Consider the analogy of inanimate means of production. The standard
method for quantifying the labour ‘passed on’ from such means of production
to the product is to ‘distribute’ the labour content of the means of production
over the total volume of output to which those means contribute. For example,
if a machine embodying 1,000 hours of labour gets used up in the course of

producing one million units of product X, then the machine may be said to
pass on 1,000/1,000,000 = 0.001 hours of labour to each unit of X. To take the
calculation one step further, suppose that our machine is operated at a production rate of 100 units of X per hour. It follows that the machine ‘transmits’ 100 × 0.001 = 0.1 hours of embodied labour per hour of operation.

Now return to our skilled engineer and apply the same principle. Suppose
that, once qualified, she works a 35 hour week for 45 weeks per year, i.e. 1575
hours per year. And let the ‘depreciation horizon’ for her engineering skills be
10 years. (That is, at the end of this time she will need, or become eligible for,
another period of full-time education to update her knowledge and skills or to
change specialisms if she wishes.) She will work 1575 × 10 hours in those 10
years, and to determine her rate of transmission of embodied labour during that
working time we divide the total labour content of her education by 15,750.

The appendix to this chapter shows how it is possible to work out the total
embodied labour content of skilled labour, using simple labour as unit of account.

According to these calculations the ‘transmission rate’ might be of the
order of

0.50 for Depreciation over 10 years,
0.33 for Depreciation over 15 years,
0.24 for Depreciation over 20 years.

The figure of 0.33, for instance, tells us that our engineer, whose skills are
depreciated over a 15 year horizon, transmits 0.33 hours of embodied labour
per hour worked. Unlike the machine, which only transmits labour embodied
in the past, our engineer also works one hour per hour. The total direct plus
indirect labour contribution of our engineer would therefore be 1.33 hours per
hour, a multiple of the simple labour rate. In other words, if the planners are
contemplating the employment of a million hours of skilled engineering labour
in the context of a long-run plan, they should recognise that this is equivalent
to a commitment of 1.33 million hours of simple labour.

We do not mean to imply that just because a skilled worker is rated as
costing society a third more than a worker of average skill, then they should
be paid a third more. This extra third represents the additional cost to society
of using skilled labour. Society has already met the ‘extra third’ in paying for
the worker’s education, so there is no justification for paying the individual any
extra. Although it has no implications for the distribution of personal income,
the skilled labour multiplier is important in working out the true social cost of
projects. A task that requires skilled labour is more costly to society even if the skilled workers are paid the same as unskilled ones. [emphasis added]

It does not follow that skilled labor is more costly to society even it the skilled workers are paid the same, no more than the most advanced technical improvement in production, the most advanced process is more costly "in the long run" than the obsolete process. Advances in technology, in the means of production are frequently accompanied by reductions in the costs of producing those means.

First, it might be nice to point out that the human is not a machine, and that identifying human labor with machine labor is reproduction of the bourgeoisie's blind spot regarding political economy and the Ricardian labor theory of value-- it is a blind spot inherent in the organization of labor as labor-power, wage-labor, a commodity with a cost that is transmitted through its consumption into circulating capital. As a cost, the bourgeoisie work diligently to expel wage-labor, reduce proportionally this cost through the application of machinery, scientific discoveries etc.

The bourgeois, transfixed by value, sees only cost, and works to reduce his/her costs by substituting means of production, which however creates no new value, and gives up its own value only incrementally in production. Thus the valorization of the means of production becomes incapable of sustaining accumulation of the means of production.

This is not the case with human labor, social human labor, as opposed to the expression of wage-labor. There, the skills of the engineer, or complex, skilled" labor don't depreciate in the labor process. Those skills and abilities actually expand, improve, appreciate in the labor process. And this is where labor differs from the capture of the commodity of labor-power as value. The skills, techniques of the social laborer, once emancipated from the valorization process, the unit of accounting process, become the basis for further enhancement, education, development of labor.

The point here is that Cockshott admits no way of getting beyond what Marx clearly thought was a low-level communism, of labor vouchers, which in Marx's terms is not a unit of accounting, but simply verification of the individual participating in the general process of social development.

I suspect Cockshott would love to be able to convince a whole new generation of would be planner-bureaucrats that their future is really with socialism, not capitalism, while at the same time, convincing others how the "limits" of nature, the "danger" of expanding needs for energy, food, etc. "threatens" the world. There is an ideological purpose behind the "new socialism"-- and it's not different from the ideological purpose behind the "old socialism" of the fSU.

syndicat

4th July 2011, 05:18

me:

In order for it to work and preserve the real power of ordinary working people, the power of discussing and making plans and the like needs to be focused on the places where people are and can participate in, and understand, the discussions and decisions...workplaces, houses, neighborhoods, etc.

dave:
Not only that put the power to make all decisions and carry them out needs to be so focuses. We need to hammer on this again and again as a counter-voice to the bureaucratic bullshit that passes for socialism around here.

i agree. people cannot plan out their own activity, and make their plans effective, if they don't have the power to control their own activity.

but here is an important point: workers won't be able to maintain that power over their own labor activity and their own workplaces if they don't control the planning. the two go together.

if planning is concentrated in a special group they will want to ensure their plans are fulfilled, and will want to see managers onsite to ensure that workers are adhering to the plans. centralized planning is thus incompatible with worker self-management.

robbo203

4th July 2011, 09:11

Robbo remarked that: "your very reference to the idea of setting a budget is the dead give away that you do not grasp the point that the very idea of a " budget" or a "common fund" or an " income" would simply no longer apply in a socialist society. They would be meaningless concepts that only have meaning in the context of a society in which there is a single universal unit of account which in turn presupposes a system based on economic exchange of one sort or another. "
He is arguably right to reject the ides of 'common fund' or 'income', as these are perhaps to explicitly monetary, but he is surely wrong to reject the idea of a single unit of account. Social labour time is such a unit of account and a budget in terms of social labour time directly measures the fundamental resource available to society..

You seem to have overlooked that you yourself have admitted a role for calculation in kind. As when you said "The point I want to emphasises is that an ecconomy of associated producers needs both value ( ie labour time ) calculations and other more detailed in-kind calculations". Now, calculation in kind self evdiently involves multiple units of account - litres of cooking oil, tonnes of steel, bushels of wheat and so on. It is thus nonsensical to insist on the need for a single unit of account while advocating a system that, to the contrary, involves multiple units. The former by definition precludes the latter.

I am not rejecting the need to do accounting in labour time units - although in a rather more limited pragmatic fashion than what you have in mind - but this would be as part of an overall system of calculation in kind. A certain project, for instance, might call for a certain amount of labour and may have knock on consequences for labour demands further back along the production chain. In this case there is something to be said for roughly calculating the labour inputs that would be required to get the project off the ground (though I dont see much merit in imputing labour time values to everything produced under the sun for the sake of it) This is quite apart from the problem of determing whether the relevant criterion should be "socially necessary labour" or alternatively "past labour" which are both problematic for different reasons as you will know from your reading of Marx.

Needless to say, labour time accounting in the above sense does not necessarily imply a scheme of labour vouchers to which I completely opposed and which I believe will turn out to be a bureaucratic nightmare

It is stretching things to say a "budget in terms of social labour time directly measures the fundamental resource available to society" The term "budget" like the terms "common fund" and "income"" , belongs to a capitalist money system. It is not ,and cannot be, simply a direct measure of the amount of social labour available to society. Something else is implied in the term "budget" that goes betond this simple notion of a limit or constraint imposed by the amount of social labour available, something that mediates in a representational sense between the raw facts of labour supply and how to deploy this labour supply. In other words. money.

A budget set in terms of total labour hours per annum for health, education and transport would only provide the top level democratic control. Beyond that the health board, the education board -- again however democratically elected -- would have to work out a detailed plan for the delivery of health care and education within that budget. At this point all sorts of in-kind calculations would certainly come into play and before a plan could be finally accepted and acted on, the implications of the plan in terms of material balances in the whole economy would have to be checked, either with a central planning agency, or perhaps via a distributed software network.
.

This is a pointless exercise. Utterrly pointless and unworkable. There is not, and never can be, some single vast plan devised apriori fashion which is then handed over to the producers to implement. It does not matter whatever refinements you introduce - like the notion of "material balances". It cannot possibly work. And the reason why it cannot worlk has nothing really to do with whether or not modern computers have the number crunching capacity to make it work.

It cannot work, quite simply, because for this vast single plan to work, all the millions upon millions of inputs and outputs that comprise the raw data upon which the plan is constructed , need to be held constant, need to remain linked together in the ratios exactly intended by the plannners themselves. Any all alteration to any part of the plan has ripple consequences for every other part of the plan which will undermine the coherency of the plan itself. But change happens all the time. It is unavoidable. Thus central planning in this classic sense of apriori society-wide planning must iinevitably founder. The plan devised by the planners will never ever get a chance to be implemented - even assuming it could be put togther in the first place

I really wish you would drop this whole daft idea of central planning and its associated terminology. If literal society-wide planning is not actually what you advocate - and I have reason to think this is the case despite what you say above - then you need to openly acknowlege the need for some kind of feedback mechanism to be incorporated within a non market alternative to capitalism. You should stop using the misleading language of central planning in other words. You need to state clearly that a post capitalist society must inevitably entail a degree of spontaneity and self regulation. People who pooh pooh this idea simply have not grasped what the issue is about at all.

And, no, it is simply not true to claim as you have done that without a system of society wide plan we would be induced to return to capitalism. That is a pretty weak and ill thought out claim, in my view.

RED DAVE

4th July 2011, 13:44

And, no, it is simply not true to claim as you have done that without a system of society wide plan we would be induced to return to capitalism. That is a pretty weak and ill thought out claim, in my view.However, since the USSR is for Paul a kind of socialism, this makes sense because it had a very inadequate bureaucratic plan, and it did become corporate capitalist.

RED DAVE

Rowan Duffy

4th July 2011, 13:52

maybe you mean that it's true in virtue of what social opportunity costs are. and that's true. in which case it is true.

Statements with universal generalisations can be tautologies. Tautologies are not restricted to propositional logic.

In any case, what I was getting at when I said it is that the statement is essentially a definition which includes the statement and hence is along the lines of (A /\ B) -> A, which is true under any valuation of A and B. It is true, but it doesn't tell us anything new.

Obviously it all depends on how you read the sentence, but you know what I meant based on the second sentence. It also has essentially no bearing on the question.

within capitalism, prices are determined by the various forms of power, things that affect the bargaining power of agents, within the market. this can be quite various: degree of monopoly or monopsony for example, class power such as ownership of means of production, possession of scarce skills, how much money you have available, etc. withhin capitalism wants don't determine prices by themselves because it depends on how much power you have to back up your wants.

Bichler and Nitzan style power-theory of value is more sensible than the STV which leaves the entire question of scarcity as an exogenous environmental factor rather than something which is largely endogenous. However, it also doesn't predict prices like the LTV does. It seems to me that it's not even contradictory to the LTV but acts as a sort of super-theory which says that you can also acquire economic rent through various methods of creating scarcity etc.

Die Neue Zeit

4th July 2011, 13:55

^^^ Interesting you mention Bichler, Nitzan, and their Duhring-based theory.

S.Artesian

4th July 2011, 15:49

You know what's amazing here? That our so-called "Marx is a Ricardian Socialist" group-- by which I mean Cockshott and co. seem to have forgotten the entire point of Marx's rigorous, even tedious exploration of value in the opening of Capital--which is to show that commodities, articles of production are not inherently possessed of any ability of exchange, but rather that they are endowed with that ability by the specific organization of labor as a commodity, and in that process, the commodity becomes fetishized-- what was a power of humans is now expressed as a power over humans. Human exchange is manifested only through the exchange of commodities, of property, the loss of labor time to the laborers.

And the point of this immanent critique of capital by Marx? To point us to the conditions for the breakdown, overthrow, abolition of such endowment of commodities by the human ability to socially emancipate and organize labor without the "depreciation" of time.

Value, and its expression in exchange value are not ahistorical components of all social production; will not be transfigured by "pure" labor time calculations with the achievement of the "low level" communism of vouchers, which are not, according to Marx, units measuring accumulation, but recognition of the social process of production.

We do not, following Marx, limit the number of schools by the "costs" of the bricks, or the "costs" of the teachers, but Cockshott's methodology most certain will lead to that, just as rationing leads to a black market, and the regeneration of capitalist accumulation.

What Cockshott advocates, politically, ideologically, underneath the veneer of rational planning and cost accounting, is not socialism, just as his fSU which did not utilize vouchers in its "rational planning" and "cost accounting" was not socialism.

EDIT: In this regard, I think robbo's "in kind" "volumetric" analysis, where actual human needs are quantified concretely by use and need without the mediation of value is essential to communism, at whatever level. Abstract labor, the basis for exchange, creates the material basis, in its "dead" accumulated form, for the recognition of the practicality, the social-ism, of concrete labor, where in fact social labor time is enhanced, increased even, but only through the elimination of the relations, the fetishism that create abstract labor to begin with.

syndicat

4th July 2011, 19:46

We do not, following Marx, limit the number of schools by the "costs" of the bricks, or the "costs" of the teachers,

but we do tho. looking at it purely from the point of view of what the community wants, and looking thus only at public goods/services, there is only so much that we can provide. we have to make hard decisions about where to allocate our work time and other resources, when working out a social burget for education, health care, housing, media and the range of public goods/services. the more resources we put into one of these, the less is available for the others. construction workers and materials used building houses can't at the same time be building health clinics.

Jose Gracchus

4th July 2011, 19:53

syndicat

4th July 2011, 20:01

There is a clear distinction between the "cost" of commodities for reciprocally independent individual units of production seeking to maximize revenues over costs, and the social opportunity "costs" to the associated laborers of undertaking this-or-that unalienated social choice.

okay. prices and valuations formed through market processes, of competing autonomous units each seeking to capture surpluses, is not the same thing as prices and valuations that do actually reflect the real desires of the masses in an equalized society, lacking a system of class subordination & exploitation.

costs have to measure what people want and want to avoid. because virtually anything can be a trade off against something else, it's necessary to have a common scale of valuation which captures the actual preferences that people do have, not a reflection of differences of power of agents in a market, as prices do at present.

S.Artesian

4th July 2011, 20:19

but we do tho. looking at it purely from the point of view of what the community wants, and looking thus only at public goods/services, there is only so much that we can provide. we have to make hard decisions about where to allocate our work time and other resources, when working out a social burget for education, health care, housing, media and the range of public goods/services. the more resources we put into one of these, the less is available for the others. construction workers and materials used building houses can't at the same time be building health clinics.

No... but we don't, and we don't have to. The productivity of labor being so amplified by the development of the means of production, that indeed we do not have to choose between healthcare and education. Abolishing valorization means the release of labor from accumulation for accumulation and to production for need.

We assess needs. We schedule the satisfaction of that need.

Jose Gracchus

4th July 2011, 20:39

syndicat

4th July 2011, 21:40

No... but we don't, and we don't have to. The productivity of labor being so amplified by the development of the means of production, that indeed we do not have to choose between healthcare and education.

this is magical thinking. i agree with The Inform Candidate here.

S.Artesian

4th July 2011, 21:59

Uh, I think its totally delusional to imagine there will be no need for organized qualifying of trade-offs and alternatives even in a communist society. What meaning will social decision-making have if there are no meaningful decisions to be made about trade-offs. I think adequate levels of health care and education will be able to be afforded, certainly. But there will be questions about how much labor to allocate to the communist space program, amelioration of climate change, and other things that will require substantial allocation of resources, even by conscious plan. The plan will have to have qualify how many commodities we all need (and how rapidly it could be expanded) versus how much we can combat the Maldives sinking beneath the waves.

To ignore this is to simply ignore physical reality.

The question is-- is the scheduling, undertaking of any project "mediated" by costs or by need.

Do we trade off between health care and a space program based on the more extensive cost of health care for the whole population vs a space program?

Or do we base our trade-offs on the current, and future, needs.

The issue isn't if we make such decisions, but rather how we make those decisions and which/what is the "mediator" for our decision making-- the value formulations or need.

I'm suggesting that Marx's first chapter of Capital and his extensive writings in his Economic Manuscripts [1857-1864] involve abolishing the value form as the mediator-- not the refinement of the value form as I think is inherent in this neo-Ricardian pseudo-socialism.

Jose Gracchus

4th July 2011, 22:48

Oh I see, you mean the real question is what we "need more,"not what "costs more", and Cockshott et al have the shoe on the other foot.

S.Artesian

4th July 2011, 22:57

Oh I see, you mean the real question is what we "need more,"not what "costs more", and Cockshott et al have the shoe on the other foot.

Bullseye, Catnip! The "exchange" takes place between the humans as humans for humans. Emancipation of social labor or something like that.

Paul Cockshott

4th July 2011, 23:28

Value, and its expression in exchange value are not ahistorical components of all social production; will not be transfigured by "pure" labor time calculations with the achievement of the "low level" communism of vouchers, which are not, according to Marx, units measuring accumulation, but recognition of the social process of production.
You are right that the combination ( value and its expression in exchange value) is historical and bound to commodity production but value directly expressed as labour time calculations is another historical form that will replace value expressed as exchange value.

We do not, following Marx, limit the number of schools by the "costs" of the bricks, or the "costs" of the teachers, but Cockshott's methodology most certain will lead to that, just as rationing leads to a black market, and the regeneration of capitalist accumulation.

EDIT: In this regard, I think robbo's "in kind" "volumetric" analysis, where actual human needs are quantified concretely by use and need without the mediation of value is essential to communism, at whatever level. Abstract labor, the basis for exchange, creates the material basis, in its "dead" accumulated form, for the recognition of the practicality, the social-ism, of concrete labor, where in fact social labor time is enhanced, increased even, but only through the elimination of the relations, the fetishism that create abstract labor to begin with. I think there is a lot of mystification of abstract labour in the above.
Abstract labour exists wherever there is a multiplicity of possible concrete productive activities. It is there in any society with a division of labour, it is just labour considered as human labour in general which, due to our nature as a species, is pluri-potent.
This is pretty clear and simple, and is stated quite plainly by Marx:

I.I.28 (http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.28)Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz., the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour-power. Of course, this labour-power, which remains the same under all its modifications, must have attained a certain pitch of development before it can be expended in a multiplicity of modes. But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general.

On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-values. *24 (http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#n24)Commodity Fetishism does not create abstract labour quite the reverse it hides the reality of abstract labour behind the mask of gold. To do accounting directly in time disperses commodity fetishism. The real human activity which in capitalist society is represented in gold, will in a communist economy appear in its native form as the expenditure of human energy.

There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.All the above quotes from Capital 1

You can dispense with the fetishism of commodities but you can not dispense with the need for society to regulate the division of social labour between different productive activities we can only change the social form in which this takes place:

Every child knows that any nation that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour. It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labour asserts itself in a state of society in which the interconnection of social labour expresses itself as the private exchange of the individual products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products.

( Marx to Kugelmann July 1868)

Note that Marx is describing the necessity of the distribution and regulation of abstract labour as a Natural Law which can not be abolished

syndicat

5th July 2011, 01:52

The question is-- is the scheduling, undertaking of any project "mediated" by costs or by need.

this may be a distinction without a difference, depending on what you mean by "need". it's chimerical to think of "needs" as somehow objective, independent of human wants. people may all need food but it isn't food that people eat but this pizza or that fish or these beans. needs get expressed through wants that motivate behavior.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 03:38

You are right that the combination ( value and its expression in exchange value) is historical and bound to commodity production but value directly expressed as labour time calculations is another historical form that will replace value expressed as exchange value.

1. I could play the game and ask you where, in Marx, do find anything remotely indicating that? That value as labor time will replace value expressed as exchange value? Because if you do, you are claiming that value, based on the organization of labor as a commodity, where its time of reproduction is awarded a wage, is "supra-historical."

What you are arguing for is essentially, not the emancipation of labor as a social process, but rather the emancipation of value from the "inequities" of capital.

I think it's quite clear in Marx's critique that no such "emancipation" of value, or carryover of value to a "higher form" is intended, nor part of the struggle for the overthrow of capital.

I think there is a lot of mystification of abstract labour in the above.
Abstract labour exists wherever there is a multiplicity of possible concrete productive activities. It is there in any society with a division of labour, it is just labour considered as human labour in general which, due to our nature as a species, is pluri-potent.

The quote you produce from Marx:

Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz., the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour-power. Of course, this labour-power, which remains the same under all its modifications, must have attained a certain pitch of development before it can be expended in a multiplicity of modes. But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general.

starts of by describing, not abstract labor, but the labor process, which involves the expenditure of human labor-power. Tailoring and weaving are qualitatively distinct, but the common labor involved in producing them is human labor-- that's almost a tautology. However, that labor-power that is common to the human labor-process only becomes abstract labor under specific social relations, when it can be reduced to a measure, and that measure is time. Remember "Time is everything; man is nothing-- or at most time's carcass."? The value of the commodity, expressing the abstraction of labor, its reduction to time is part and parcel of the eradication of the individual, atomized, subsistence producer, and its replacement by social production. However, the abstraction itself is not directly social, cannot validate itself directly as social labor in that the means of production must be organized as private property for labor to be organized abstractly as wage-labor.

The abolition of capital, the overcoming of the limitations of private property is supposed to be, at one and the same time, the emancipation of labor from its abstract reification and expression as labor-time. Concrete labor, because a) the reductionist impacts of the capitalist labor process are no longer necessary to sustain valorization b) the technical component of production assumes so much greater a role in production, can now step forward as directly social labor, where the relations between the producers are not the exchange of individual products, but the creation and satisfaction of expanding needs. Labor is not, any longer, a means of exchange; or the means for measuring value by itself being measured as time.

This is pretty clear and simple, and is stated quite plainly by Marx:
Commodity Fetishism does not create abstract labour quite the reverse it hides the reality of abstract labour behind the mask of gold. To do accounting directly in time disperses commodity fetishism. The real human activity which in capitalist society is represented in gold, will in a communist economy appear in its native form as the expenditure of human energy.

No, I don't believe I ever said commodity fetishism created abstract labor. I stated, or hope I made it clear, that the reverse is true. The abstraction of labor as a commodity, as the "raw substance" of value, creates commodity fetishism.

You can dispense with the fetishism of commodities but you can not dispense with the need for society to regulate the division of social labour between different productive activities we can only change the social form in which this takes place:

You can dispense with the fetishism of commodities. You can as Marx makes very clear in his Economic Manuscripts overcome the division of labor. That's one of the other things you miss in Marx's analysis of the labor process as opposed to the valorization process. The division of labor is a social, construct. You are eager to conflate Marx's recognition that all societies need to reproduce themselves with "necessity" of the division of labor, of value calculation persisting, indeed, dominating socialist production. You confuse in short Marx's "natural law"-- which of course is not so natural-- that societies must reproduce themselves and to do that requires organization of the labor process, with the temporary, limited, class determined expression of that law as a "division of labor."

Interestingly enough, in that same letter to Kugelmann, Marx continues with these remarks:

The vulgar economist has not the faintest idea that the actual everyday exchange relations can not be directly identical with the magnitudes ov value. The essence of bourgeois society consists precisely in this, that a priori there is no conscious social regulation of production. The rational and naturally necessary asserts itself only as a blindly working average. And then the vulgar economist thinks he has made a great discovery when, as against the revelation of the inner interconnection, he proudly claims that in appearance things look different. In fact, he boats that he holds fast to appearance and takes it for the ultimate. Why then have any science at all?

The blindly working average of course, is the law of value, which is of course the reduction of labor to its social-abstract, which in turn is based on the class relations of production, the conflict between labor and the conditions of labor.

Marx continues:

But the matter has also another background. Once the interconnection is grasped, all theoretical belief in the permanent necessity of existing conditions collapses before their collapse in practice

I think the belief in the permanent necessity of expressing labor-time as value is just that theoretical belief that, however, must be abolished in practice before it will be abolished in theory.

syndicat

5th July 2011, 16:08

I think the belief in the permanent necessity of expressing labor-time as value is just that theoretical belief that, however, must be abolished in practice before it will be abolished in theory.

yeah, well, for Marx value is a market-crafted price.

but prices as social accounting units don't have to presuppose markets.

Jose Gracchus

5th July 2011, 16:31

yeah, well, for Marx value is a market-crafted price.

but prices as social accounting units don't have to presuppose markets.

Where does he say that? I think its clear he considers "values" as distinct from market prices of any given commodity at any given time. Otherwise the purported "transformation problem" would be moot, conceptually. Furthermore, I think he had a separate theory of prices, named that they would tend to move toward costs of production.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 16:34

yeah, well, for Marx value is a market-crafted price.

Where do you find that? Nowhere in Vol 3 do I recall him saying that. He states if supply and demand balance, then the commodity's market price is equivalent to its market value, i.e. the commodity sells at its price of production which is the cost price of the commodity plus the average rate of profit, but is NOT necessarily the value of the commodity.

Marx states that a capitalist using advanced technologies sells below the market price but above the individual prices of production, and indeed in the main, in sum, and in average market prices equal prices of production.

The distribution of the total socially available value is "crafted" through market prices, and the deviations between individual prices of production and the market prices, which are the social prices of production, but I don't recall anywhere Marx saying that value is a market-crafted price.

syndicat

5th July 2011, 17:32

Where do you find that? Nowhere in Vol 3 do I recall him saying that. He states if supply and demand balance, then the commodity's market price is equivalent to its market value, i.e. the commodity sells at its price of production which is the cost price of the commodity plus the average rate of profit, but is NOT necessarily the value of the commodity.

then what is "the value of the commodity"?

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 17:45

then what is "the value of the commodity"?

Not nice to answer a question with a question. But anyway-- how about:

c + v + s?

So where did Marx say value is a market-crafted price?

syndicat

5th July 2011, 19:22

c + v + s?

this won't work. what is the Labor Theory of Value a theory of? What is it supposed to explain? Isn't it supposed to explain market prices within capitalism? if so, it logically follows that market prices are the value that the theory is a theory of.

if you define value as labor time...as your formula above suggests...then the "theory" becomes an "empty tautology", true by definition.

robbo203

5th July 2011, 19:43

The distribution of the total socially available value is "crafted" through market prices, and the deviations between individual prices of production and the market prices, which are the social prices of production, but I don't recall anywhere Marx saying that value is a market-crafted price.

This is essentially correct although I think the relation between value and market prices is actually quite difficult to pin down in Marx's theory.

He defines value as the amount of socially neccessary time embodied in a commodity from start to finish (as a side issue I am not quite sure whether he means by this under average industry wide conditions or whether he is referring to best practice techniques) . At any rate, socially necessary labour is not to be confused with the actual past labour that workers contribute in producing a commodity. Once the workers have contributed that labour - that's it! - you have a fixed amount of labour time that you can refer to. With socially necessary labour time the situation is somewhat different. This is born out by the following comment by Marx:

"Social labour-time exists in these commodities in a latent state, so to speak, and becomes evident only in the course of their exchange.... Universal social labour is consequently not a ready-made prerequisite but an emerging result'
(Marx, K, 1981, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Lawrence and Wishart, London)

Unless I am mistaken here , this seems to me to suggest that value (SNLT) is something that is not simply determined in production but, as someone else put it , at the point of articulation between production and distribution. It is when the commodity is sold, so to speak ,that its value is settled and, until then, this value exists only as a fluctuating potentiality which will of course change in magnitude in line with changing technological conditions (which conditions will continue to change after the product in question has been produced by means of actual or past labour and before it is actually sold)

The point is that it is only through market prices that the law of value is able to assert itself. This presents another problem for the proponents of labour time accounting - one of many that I can foresee - like Cockshott and co. If the criterion of socially necessary or abstract labour is denied to them by the Marxian theory of value istelf (which asserts that its only through the market that the law of value of expresses itself) - that is, if they are seriously intent upon transcending the capitalist market system - then the only other criterion or form of labour available to them is actual concrete labour with which to "price" goods in a system of labour accounting. This however is rather problematic since how do you measure one person's labour against another? Any attempt to do so will yield such arbitrary results that one must wonder whether the effort is really worthwhile

The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that only realistic option is abandon altogether this idea of a single universal unit of accounting - be it money or labour time - and to fully embrace the option of calculation in kind. Otto Neurath, perhaps the prominent advocate of "in kind" calculation. was on the right tracks but his entire analysis was blighted by his attachment to central or society wide planning .

In fact, no kind of society whatsoever can possibly function without calculation in kind - a point that critics of Neurath ( like the reformist, Kautsky) more often than not, completely missed. Though calculation in kind operates today along side monetary accounting to the extent that we simply take it for granted, its implications for the hoped-for future reorganisation of society along non-market lines are nothing short of profound. This, I would argue, is what we should be seriously exploring and the claim that you need a single unit of account with which to compare different combinations of inputs to arrive at some supposed "least cost" combination is actually fundamentally misconceived.

There is another approach to ensuring the efficient allocation of resources which is superior in this regard and does not require a single unit of accounting. Had Neurath just abandoned his obsessive commitment to "society wide" planning which prevented him from seeing what this other approach was, he would have had in his grasp the decisive argument for refuting the claims of the market fiundamentalists like Ludwig con Mises. The history of the debate might then have turned out to be something very different indeed.

syndicat

5th July 2011, 19:48

He defines value as the amount of socially neccessary time embodied in a commodity from start to finish (as a side issue I am not quite sure whether he means by this under average industry wide conditions ir whether he is referring to best practice techniques) .

if this is true by definition, then it's not a "theory" at all. no empirical theory can be true by definition.

robbo203

5th July 2011, 20:06

if this is true by definition, then it's not a "theory" at all. no empirical theory can be true by definition.

Well no - a defintion of value is not the same thing as a theory of value. No theory of anything is possible without some definition of its basic concepts. Its what the labour theory of value is intended to explain that makes it a "theory", not how you define value itself

Whether its an empirical theory or a purely abtract deductive theory is another matter. In recent years there has been some research by the likes of Anwar Shaikh which seem to suggest a very significant correlation between prices and labour values. If correct, this would seem at first blush to vindicate the LTV.

I am not too certain about this becuase I am not sure how Shaikh and co define labour time in this context. As stated in my previous post, the LTV is based on socially necessary labour, not past labour. That makes quite a difference

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 20:09

this won't work. what is the Labor Theory of Value a theory of? What is it supposed to explain? Isn't it supposed to explain market prices within capitalism? if so, it logically follows that market prices are the value that the theory is a theory of.

if you define value as labor time...as your formula above suggests...then the "theory" becomes an "empty tautology", true by definition.

We can debate that in another thread. In the meantime, you said that for Marx value was a market-crafted price. I asked you where he said that. So, what leads you to believe that for Marx, value was a market-crafted price?

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 20:22

This is essentially correct although I think the relation between value and market prices is actually quite difficult to pin down in Marx's theory.

He defines value as the amount of socially neccessary time embodied in a commodity from start to finish (as a side issue I am not quite sure whether he means by this under average industry wide conditions or whether he is referring to best practice techniques) .

I think he makes it clear that socially necessary is the average; and that deviations from the average allow for distribution of the total, until competition makes yesterday's best today's average.

At any rate, socially necessary labour is not to be confused with the actual past labour that workers contribute in producing a commodity. Once the workers have contributed that labour - that's it! - you have a fixed amount of labour time that you can refer to. With socially necessary labour time the situation is somewhat different. This is born out by the following comment by

"Social labour-time exists in these commodities in a latent state, so to speak, and becomes evident only in the course of their exchange.... Universal social labour is consequently not a ready-made prerequisite but an emerging result'
(Marx, K, 1981, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Lawrence and Wishart, London)

Agreed.

Unless I am mistaken here , this seems to me to suggest that value (SNLT) is something that is not simply determined in production but, as someone else put it , at the point of articulation between production and distribution. It is when the commodity is sold, so to speak ,that its value is settled and, until then, this value exists only as a fluctuating potentiality which will of course change in magnitude in line with changing technological conditions (which conditions will continue to change after the product in question has been produced by means of actual or past labour and before it is actually sold)

Agreed. SNLT cannot be determined by production since capitalist production is not directly social, but circumscribed by private property, production for accumulation.

The point is that it is only through market prices that the law of value is able to assert itself. Double agreed.

This presents another problem for the proponents of labour time accounting - one of many that I can foresee - like Cockshott and co. If the criterion of socially necessary or abstract labour is denied to them by the Marxian theory of value istelf (which asserts that its only through the market that the law of value of expresses itself) - that is, if they are seriously intent upon transcending the capitalist market system - then the only other criterion or form of labour available to them is actual concrete labour with which to "price" goods in a system of labour accounting. This however is rather problematic since how do you measure one person's labour against another? Any attempt to do so will yield such arbitrary results that one must wonder whether the effort is really worthwhile

Exactly. Couldn't have said it any better myself. So much for labor vouchers, which Marx recognizes are limited by the conditions of their emergence-- a manifest equality that surrounds an essential inequality. The solution is not, of course, the further perfection of value measurement, but the abolition of value as the measure of man, as the organizer of social labor time.

The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that only realistic option is abandon altogether this idea of a single universal unit of accounting - be it money or labour time - and to fully embrace the option of calculation in kind.

The more I think about it, the more I think you're right.

Though calculation in kind operates today along side monetary accounting to the extent that we simply take it for granted, its implications for the hoped-for future reorganisation of society along non-market lines are nothing short of profound. This, I would argue, is what we should be seriously exploring and the claim that you need a single unit of account with which to compare different combinations of inputs to arrive at some supposed "least cost" combination is actually fundamentally misconceived.

Agreed. Actually, I thought I was trying to say that.

There is another approach to ensuring the efficient allocation of resources which is superior in this regard and does not require a single unit of accounting. Had Neurath just abandoned his obsessive commitment to "society wide" planning which prevented him from seeing what this other approach was, he would have had in his grasp the decisive argument for refuting the claims of the market fiundamentalists like Ludwig con Mises. The history of the debate might then have turned out to be something very different indeed.

Very interesting.

In the meantime, let me repeat my original questions: What is inherent in the socialist social relations of production, the socialist organization of labor, the socialist social appropriation of surplus that is "contradictory," that creates classes, creates the conflict between means and relations of production that can lead to its overthrow?

syndicat

5th July 2011, 20:35

So, what leads you to believe that for Marx, value was a market-crafted price?

as was just said:

If the criterion of socially necessary or abstract labour is denied to them by the Marxian theory of value istelf (which asserts that its only through the market that the law of value of expresses itself)

if value enters the picture only in market evaluations, the c+v+s can't define what value is. at best, the variation in c+v+s between commodities might correlate with differences in price once the commodities are brought to market...and this is what I think was Marx's view. but that's why I say it is a theory of market-crafted prices.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 20:53

syndicat

5th July 2011, 21:09

But Marx specifically rejects the view you suggest he holds, that value is a market-crafted price. Value is manifested in market prices, it is manifested in the deviations of market price from market value. It is manifested in the the deviations between individual prices of production and social prices of production.

But the manifestations are just that-- variations on a theme; orbits around an axis; moons around planets. However, no more than the orbits are gravity itself, are the market prices the value itself.

within classical economics there was a concept of the "natural price." the natural price was the real value around which actual market prices tend to flutuate or tend towards. so what you say is consistent with saying that for Marx value was the natural price. but the "real value" is not independent of a market context.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 21:29

syndicat

5th July 2011, 21:31

The notion that value is the market price assumes, presumes, that all exchanges in the market are conducted between equals, and that the process of exchange of commodities is a "naturally" occurring phenomenon, transhistorical, and eternal, devoid of its social content in the organization of labor as socially abstract labor by capitalism, that is to say wage-labor.

how does this follow. it's not obvious at all. in fact, i would NOT infer equality betwen market actors. there wouldn't be wages at all or surplus extraction if there weren't the huge structural power difference between capitalists and workers due to the former's relative monopolization over means of production.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 21:42

how does this follow. it's not obvious at all. in fact, i would NOT infer equality betwen market actors. there wouldn't be wages at all or surplus extraction if there weren't the huge structural power difference between capitalists and workers due to the former's relative monopolization over means of production.

Now you shift your ground again. What you say above is EXACTLY not how the "classical economists" of bourgeois political economy saw it. The saw it, all the market actors as being equal.

And this is where, as a matter of fact, Marx finds part of his critique of "market equality" -- in that if all commodities exchange at their values, and the value of the commodity is the time necessary for its reproduction, where an how can profit be generated?

syndicat

5th July 2011, 22:20

in fact there are all kinds of inequality in bargaining power between market actors. marx only focuses on the structural difference in bargaining power between capital owners and those who do not own capital but seek employment from capital owners. but different kinds of labor will obtain different prices due to variations in their bargaining power.

in other words, i'm no defender of the LTV.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 22:21

syndicat

5th July 2011, 22:23

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 22:30

from the fact that the classical economists believed both

1. all market actors are equal
2. there is a natural price around which actual market prices tend to vary

it does not follow that if Marx rejects 1 he is rejecting 2.

That's not the issue. The issue is your claim that he regards value as a market-crafted price.

I think Marx is quite clear and consistent that value and price are distinct, with the latter derived from the former, and the former not creating the latter.

Marx quite explicitly, in discussion prices of production, and creation of average rates of profit, refers to how commodities may not realize their value in the markets. The value still exists in the commodity, but it cannot be realized and thus valorisation, the self-expansion of value, remains incomplete.

He also refers to the transfer of value among producers within a sector through prices of production; and value transfer between sectors [although in truth, I don't think he really nails that one down].

Still, through all the iterations and morphs, Marx does not say the law of value is superseded in capitalism by prices, which is I think, inherent in your argument.

syndicat

5th July 2011, 22:33

Marx quite explicitly, in discussion prices of production, and creation of average rates of profit, refers to how commodities may not realize their value in the markets. The value still exists in the commodity, but it cannot be realized and thus valorisation, the self-expansion of value, remains incomplete.

okay, then what is this value that gets "realized" in markets, that is the basis of price? Don't tell me c+v+s. that makes the "theory" a useless tautology, true by definition. Definitions can't explain anything.

S.Artesian

5th July 2011, 22:40

okay, then what is this value that gets "realized" in markets, that is the basis of price? Don't tell me c+v+s. that makes the "theory" a useless tautology, true by definition. Definitions can't explain anything.

Some, or all, or none; that's what gets realized in the markets.

What are really are trying to say is the equivalent of saying that "competition creates capitalism" or "capitalism is a competition-crafted economy." The latter phrase being partially true, in that competition is the mechanism, the vector by which capital's aggrandizement of labor is expressed. The former phrase being completely untrue.

Because the commodity is not directly a social product; but a private product.

I think that's the basis for much of Marx's analysis in Volume 3.

ZeroNowhere

5th July 2011, 22:50

syndicat

5th July 2011, 23:29

"capitalism is a competition-crafted economy."

certainly not what i'm saying. competition is an essential feature of capitalism but it is only one feature. there must also be a relative monopoly over ownership of means of production and a dispossessed worker population to exploit. it also means the owners have the power and right to establish managerial regimes, which since the late 19th century have acquired a certain bureaucratic logic of their own, not reducible to capital ownership. there are a lot of consequences of being a labor-managing/exploiting regime.

syndicat

5th July 2011, 23:31

Marx said quite clearly that, "average prices do not directly coincide with the values of commodities, as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others believe." He did view there as being an 'average price', but that's the basis of the theory of prices of production, not the theory of value.

they don't coincide with labor time ratios. this has to do with the whole problem of capital intensity or oganic composition of capital and leads to the transformation problem...the problem of how "values" are transformed into prices.

Rowan Duffy

7th July 2011, 13:17

Now you shift your ground again. What you say above is EXACTLY not how the "classical economists" of bourgeois political economy saw it. The saw it, all the market actors as being equal.

No, the classical economists very much did not see it that way.

It's fanciful in the extreme to say that Marx was the first to recognise the asymmetry in capitalism in the relative positions of players in the market.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

EDIT: These ideas of the total equality of the free market have much more to do with the modern Austrian madness than classical political economy.

And this is where, as a matter of fact, Marx finds part of his critique of "market equality" -- in that if all commodities exchange at their values, and the value of the commodity is the time necessary for its reproduction, where an how can profit be generated?

This is also not an innovation of Marx. The Ricardian socialists had already discussed this very fact.

S.Artesian

7th July 2011, 13:48

This is also not an innovation of Marx. The Ricardian socialists had already discussed this very fact. And not resolved it. I didn't say the criticism was an innovation by Marx. I said it was where Marx found part of his criticism of Ricardo.

Rowan, however, makes a good point. The "classical" economist-- most clearly Smith-- perceives the contradictions in the presentation of bourgeois political economy, yet proves incapable of doing anything other than compounding the contradictions and confusion. In Ricardo's case, in order to preserve his labor theory of value, he simply dismisses certain contradictions-- see for example Marx's discussion of Ricardo's dismissal of absolute rent.

Paul Cockshott

7th July 2011, 23:46

. I could play the game and ask you where, in Marx, do find anything remotely indicating that? That value as labor time will replace value expressed as exchange value? Because if you do, you are claiming that value, based on the organization of labor as a commodity, where its time of reproduction is awarded a wage, is "supra-historical."
You are confusing all sorts of different things here.

Value is labour time, so value as labour time can not 'replace value expressed as exchange value'
What can happen is a shift from value ( that is labour time ) being expressed indirectly as monetary price, as happens in private production, to products being directly marked with their labour values and distributed to individuals on the basis of their participation in social labour.
You ask where in Marx do I get that idea from:
1. From the Critique of the Gotha Programme
2. From the passage I cited earlier:

The question—Why does not money directly represent labour-time, so that a piece of paper may represent, for instance, x hour's is at bottom the same as the question why, given the production of commodities, must products take the form of commodities? This is evident, since their taking the form of commodities implies their differentiation into commodities and money. Or, why cannot private labour—labour for the account of private individuals—be treated as its opposite, immediate social labour? I have elsewhere examined thoroughly the Utopian idea of "labour-money"in a society founded on the production of commodities (l. c, p. 61, seq.). On this point I will only say further, that Owen's "labour-money," for instance, is no more "money" than a ticket for the theatre. Owen presupposes directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities. The certificate of labour is merely evidence of the part taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his right to a certain portion of the common produce destined for consumption. But it never enters into Owen's head to presuppose the production of commodities, and at the same time, by juggling with money, to try to evade the necessary conditions of that production.

You say
Because if you do, you are claiming that value, based on the organization of labor as a commodity, where its time of reproduction is awarded a wage, is "supra-historical."

Neither value not exchange value are based on the 'organisation of labour as a commodity'.
1. Firstly because according to Marx labour is not a commodity, it is the ability to perform labour that is the commodity,
2. secondly because value ( socially necessary labour time ) exists wherever there is a division of labour, the idea that you could get rid of this and the laws governing the distribution of social labour time is according to Marx analogous to thinking you could abolish a law of nature.
3. thirdly because although exchange value ( which is what you confuse with value ) is a historically specific form of representation of value exchange value pre-exists wages and does not depend on the existence of wages. Exchange value would exist in an economy of cooperatives for example.

What you are arguing for is essentially, not the emancipation of labor as a social process, but rather the emancipation of value from the "inequities" of capital.

I think it's quite clear in Marx's critique that no such "emancipation" of value, or carryover of value to a "higher form" is intended, nor part of the struggle for the overthrow of capital.
I dont talk about the 'emancipation' of value. Emancipation is something that can only occur to people not to economic concepts.

The quote you produce from Marx starts of by describing, not abstract labor, but the labor process, which involves the expenditure of human labor-power. Tailoring and weaving are qualitatively distinct, but the common labor involved in producing them is human labor-- that's almost a tautology. However, that labor-power that is common to the human labor-process only becomes abstract labor under specific social relations, when it can be reduced to a measure, and that measure is time.
You think it does not describe abstract labour because your understanding of abstract labour comes not from Marx himself but from the writers of the value form school. Thus when Marx writes human labour in the abstract, and does not tie it to wage labour you say he is not really talking about abstract labour because you are working with quite a different concept of abstract labour from him.

On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-values.

Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.
.....
A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it.

The abstract character of labour arises not from specific historical forms of social relations but from the fact that it is a portion of the total labour of society which could in principle have been exerted in some different activity:

If the special productive labour of the workman were not spinning, he could not convert the cotton into yarn, and therefore could not transfer the values of the cotton and spindle to the yarn. Suppose the same workman were to change his occupation to that of a joiner, he would still by a day's labour add value to the material he works upon. Consequently, we see, first, that the addition of new value takes place not by virtue of his labour being spinning in particular, or joinering in particular, but because it is labour in the abstract, a portion of the total labour of society; and we see next, that the value added is of a given definite amount, not because his labour has a special utility, but because it is exerted for a definite time.

A society of associated producers will still have to allocate its labour between different activities and the products of labour will still be valuable because of the social effort that had to go into them. This valuableness can then however be expressed directly by saying that this building required 20 person years to make, or that cup of coffee required 2 person minutes of labour. At this point we have the form of society described by Marx in Capital as:

Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson's labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organization of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time. Labour-time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.

Paul Cockshott

7th July 2011, 23:51

Marx said quite clearly that, "average prices do not directly coincide with the values of commodities, as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others believe." He did view there as being an 'average price', but that's the basis of the theory of prices of production, not the theory of value.

That is true, but we now know that in practice

prices of production are very similar to labour values
prices of production are not significantly closer to market prices than labour values are
see http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/Zachariah_LabourValue.pdf

S.Artesian

8th July 2011, 00:22

Value is labour time, so value as labour time can not 'replace value expressed as exchange value'Again, you are making a social expression-- value, into a transhistorical quality of labor itself-- it's expression in a time of production as value.

What can happen is a shift from value ( that is labour time ) being expressed indirectly as monetary price, as happens in private production, to products being directly marked with their labour values and distributed to individuals on the basis of their participation in social labour.
You ask where in Marx do I get that idea from:
1. From the Critique of the Gotha Programme
2. From the passage I cited earlier:
It has been pointed out already where your interpretation of CotGP is wrong. You take what Marx expresses as a limitation of "low level" communism, and make it the organizing principle.
You say

Neither value not exchange value are based on the 'organisation of labour as a commodity'.
1. Firstly because according to Marx labour is not a commodity, it is the ability to perform labour that is the commodity,No, labor is not a commodity. It becomes a commodity under certain precise historical conditions when it has no value to its owner, to the laborer, other than its value in exchange for the means of subsistence.

2. secondly because value ( socially necessary labour time ) exists wherever there is a division of labour, the idea that you could get rid of this and the laws governing the distribution of social labour time is according to Marx analogous to thinking you could abolish a law of nature.No again, as already pointed out, thinking that you can abolish the need for society to reproduce itself, and in so doing, not reproduce its social relations of production is akin to thinking you can abolish gravity.

However, the expression of social labor as value is not a law of nature. It is exactly your thinking that "we can abolish the commodity; we can abolish capital; but keep the expression of labor-time as value that represents the attempt to abolish a social manifestation by preserving it. In which case, all you will do, as the case of the fSU proves, is recreate the conditions for the triumph of what you think you have abolished.

3. thirdly because although exchange value ( which is what you confuse with value ) is a historically specific form of representation of value exchange value pre-exists wages and does not depend on the existence of wages. Exchange value would exist in an economy of cooperatives for example.Exchange value is a manifestation of value; it is an expression of value established by commodities in their interrelations, in their exchanges. It is not, however, historically distinct from value. It's not like their was value, production for value, in feudalism and then capitalism came along and said, "Oh, let's make this production for exchange value."

You think it does not describe abstract labour because your understanding of abstract labour comes not from Marx himself but from the writers of the value form school. Thus when Marx writes human labour in the abstract, and does not tie it to wage labour you say he is not really talking about abstract labour because you are working with quite a different concept of abstract labour from him.
Well, since I've only read Marx on value, and never any of the modern value theorists, I'll give all the credit to Marx. Or myself. I mean I read Rubin, years ago. I've read, and reread Grossmann but I don't think he qualifies as a value theorist.

Nowhere in my readings of Marx do I recall him referring to abstract labor existing transhistorically. My memory is hardly the best, so if anyone can find a passage somewhere Marx says-- abstract labor exists as the dominant organizing principle of social production prior to the triumph of capitalism, I'll study that.

The abstract character of labour arises not from specific historical forms of social relations but from the fact that it is a portion of the total labour of society which could in principle have been exerted in some different activity:
Except no such ability for labor to be measured, distributed, assigned, even posited in different activities existed prior to capitalism. That's kind of why Aristotle comes close, but no cigar, to comprehending value.

Capitalism creates abstract labor just as it creates value, the sort of aqua regia that dissolves all the different characteristics of individual commodities into the great stew of accumulation.

A society of associated producers will still have to allocate its labour between different activities and the products of labour will still be valuable because of the social effort that had to go into them. This valuableness can then however be expressed directly by saying that this building required 20 person years to make, or that cup of coffee required 2 person minutes of labour. At this point we have the form of society described by Marx in Capital as:And why would that be expressed as value? Why would a building be more valuable, unless it can command greater quantities in exchange for itself? It might be more necessary; it might be more useful to society, but that usefulness is not value, is not a product of labor time.

Dean

8th July 2011, 18:12

That's not at all what Marx says. I want to know where Marx states in his analysis of value that value is market-crafted price. He does not. And for a good reason. The notion that value is the market price assumes, presumes, that all exchanges in the market are conducted between equals, and that the process of exchange of commodities is a "naturally" occurring phenomenon, transhistorical, and eternal, devoid of its social content in the organization of labor as socially abstract labor by capitalism, that is to say wage-labor.

He deliberately points out that the two are different. Markets tend toward the labor value, but do not match up.

I wouldn't emphasize the "non-equal" problem though. Almost anything, from location to supply/demand curves, plays into the distortion of value.

Paul Cockshott

8th July 2011, 23:36

Again, you are making a social expression-- value, into a transhistorical quality of labor itself-- it's expression in a time of production as value.

It has been pointed out already where your interpretation of CotGP is wrong. You take what Marx expresses as a limitation of "low level" communism, and make it the organizing principle.

This point about first and second stages of communism has to be reconsidered in the light of the last century's history. At the time Marx wrote the CGP the economy in Europe was raw capitalism based purely on market principles. At that time he saw the first stage as being to overcome exploitation so that property income was eliminated, and then at a later stage to introduce a system of income distribution that took into account differences in need due to differences in family size, disability etc.

The actual history of the social democratic movement in Europe was that it reversed the order in which Marx expected things to be done. It fought for and won significant elements of distribution according to need whilst capitalist exploitation still existed. So in Britain the Labour Movement fought for and won things like free secondary and higher education based on ability to learn, free medical treatment based on need, disability benefits, Child benefits, carers allowances, old age pensions etc. Similar systems were won by the Social Democrats in other countries.

The basic principle of distribution according to need in these areas proved easier to win than eliminating exploitation. Of course these communist gains have been subject to counter attack, and in England today are subject to a comprehensive attack by the current government, but in the 19th century when Marx was writing there was no awareness of how far such gains might go.

The real difficulty and the real timidity of social democracy has been in attempting the first stage of Marx's communism not the second stage. That is the historical task facing the peoples of Europe now if they are not to loose the social democratic gains that previous generations struggled for. The 'second stage' gains that we have benefited from will never be secure until the power of money is eliminated and exploitation abolished.

Artesian wrote

No, labor is not a commodity. It becomes a commodity under certain precise historical conditions when it has no value to its owner, to the laborer, other than its value in exchange for the means of subsistence.

As I understood it, what Marx took to be one of his key innovations was the idea that labour is never a commodity, it is the ability to labour that is the commodity. It is this distinction, he claims, that makes exploitation still compatible with equivalent exchange on the market between the buyers and sellers of labour power.

No again, as already pointed out, thinking that you can abolish the need for society to reproduce itself, and in so doing, not reproduce its social relations of production is akin to thinking you can abolish gravity.

However, the expression of social labor as value is not a law of nature.

It is exactly your thinking that "we can abolish the commodity; we can abolish capital; but keep the expression of labor-time as value that represents the attempt to abolish a social manifestation by preserving it. In which case, all you will do, as the case of the fSU proves, is recreate the conditions for the triumph of what you think you have abolished.

I am not suggesting 'the expression of labour time as value' because it makes no sense. What exists in commodity producing society is the expression of value as exchange value, more generally as money. When you have a planned distribution of labour you can have not the expression of labour time as value but the reverse the direct expression of value as labour time.

Exchange value is a manifestation of value; it is an expression of value established by commodities in their interrelations, in their exchanges. It is not, however, historically distinct from value. It's not like their was value, production for value, in feudalism and then capitalism came along and said, "Oh, let's make this production for exchange value."

If you accept that the value of something is the average amount of labour required to produce it, then this average existed in pre monetary societies like the Inca's the ancient Egyptians etc. A utensil made of gold always required more labour to produce than a utensil made of pottery, and gold items were more precious as a result quite independently of whether they had a monetary price. Value is an objective relationship between humanity and the natural and technical conditions under which it works. Exchange value, once it arises historically, has to conform to this objective relationship.

Nowhere in my readings of Marx do I recall him referring to abstract labor existing transhistorically. My memory is hardly the best, so if anyone can find a passage somewhere Marx says-- abstract labor exists as the dominant organizing principle of social production prior to the triumph of capitalism, I'll study that.
I just gave you several passages where Marx describes human labour in the abstract as something that arises from the nature of the labour process itself rather than from the social relations of production.

Except no such ability for labor to be measured, distributed, assigned, even posited in different activities existed prior to capitalism. That's kind of why Aristotle comes close, but no cigar, to comprehending value.

Capitalism creates abstract labor just as it creates value, the sort of aqua regia that dissolves all the different characteristics of individual commodities into the great stew of accumulation.

This is really nonsense, you are looking at the wrong classical authors, look at Cato or Varro and you will find detailed discussions of the distribution of labour between different activities. The slave owning class could not have organised production on a large scale without understanding this issue. Consider the following passage from Varro's De Re Rustica

"With regard to the number of slaves required, Cato has in view two bases of calculation: the size of the place, and the nature of the crop grown. Writing of oliveyards and vineyards,60 he gives two formulas. The first is one in which he shows how an oliveyard of 240 iugera should be equipped; on a place of this size he says that the following thirteen slaves should be kept: an overseer, a housekeeper, five labourers, three teamsters, one muleteer, one swineherd, one shepherd. The second he gives for a vineyard of 100 iugera, on which he says should be kept the following fifteen slaves: an overseer, a housekeeper, ten labourers, a teamster, a muleteer, a swineherd. 2 Saserna states that one man is enough for eight iugera, and that he ought to dig over that amount in forty-five days, although he can dig over a single iugerum with four days' work; but he says that he allows thirteen days extra for such things as illness, bad weather, idleness, and laxness. 3 Neither of these writers has left us a very clearly expressed rule. For if Cato wished to do this, he should have stated it in such a way that we add or subtract from the number proportionately as the farm is larger or smaller. Further, he should have named the overseer and the housekeeper outside of the number of slaves; for if you cultivate less than 240 iugera of olives you cannot get along with less than one overseer, nor if you cultivate twice as large a place or more will you have to keep two or three overseers.

You ask

And why would that be expressed as value? Why would a building be more valuable, unless it can command greater quantities in exchange for itself? It might be more necessary; it might be more useful to society, but that usefulness is not value, is not a product of labor time.

Value is of paramount importance to civilisation quite irrespective of whether exchange value exists. The progress of living standards and civilisation depends on raising the productivity of labour, this in turn depends both on minimising direct labour and on selecting those inputs to production that have the lowest value. Unless you know how valuable the different raw materials and instruments of production are, you can not select the most labour efficient alternative.

JamesH

9th July 2011, 00:55

Nowhere in my readings of Marx do I recall him referring to abstract labor existing transhistorically. My memory is hardly the best, so if anyone can find a passage somewhere Marx says-- abstract labor exists as the dominant organizing principle of social production prior to the triumph of capitalism, I'll study that.

Except no such ability for labor to be measured, distributed, assigned, even posited in different activities existed prior to capitalism. That's kind of why Aristotle comes close, but no cigar, to comprehending value.

Isn't that the basis of Marx's criticism of Aristotle?

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities.

The fact that men (and their labor) was viewed as being unequal prevented Aristotle from realizing that the socially necessary labor of every worker reflects "nothing besides its own abstract quality of being human labour generally." So abstract labor (and what follows, the equality of labor) existed before capitalism, but was obfuscated by prejudices of inequality.

S.Artesian

9th July 2011, 02:20

This point about first and second stages of communism has to be reconsidered in the light of the last century's history. At the time Marx wrote the CGP the economy in Europe was raw capitalism based purely on market principles. At that time he saw the first stage as being to overcome exploitation so that property income was eliminated, and then at a later stage to introduce a system of income distribution that took into account differences in need due to differences in family size, disability etc.

Here's what you ignore Paul. What Marx termed the low-level, you make the permanent. What you claim must be eternal, valuation because of the division of labor, Marx explicitly rejects. In the CotGP, he writes:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of individuals under division of labor....has vanished; after labour, from a mere means of life has itself become the prime necessity of life; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly--- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: for each according to his ability to each according to his needs!

Your scheme maintains the division of labor as permanent, value as permanent, the valuation of one's labor by "productivity" without regard to the actual content of the labor as permanent.

The real difficulty and the real timidity of social democracy has been in attempting the first stage of Marx's communism not the second stage. That is the historical task facing the peoples of Europe now if they are not to loose the social democratic gains that previous generations struggled for. The 'second stage' gains that we have benefited from will never be secure until the power of money is eliminated and exploitation abolished.

You know, I've written some fucked up stuff in my time, some real nonsense, but this takes the fucking cake, and the candles. The real "timidity of social democracy" has NOT been in "attempting the first stage" of Marx's communism, it has been in its allegiance to capitalism; in its support for the mechanisms of capitalist accumulation; in its undermining of class struggle in favor of class collaboration.

As I said in the first post on your book, the whole notion of class struggle drops away in favor of a purely administrative approach. The very organs which the proletariat must create in order to seize power to affect either or any level of communism, workers' councils etc. are the very organs you dismiss as "dangerous." Class struggle is not only absent, it looms as a disaster in your essay, which I am convinced is an attempt to convince future bureaucrats that their future is indeed brighter withe "socialism" than with capitalism.

As I understood it, what Marx took to be one of his key innovations was the idea that labour is never a commodity, it is the ability to labour that is the commodity. It is this distinction, he claims, that makes exploitation still compatible with equivalent exchange on the market between the buyers and sellers of labour power.

In his Economic Manuscripts, IIRC, Marx frequently refers to the conflict between "labor and the conditions of labor"-- by which he means labor as the ability to both create and satisfy old and new needs; labor as the ability to provide for more than the individual; labor as the ability to engage in social fulfillment-- with the conditions of labor-- labor organized as a commodity; the condition of labor as the deprivation of the expansion and satisfaction of need; the condition of labor as a means of depriving individuals of social fulfillment, etc.

What is the condition of labor under capitalism. It is human labor organized as a commodity, as wage-labor. Human labor is the ability to labor; resolution of the conflict between labor and the conditions of labor means that the ability to labor, that human labor, the power of labor is no longer arrayed against the laborer as..............value.

I am not suggesting 'the expression of labour time as value' because it makes no sense. What exists in commodity producing society is the expression of value as exchange value, more generally as money. When you have a planned distribution of labour you can have not the expression of labour time as value but the reverse the direct expression of value as labour time.

Interesting-- but obviously you aren't suggesting that value determines labor time-- unless you are stripping value back to use-value and stating that the social necessity of any object will determine how much time is afforded its production.

If you accept that the value of something is the average amount of labour required to produce it, then this average existed in pre monetary societies like the Inca's the ancient Egyptians etc. A utensil made of gold always required more labour to produce than a utensil made of pottery, and gold items were more precious as a result quite independently of whether they had a monetary price. Value is an objective relationship between humanity and the natural and technical conditions under which it works. Exchange value, once it arises historically, has to conform to this objective relationship.

I think Marx perceives an end to that sort of social relationship-- that preciousness, and the abolition of such notions as assigning "preciousness" based on labor time with a replacement by social need.

This is really nonsense, you are looking at the wrong classical authors, look at Cato or Varro and you will find detailed discussions of the distribution of labour between different activities. The slave owning class could not have organised production on a large scale without understanding this issue. Consider the following passage from Varro's De Re Rustica

See previous comment about writing some nonsense. Can't argue with you on this.

Value is of paramount importance to civilisation quite irrespective of whether exchange value exists. The progress of living standards and civilisation depends on raising the productivity of labour, this in turn depends both on minimising direct labour and on selecting those inputs to production that have the lowest value. Unless you know how valuable the different raw materials and instruments of production are, you can not select the most labour efficient alternative.

Really? lowest value inputs to capitalist production often have negative effects on labor productivity. Kind of the reason why railroads purchase more expensive locomotives-- those that contain the highest quantities of labor time-- because they increase productivity. Or why we go for special grades of steel with higher labor-time/values. Or more advanced signal systems.

S.Artesian

9th July 2011, 03:55

Isn't that the basis of Marx's criticism of Aristotle?

The fact that men (and their labor) was viewed as being unequal prevented Aristotle from realizing that the socially necessary labor of every worker reflects "nothing besides its own abstract quality of being human labour generally." So abstract labor (and what follows, the equality of labor) existed before capitalism, but was obfuscated by prejudices of inequality.

I guess, that it's impossible to recognize until it is social organized as such. It's not the expression of all men being equal that allows one to see abstract labor where it always was before but was "hidden," it's the dispossession of human labor from all other uses save its use as a mean of exchange, as a means for exchanging time, that marks it as abstract labor.

The concrete material organization precedes the recognition.

Paul Cockshott

9th July 2011, 10:55

If you think abstract labour only exists under capitalism, do yo think that the labour theory of value did not apply to prices in Greece and Rome?
If not labour, what regulated these prices?

Paul Cockshott

9th July 2011, 11:43

If you think abstract labour only exists under capitalism, do yo think that the labour theory of value did not apply to prices in Greece and Rome?
If not labour, what regulated these prices?

robbo203

9th July 2011, 12:02

A society of associated producers will still have to allocate its labour between different activities and the products of labour will still be valuable because of the social effort that had to go into them. This valuableness can then however be expressed directly by saying that this building required 20 person years to make, or that cup of coffee required 2 person minutes of labour. At this point we have the form of society described by Marx in Capital as:

Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour-power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson's labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organization of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time. Labour-time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.

I think this quote from Marx is an important one and provides a useful point of departure for understanding the nature of a communist society.

There are two quite separate issues here:

1) labour time accounting - the measurement of labour inputs embodied in the products produced.
2) A labour voucher system - a mode of distribution of the products to individuals in accordance with their contribution in producing them

1) does not imply 2). It is important to realise this. 2) relates solely to what Marx called the "lower phase" of communism. Paul Cockshott's error is to take this lower phase to express the essence of communism itself. That is incorrect.

It cannot be denied that Marx envisaged the abandonment of labour vouchers with the arrival of the higher stage of communism and the institutionalisation of free access to goods. Cockshott completely misreads what the higher stage of communism is all about when he asserts:

This point about first and second stages of communism has to be reconsidered in the light of the last century's history. At the time Marx wrote the CGP the economy in Europe was raw capitalism based purely on market principles. At that time he saw the first stage as being to overcome exploitation so that property income was eliminated, and then at a later stage to introduce a system of income distribution that took into account differences in need due to differences in family size, disability etc.

A textual analysis of the Critique of the Gotha Programme shows unequivovally that by a system of income distribution that took into account differences in need due to differences in family size, disability etc Marx was clearly referring to the first stage of communism, not the second as Cockshott here suggests. The point being as he ( Marx) said that the defects of apllying the principle of equal right are "inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society". It is only in the this first notion that the idea of remuneration or "income" has any meaning i.e. in the form of labour vouchers. In the higher phase of communism there is no such thing as an "income" which one receives for doing work. Consequently the idea of "income redistribution" is completely meaningless

Labour at this higher stage is no longer coerced labour in the sense that an individual's access to goods (via their "income") is made dependent upon his or her contribution. On the contrary, the labour of freely associated individuals becomes life's "prime want". It becomes entirely voluntary labour, freely offered. The compulsion to produce without which human life could not continue will then operate exclusively on the social plane and not directly upon individuals who, neverthless, will have realised their fully social nature in a communist society and respond accordingly to the requirements of society to produce and reproduce its own means of existence. This , I suggest, is if anything, what constitutes the essence of communism - the realisation of our true social nature and of the need to contribute to society's maintenance and wellbeing - and it is why I have long argued that communism needs to be conceived as what is technically called a "moral economy"

Turning to the question of labour time accounting, I think the quotation above is illuminating since it clearly links this procedure with the concept of central planning . Thus, it talks of the apportionment of labour time in accordance with a definite social plan. In my opinion Marx made a fundamantal error of judgement here which is reproduced in Cockshott's own contrived vision of communism. Quite simply, I do not believe Marx had thought out the implications oif what he was recommending here: there is no way in which it remotely possible to apportion labour time in accordance with some single apriori society-wide plan. It was his obsessive dislike for the "anarchy" of capitalism that lead him to oppose anarchy - or spontaneity - in general. This was a blunder but perhaps an understandable blunder at the time

Cockshott talks somewhat glibly about the "valuableness" of things being expressed directly by "saying that this building required 20 person years to make, or that cup of coffee required 2 person minutes of labour" . Would that it were so simple. it This doesnt even begin to address the complexities of the issue. For instance, what kind of labour are we talking about - concrete labour or socially necessary labour? If the former, how do you deal with the fact that one hour of labour performed by person A is not going to be worth the the same as one hour of labour performed by person B. It is no good just talking about some abstract "skilled labour muiltiplier". What is actual ratio between a skilled worker and an unskilled worker? If you are going to employ a common unit of account like labour time units then it makes no sense not to differentiate between different forms of labour according to their skill and, not only that , differences in productivity as well between individuals even at the same level of skill. Failure to do so on these terms could result in massive misallocation of labour time units

I agree with Kropotkin who said

"No hard and fast line can be drawn between the work of one and the work of another. To measure them by results leads to absurdity. To divide them into fractions and measured them by hours of labour leads to absurdity also. One course remains: not to measure them at all, but to recognise the right of all who take part in productive labour first of all to live – and then to enjoy the comforts of life" (The Wage System)

On the other hand, if you focus on socially necessary labour rather than concrete labour, how exactly do you measure that? Oddly enough it was Marx who made the point that it is only through the market that the socially neccessary labour time embodied in commodiites becomes apparent - in the ratios in which they exchange. But it is precisely the market that will no longer exist in a communist society.

This is only the beginning of the problem for the notion of apportioning labour time according some single vast society wide plan. Because production is a socialised process, because everything is interconnected - you need to ensure a certain amount of input X is produced in order to ensure that a certain amount of consumer good Y is produced - the ratios of millions upon millions of inputs and outputs have to be worked out in advance and the relative proportions or amounts have to be produced precisely in accordance with the Plan because the knock on consequences of any shortfall, say, will ramify thorugh the whole economy and upset the carefully worked out calculations of the central planners.

I wont labour the point becuase Ive made this argument often enough elsewhere and people here will get the drift of what I am saying. I will only restate here the point I specifically directed at Cockshott -that this is not a question of whether or not we have at our disposal the necessary computing power to make central planning possible. It is rather a question of the relationship between the central plan and the economic reality it is intended to direct or govern. That is what rules the whole thing as being completely out of the question. It is simply unable to cope with the problem of change. It is a static idealised apriori conception

There is , in fact, no alternative but to incorporate some kind of feedback mechanism into the economy. This means acknowleging once and for all that the overall pattern of production is not, and never can be, something that can be consciously planned but rather is something to be arrived at through the interaction of many plans. Cockshott's claim that this leads us back to the market is nonsense. He is confusing two quite separate things here - property based exchange relationships and the technical relationships involved in the coordination of inputs and outputs. For instance within a big corporation, say, one department might request supplies of some item form another without this involving an exchange transaction. In point of fact, Cockshott himself advocates a form of feedback mechanism and therefore is not strictly an advocate of central planning in this classic sense though he does not seem to be aware of this.

So finally on to the question of labour time allocation within the context of a definite social plan. It seems to me that if you are going to allocate labour in this predetermined apriori fashion then, in order for the definite social plan to be effectively implemented to the letter, you would need some way of ensuring that labour in its multiple forms is suppled in precisely the quantities needed in order to ensure that the technical ratios of inputs and outputs embodied in the plan are complied with.

Now I challenge Cockshott to demonstrate how this can be done without the most resolute and coerceive central direction of labour. I challenge him to explain how such a conception can possibly be accommodated to the principle "from each according to ability to each according to need". It cannot be done and the fact that it cannot be done points to the need for a radically different perspective on the nature of a communist society to the one he is proposing. Actually even Marx's speculations on the nature of work and the abolition of the division of labour in communism directly contradict this notion. Irefer to the famous quote from the German Ideology

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.

I dont doubt there will be some role for labour time accounting in a communist society but it would be a much more modest and restricted role than that envisaged in the centrallised apportionment of social labour in accordance with a definite social plan . It would be more along the lines of indicative planning with rough estimates of the amount and types of labour required for specific projects. And above all, it would supplement, rather than replace, communism's primary mode of calculation - calculation in kind

S.Artesian

9th July 2011, 17:48

If you think abstract labour only exists under capitalism, do yo think that the labour theory of value did not apply to prices in Greece and Rome?
If not labour, what regulated these prices?

1. Never studied it, so I don't know. Certainly in every commodity production there is the expression of labor as "general" "average" "social" "abstract" labor. The question is to what degree, to what quantity, and thus to what quality that expression is developed. Does it dominate the organization of society? Does it dominate the organization of labor? Does it exist in the relation of labor to the condition of labor-- that is to say in the relation of labor to property; of labor to the products of labor, where one exchanges time of labor as the mechanism of subsistence?

Abstract labor is not simply the ability to perform labor, the expenditure of energy, muscle, thought in any and every process. The ability to perform labor is a biological, species characteristic. Its expression as abstract labor is a social determination.

2. In reference to the discussion of labor time, value, division of labor and exchange value, here is a critical passage from the Grundrisse:

The labour of the individual looked at in the act of production itself, is the money with which he directly buys the product, the object of his particular activity; but it is a particular money, which buys precisely only this specific product. In order to be general money directly, it would have to be not a particular, but general labour from the outset; i.e. it would have to be posited from the outset as a link in general production. But on this presupposition it would not be exchange which gave labour its general character;but rather its presupposed communal character would determine the distribution of products. The communal character of production would make the product into a communal, general product from the outset. The exchange which originally takes place in production -- which would not be an exchange of exchange values but of activities, determined by communal needs and communal purposes -- would from the outset include the participation of the individual in the communal world of products. On the basis of
exchange values, labour is posited as general only through exchange. But on this foundation it would be posited as such before exchange; i.e. the exchange of products would in no way be the medium by which the participation of the individual in general production is mediated. Mediation must, of course, take place. In the first case, which proceeds from the independent production of individuals -- no matter how much these independent productions determine and modify each other post festum through their interrelations -- mediation takes place through the exchange of commodities, through exchange value and through money; all these are expressions of one and the same relation. In the second case, the presupposition is itself mediated; i.e. a communal production, communality, is presupposed as the basis of production. The labour of the individual is posited from the outset as social labour. Thus, whatever the particular material form of the product he creates or helps to create, what he has bought with his labour is not a specific and particular product, but rather a specific share of the communal production. He therefore has no particular product to exchange. His product is not an exchange value. The product does not first have to be transposed into a particular form in order to attain a general character for the individual. Instead of a division of labour, such as is necessarily created with the exchange of exchange values, there would take place an organization of labour whose consequence would be the participation of the individual in communal consumption. In the first case the social character of production is posited only post festum with the elevation of products to exchange values and the exchange of these exchange values. In the second case the social character of production is presupposed, and participation in the world of products, in consumption, is not mediated by the exchange of mutually independent labours or products of labour. It is mediated, rather, by the social conditions of production within which the individual is active. Those who want to make the labour of the individual directly into money (i.e. his product as well), into realized exchange value, want therefore to determine that labour directly as general labour, i.e. to negate precisely the conditions under which it must be made into money and exchange values, and under which it depends on private exchange. This demand can be satisfied only under conditions where it can no longer be raised. Labour on the basis of exchange values presupposes,precisely, that neither the labour of the individual nor his product are directly general; that the product attains this form only by passing through an objective mediation by means of a form of money distinct from itself.

On the basis of communal production, the determination of time remains, of course, essential. The less time the society requires to produce wheat, cattle etc., the more time it wins for other production, material or mental. Just as in the case of an individual, the multiplicity of its development, its enjoyment
and its activity depends on economization of time. Economy of time, to this all economy ultimately reduces itself. Society likewise has to distribute its time in a purposeful way, in order to achieve a production adequate to its overall needs;just as the individual has to distribute his time correctly in order to achieve knowledge in proper proportions or in order to satisfy the various demands on his activity. Thus, economy of time, along with the planned distribution of labour time among the various branches of production, remains the first economic law on the basis of communal production. It becomes law, there, to an even higher degree. However, this is essentially different from a measurement of exchange values (labour or products) by labour time. The labour of individuals in the [I]same branch of work, and the various kinds of work, are different from one another not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. What does a solely quantitative difference between things presuppose ? The identity of their qualities. Hence, the quantitative measure of labours presupposes the equivalence, the identity of their quality. [bold added] Notebook I, The Chapter on Money.

So more than a couple of things:

1. Let's grant Cockshott the importance of time in socialist production; the proper organization and distribution of time. All economy after all is the economy of time.

2. Notice how all discussion of "value" as "post-existing" exchange value drops away in Marx's analysis. Time has become a social medium, not for exchange, but for the satisfaction, [and creation] of needs. "However, " says Marx, "this is essentially different from a measurement of exchange values [labour or products] by labour time." Unfortunately, Cockshott's exposition presents no such essential difference; his reward scheme, his "average productivity" and above average productivity renumeration schemes do not pass the "essential" difference test.

3. Marx here also identifies the division of labor as a social condition to be overcome, not perpetuated through the valuation of time, or the time of valuation.

4. Finally, in the bold part, Marx recognizes the inequality inherent in what will later become his exposition on vouchers in CotGP. And such inequality in equality is inescapable at that level-- when labor is still a medium of exchange for means of subsistence. The solution of course is not in somehow making this inequality more acute by making it more particularized, more individualized in an attempt at accounting for the individual qualitative difference within the framework of quantitative equality. The solution is found in overall development of the means of production, the product of social labor, and not in the reward of individual, particularized efforts.

S.Artesian

9th July 2011, 23:57

Reviewing the discussion I came upon this from Cockshott:

1. Firstly because according to Marx labour is not a commodity, it is the ability to perform labour that is the commodity,

This is incorrect. Marx held that labour, the actual activity was organized as a commodity-- it was stripped from its connection to the means of subsistence, detached from the direct connection with the means of production-- and through that forced to present itself as a commodity, as an object whose only use value, satisfying the need to maintain itself, becomes the vector, the mule for its, is subsumed in its exchange value.

Labor is organized as the commodity, and in so purchasing the labor, the time of labor-- i.e. $10/hr for 8 hrs, the capitalist obtains the labor power, the ability of labor to provide for more than its own subsistence. Capital obtains the surplus labor time in the organization of labor as a commodity.

Paul Cockshott

10th July 2011, 23:03

Much of what we have been debating on this thread is material that is validly disputable, either because it relates to the definitions of terms like socialism or abstract labour, or because it relates to something that Marx only wrote about in an outline or sketchy way leaving room for misunderstandings or different interpretations of a few short passages.

But Artesian's belief that Marx thought that labour was a commodity or was 'organised as a commodity' goes from valid topics of dispute to plain lack of understanding. The distinction between labour which is the source of value and labour power which is the commodity bought by wages and salaries was one of the key innovations in Marx as compared to Smith and Ricardo. This is universally acknowledged by commentators trying to explain what is distinctive about Marx's analysis of capitalism.

This distinction between labour and labour power is absolutely crucial to the entire logic of his theory of exploitation. If you efface this distinction Marx's unique contribution to the theory of exploitation is lost. Marx devoted an entire chapter of Capital (chapter IV) to this distinction.
Labour power, the ability to work, is what is sold by the worker to the capitalist:

(Marx in Wage Labour and Capital)
Consequently, it appears that the capitalist buys their labour with money, and that for money they sell him their labour. But this is merely an illusion. What they actually sell to the capitalist for money is their labour-power. This labour-power the capitalist buys for a day, a week, a month, etc. And after he has bought it, he uses it up by letting the worker labour during the stipulated time. With the same amount of money with which the capitalist has bought their labour-power (for example, with two shillings) he could have bought a certain amount of sugar or of any other commodity. The two shillings with which he bought 20 pounds of sugar is the price of the 20 pounds of sugar. The two shillings with which he bought 12 hours' use of labour-power, is the price of 12 hours' labour. Labour-power, then, is a commodity, no more, no less so than is the sugar. The first is measured by the clock, the other by the scales.

( from Capital Chap IV)
Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power.

II.VI.2
By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of these mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.

II.VI.3
But in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled. The exchange of commodities of itself implies no other relations of dependence than those which result from its own nature. On this assumption, labour-power can appear upon the market as a commodity only if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labour-power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it, as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have it at his disposal, must be the untrammelled owner of his capacity for labour, i.e., of his person.*40 He and the owner of money meet in the market, and deal with each other as on the basis of equal rights, with this difference alone, that one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this relation demands that the owner of the labour-power should sell it only for a definite period, for if he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be selling himself, converting himself from a free man into a slave, from an owner of a commodity into a commodity. He must constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it.*41

This disctinction in Marx is well understood both by all Marxist economists and also by serious bourgeois accounts of Marx's theories. So for example Mandel writes:

The capitalist mode of production thus presupposes that the producers’ labour power has become a commodity. Like all other commodities, the commodity labour power has an exchange value and a use value. The exchange value of labour power, like the exchange value of all other commodities, is the amount of socially necessary labour embodied in it, i.e. its reproduction costs. This means concretely the value of all the consumer goods and services necessary for a labourer to work day after day, week after week, month after month, at approximately the same level of intensity, and for the members of the labouring classes to remain approximately stable in number and skill (i.e. for a certain number of working-class children to be fed, kept and schooled, so as to replace their parents when they are unable to work any more, or die). But the use value of the commodity labour power is precisely its capacity to create new value, including its potential to create more value than its own reproduction costs. Surplus-value is but that difference between the total new value created by the commodity labour power, and its own value, its own reproduction costs. The whole marxian theory of surplus-value is therefore based upon that subtle distinction between ’labour power’ and ’labour’ (or value).

The Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy says :

Capitalism is distinctive, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit. Marx claims that no previous theorist has been able adequately to explain how capitalism as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own solution relies on the idea of exploitation of the worker. In setting up conditions of production the capitalist purchases the worker's labour power — his ability to labour — for the day. The cost of this commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every other; i.e. in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour power required to produce it. In this case the value of a day's labour power is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the worker alive for a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours to produce. Thus the first four hours of the working day is spent on producing value equivalent to the value of the wages the worker will be paid. This is known as necessary labour. Any work the worker does above this is known as surplus labour, producing surplus value for the capitalist. Surplus value, according to Marx, is the source of all profit. In Marx's analysis labour power is the only commodity which can produce more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as variable capital. Other commodities simply pass their value on to the finished commodities, but do not create any extra value. They are known as constant capital. Profit, then, is the result of the labour performed by the worker beyond that necessary to create the value of his or her wages. This is the surplus value theory of profit.

Lenin in 'Three Sources and Three Component Parts' wrote

Capital signifies a further development of this connection: man’s labour-power becomes a commodity. The wage-worker sells his labour-power to the owner of land, factories and instruments of labour. The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.
The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx’s economic theory.

Paul Cockshott

10th July 2011, 23:41

Robo wrote

There are two quite separate issues here:

1) labour time accounting - the measurement of labour inputs embodied in the products produced.
2) A labour voucher system - a mode of distribution of the products to individuals in accordance with their contribution in producing them

1) does not imply 2). It is important to realise this. 2) relates solely to what Marx called the "lower phase" of communism. Paul Cockshott's error is to take this lower phase to express the essence of communism itself. That is incorrect.

It cannot be denied that Marx envisaged the abandonment of labour vouchers with the arrival of the higher stage of communism and the institutionalisation of free access to goods. Cockshott completely misreads what the higher stage of communism is all about when he asserts:

This, I believe, is a widespread misconception that really got legs at the time of the 20th Congress of the CPSU when the vision of communism as a society based on an abundance of freely distributed goods was widely propagated. But it is based on a fundamental confustion between ad necessitatum and ad libitum distribution.

( Robbo)

A textual analysis of the Critique of the Gotha Programme shows unequivovally that by a system of income distribution that took into account differences in need due to differences in family size, disability etc Marx was clearly referring to the first stage of communism, not the second as Cockshott here suggests.

I would beg to differ there. I think that if you read it as it is,
without prior preconceptions that he is talking about free distribution
the alleged free distribution is simply not there. His criticism
of what he took to be the first stage of simple payment according to labour is that under the guise of equality innequalities remain.

(Marx)
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.

These inequalities due to differences in strength or productive capacity or differences in family size are he says innevitable in the
the early stage of communism, since the next paragraph 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. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
So he is saying that inequalities due to family size etc are inevitable at first, but at a later stage these will be overcome. In order to do this right will have to be unequal - people with larger families will have to get a higher rate of pay. This violates bourgois right -- the principle of exchange of equivalents and replaces it by a distribution according to need.

But he reckoned this could not be done immediately but would be easier the richer the society became. In this he was undoubtedly right. As workers incomes rise they are willing to have a larger amount deducted in social insurance charges to pay for social benefits based on need. That is something that the social democratic labour movements in Europe have pursued as income levels rise. It would have been unrealistic to expect France 130 years ago, even under workers rule, to have been able to afford the level of welfare provision that it provides now.

But distribution according to need and ad-libitum distribution are quite different things. In distribution according to need, a large family would be paid more labour vouchers because they need more than a single worker.

Let us take a contemporary example, in Scotland medicine is distributed according to need. If I have a prescription from a National Health Service doctor, I can take it to a chemist and it will be honoured without me paying anything, but that is because the doctor has evaluated me and decided that I have a need for Tetracycline or what have you. Need and want are not the same. I can not just go into a chemist and ask for any drugs I want for free, they will not hand over anti-biotics or other drugs on demand, but only on the production of a certificate of need.

This is not to say that ad libitum distribution has no place under communism. If water is plentiful then it is reasonable that there should be no charge for running your tap and since the internet makes data equally easy to distribute, books, films, music etc could be distributed ad libitum without any social innefficiency provided that society provides the authors of these works have some other way of making a living. The Pirate Party in Sweden is thus advocating something that we should support.

S.Artesian

11th July 2011, 00:21

Much of what we have been debating on this thread is material that is validly disputable, either because it relates to the definitions of terms like socialism or abstract labour, or because it relates to something that Marx only wrote about in an outline or sketchy way leaving room for misunderstandings or different interpretations of a few short passages.

But Artesian's belief that Marx thought that labour was a commodity or was 'organised as a commodity' goes from valid topics of dispute to plain lack of understanding. The distinction between labour which is the source of value and labour power which is the commodity bought by wages and salaries was one of the key innovations in Marx as compared to Smith and Ricardo. This is universally acknowledged by commentators trying to explain what is distinctive about Marx's analysis of capitalism.

This distinction between labour and labour power is absolutely crucial to the entire logic of his theory of exploitation. If you efface this distinction Marx's unique contribution to the theory of exploitation is lost. Marx devoted an entire chapter of Capital (chapter IV) to this distinction.

What is unique about labor is that its actualization embodies the capacity to produce more than subsistence; that is the power of labor or labor-power.

What is unique about capital is that it detaches labor from its ability to reproduce the means of its own subsistence, and in so doing, obtains ownership of the power of labor to create more than mere means of subsistence. That is the point I am trying to make.

Labor is not a commodity in its natural or non-capitalist state. The laborer is forced to present himself, his labor, as a commodity, because such labor has no use-value to the laborer save its value in exchange for the equivalent of the means of subsistence.

The individual producer at the start, sells his labor, the product of his labor, in the markets, and in that process, by economic processes of accumulation, as well as political processes, is dispossessed of the means of production. His or her labor becomes useless, except for its exchange.

Labor, laborers, are forced to present themselves in the market to exchange their labor time, their hours spent in the process of production, for the necessary means, if lucky, to present themselves again in the markets. The capitalist obtains in this process the power of labor to reproduce its needs in less than the time which the capitalist requires for the exchange.

This is the basis for Marx referring to the conflict between labor and the condition of labor. The condition of labor is that it is forced to present itself as a commodity, where it has no use to itself or to others of its class; it has only exchange value to the laborer, which awards the "buyer" with the use value of expanded production, extruded in these conditions of expanded value, as surplus value. That condition occurs because labor, the laborer, confronts the means of production as alien, in opposition, as the property of someone else.

To say that it appears that the capitalists and laborers are buying and selling labor when in fact they are buying and selling labor power is exactly the proof that social labor, the condition of labor, is the condition of the commodity.

The quotes you cite from vol 1 are exactly the quotes I would cite to sustain my argument:

Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power. Capacity for labour or labour-power. By the dispossession of labor from the ability to provide for its own subsistence, capital forces the laborer into the markets where they represent labor, or their capacity or power to labor, as a commodity-- an object with both a use value and an exchange value. Capital pays for labor-- the reproduction of the laborer as a source of labor and obtains the use value of labor-power to expand value.

II.VI.2
By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of these mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.

The critical connection here is the identification as labor-power with the capacity for labor. Under no historical circumstances does labor exist separate and apart from its capacity for labor. However, under numerous historical circumstance labor does exist separate and apart from its capacity to valorize capital, from its social organization as a means to expand value; from its production of value, from its production of objects as something more than, other than, separate from use-values. Those other numerous historical circumstances exist when labor has not, or is no longer, detached from it ownership of the means of production and subsistence... is no longer forced to present itself as a means of exchange for subsistence.

II.VI.3
But in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled. The exchange of commodities of itself implies no other relations of dependence than those which result from its own nature. On this assumption, labour-power can appear upon the market as a commodity only if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labour-power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it, as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have it at his disposal, must be the untrammelled owner of his capacity for labour, i.e., of his person.*40 He and the owner of money meet in the market, and deal with each other as on the basis of equal rights, with this difference alone, that one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this relation demands that the owner of the labour-power should sell it only for a definite period, for if he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be selling himself, converting himself from a free man into a slave, from an owner of a commodity into a commodity. He must constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it.*41
[/QUOTE]

How is this achieved if not by compelling labor, the laborers to present themselves in the markets to exchange their existence as laborers for the ability to reproduce that existence as laborers?

In his intended 2nd part of his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [Economic Manuscripts 1861-1863, vol 34, Collected Works p 95] Marx writes:

2) (something which is implied in the first relation [my note: the first relation is described by Marx as "that the worker confronts the capitalist, who possesses money, as the proprietor of his own person and therefore of his labor capacity,]--for otherwise the worker would not have to sell his labour capacity) that the objective conditions of his labour (raw material, instruments of labour and therefore also means of subsistence during labour) belong, completely or at least in part, not to him but to the buyer and consumer of his labour [emphasis added], therefore confront him as capital. The more completely these conditions of labour confront him as the property of another, the more completely is the relation of capital and wage labour present formally, hence the more complete the formal subsumption of labor under capital.
"Buyer and consumer of his labour"-- which can only be accomplished if the labour itself is compelled to present itself as a commodity, as wage-labor.

Is this an important point, or is it splitting the hairpin on which the angels dance?

I think it's important also because this establishes the continuity, the essential unbroken thread between Marx's 1844 manuscripts and his later works on capital, the critique of political economy. Labor, the appropriation of nature, is the social process, the "species basis" of human history. In that history, the appropriation of nature, the mediation of nature through labor, becomes the social appropriation of the labor itself; the aggrandizement of the power of labor and the transformation of its capacity to enhance the abilities, knowledge, of individuals through the enhancement of all into the power of owners over laborers.

Value, labor-time, is not the "ultimate" "eternal expression of the capacity of labor. It is an historically, socially determined expression of that capacity, based on specific conditions of labor.

I think it's important precisely because Marx speaks about the emancipation of labor [and the emancipation of the laborers], not the emancipation of labor power. He speaks of the emancipation of labor from, IMO, its confines of "abstract labor"-- imposed upon it by capitalism in order to process labor-power as value, and then accumulate the value in the means of production for further amplification of valorization-- from its miserable subjugation to value: to time as a measure; to labor- time as a deduction from the powers, and the capacities of the laborers.

And it's just that emancipation that Cockshott, doesn't, cannot see, accommodate or even tolerate in his little, limited universe of vouchers, accounting, and state ownership + planning as a substitute for "soviets + electrification" as the object, means, goal, and methods of socialism.

S.Artesian

11th July 2011, 01:29

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.

So he is saying that inequalities due to family size etc are inevitable at first, but at a later stage these will be overcome. In order to do this right will have to be unequal - people with larger families will have to get a higher rate of pay. This violates bourgois right -- the principle of exchange of equivalents and replaces it by a distribution according to need.

Geezus H. Christ-- Marx tells us what the limitation of bourgeois right is. He tells where the inequality is. And it's not in, and it's solution is not where Cockshott tells us it is.

Here's what and where it is:

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

This, the "voucher" stage of "communism" is embodied in Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism, and while it's not clear if Marx intended for those who work nominally longer hours to claim "more vouchers" given the repeated insistence on reduction of the working day for all, Cockshott certainly does allow for that, rewarding so-called above average "individual" productivity with "more."

Marx says this is the "low level" condition-- where all individuals "are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only, e.g. in the present care are regarded only as workers, and nothing more seen in them, everything else being ignored."

Marx continues "To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal."

Cockshott then takes that and decides the advance beyond the "low level" is the making of right unequal, and that somehow unequal right transcends bourgeois right.

We know better. We know that the overcoming of bourgeois right is not in providing greater compensation for "individual" productivity, which "individual productivity" , BTW, is one of the things capital obliterates, or at least cancels out in its "general" "average" social development, in its development beyond piece-work wage forms, in its development of the real domination of labor as opposed to formal domination.

We know the overcoming is not in making "right" unequal, but in the total overthrow of "right," which is so intimately linked with private property with individual ownership, with ownership and exchange of commodities in the market place.

Marx knows it too. The overcoming is in the abolition of the division of labor, in the transformation of labor from a mere means of exchange for subsistence, into the conscious collective endeavor for the development of all, in the all round development of the productive forces and the springs of cooperative wealth-- provide the basis for the discarding, in total, of the schemes of bourgeois right, both equal and unequal." The embodiment of that hangover, that residue of bourgeois society, the labor voucher, Cockshott's higher rate of pay, the wage-labor, is abolished along with the material conditions of their origin.

In the meantime, I sure would like to know more about the "contradictions of a socialist economy"-- the contradiction between the organization of living labor and theownership or the property form encapsulating the accumulated labor that gets expressed in the actions of opposing classes.

robbo203

11th July 2011, 08:23

Robo wrote
This, I believe, is a widespread misconception that really got legs at the time of the 20th Congress of the CPSU when the vision of communism as a society based on an abundance of freely distributed goods was widely propagated. But it is based on a fundamental confustion between ad necessitatum and ad libitum distribution.

I dont think there is any confusion . The "free distribution" of goods means the appropriation of goods by individuals according to their self determined needs. As I said in an earlier post, the slogan" from each according to ability to each according to need" mentioned in the Ciritique of the Gotha Programme was precisely formulated in opposition to the idea of proposed by the utopian socialist, Henri de Saint Simon, that workers should be paid according to how much they work. On other words , its specific meaning is that the notion of payment for work should not apply - that work should be voluntary and that the products of industry should therefore be freedly distributed rather than bought or sold. This is the sense in which Marx uses this slogan.

As an earlier post mentions, Engels in one of his letters talks of the controversy among German social democrats about whether work should be paid or not in socialism. Engels argued that this would depend on the level of technology and this argument clearly ties in with the notion of higher communism expounded in the Critique:
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!

Apart from your good self, I have never heard or read anything by anyone to suggest that in the higher stage of communism labour vouchers would continue. The clear implication in the Critique is that they would be replaced by free access communism. Long before the 20th Congress of the CPSU even people like Lenin and Trostky were crystal clear that higher communism would be free access communism.

I would beg to differ there. I think that if you read it as it is,
without prior preconceptions that he is talking about free distribution
the alleged free distribution is simply not there. His criticism
of what he took to be the first stage of simple payment according to labour is that under the guise of equality innequalities remain.
These inequalities due to differences in strength or productive capacity or differences in family size are he says innevitable in the
the early stage of communism, since the next paragraph says:
So he is saying that inequalities due to family size etc are inevitable at first, but at a later stage these will be overcome. In order to do this right will have to be unequal - people with larger families will have to get a higher rate of pay. This violates bourgois right -- the principle of exchange of equivalents and replaces it by a distribution according to need.
But he reckoned this could not be done immediately but would be easier the richer the society became. In this he was undoubtedly right. As workers incomes rise they are willing to have a larger amount deducted in social insurance charges to pay for social benefits based on need.

Sorry, but this is a completely unwarranted constuction of yours which suggests that, in the higher phase of communism, labour vouchers will continue but with the payment of such vouchers reflecting more accurately the individual circumstances - "needs" - of workers themselves. You should take your own advice and not read into the Critique your own preconcption of it.

Youyr reasoning about equal right being an unequal right for unequal labor.is correct up to the point at which you declare that this means that in the higher communismn this "defect" will be remedied by the adjustment of pay to better reflect the different needs of different workers rather than simply what they contributed to production. As I read it, Marx is not saying that at all. What he talking about is what ideally speaking or in the abstract might be required to remedy this situation within this particular context of a labour voucher system. He is not saying that this proposed remdy is what ought be applied in higher communism. You have misread the peice completely. Marx is simply pointing to the inherent limitations of a labour voucher system with its assumption that workers should be paid according to their contribution insofar as this cannot adeuately address the differeing circumstances and abilities of workers themselves. Marx is arguing that this limitatiuon can only be transcended by transcending the labour voucher system itself

Go back a few paragraphs and this all becomes clear when Marx 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

By communist society not as it has developed on its own foundations is meant that work is still remunerated. That means that in a communism that is developed on its own foundation, work would be unpaid - from each according to ability to each according to need.

If your interpreation of Marx held any water then what would these "own foundations" consist of? According to you Marx is saying that labour vouchers will continue to exist in higher communism. So something else must differentiate higher communism from lower communism. The fact that distribution takes into account need? But thats hardly a credible argument. You are not surely suggesting that in the first stage of communism, "needs" would be taken into consideration? . In fact if you go back a few paragraphs further still you will see, when Marx is quite unmistakenly talking about deductions from the social product in the lower phase of communism, he mentions one such deduction:
Third, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.

How is this not taking cognisance of the the needs of the poor?

So your argument is based upon a fallacy and a fiction. The only sensible way in which you can interpet higher communism is by the fact that by "developed on its own foundations" is meant that work is no longer paid for and therefore the whole idea of labour vouchers no longer has any relevance

RED DAVE

11th July 2011, 12:38

S.Artesian

11th July 2011, 16:12

Hey, is it piling on if I point to Cockshott's plain lack of understanding of Marx, the distinction between the labor process and the valorization process, communism, and the critical role of wage-labor in the conflict between labor and the conditions of labor, when Cockshott provides his rather idiosyncratic interpretation of the transcendence of bourgeois right through "higher pay"?

That for Cockshott, labor, or if he prefers the power to labor, is always a means of exchange for the necessities of individuals, rather than the direct method for fulfillment of the social development of individuals?

That for Cockshott value is eternal, labor subordinated to value is eternal, because labor always exists as wage-labor?

Is that piling on?

Now, is anyone surprised then that Cockshott thinks post WW2-PreThatcher Britain was maybe 1/3 socialist?

That the fSU was socialist?

That terror is one organizing principle for labor under "socialism"? Along with hero worship, pioneer spirit, etc?

syndicat

11th July 2011, 16:43

The "free distribution" of goods means the appropriation of goods by individuals according to their self determined needs.

"self-defined needs." So this means anything goes, a person gets whatever they want, no conditions.

that does not describe any kind of feasible social arrangement.

S.Artesian

11th July 2011, 16:48

"self-defined needs." So this means anything goes, a person gets whatever they want, no conditions.

that does not describe any kind of feasible social arrangement.

Perhaps robbo should insert "social" before "individuals according to their self-determined needs."

Paul Cockshott

11th July 2011, 23:32

Can now conclude that PC's assertion that there will be contradictions under socialism is based on two fundamental errors?

(1) Confusing the initial contradictions inherited from capitalism [i]which socialism is achieved to eliminate.

(2) Confusing bureaucratic state capitalism with socialism.

RED DAVE

I am going in this piece to return to the original point of the thread
which Artesian and Red Dave have reminded us still remain undeveloped :
investigating the contradictions of socialism.

In doing this I am going to be looking in particular at the contradictions
of Soviet style socialism, both because it was internationally the most
influential, and more significantly in the case of this forum, because
key theoretical positions of the CPSU are shared by some members of
the forum which whom I have been arguing. These members identify themselves
as being anti-soviet socialists, but in actuality they share key ideas
about socialism and communism with the official views of the CPSU, and
I will argue, it is these key ideas that they share with the CPSU that
lie at the heart of some of the contradictions of Soviet socialism.

The key shared ideas are ones that have already come out in the debate
so far:

1. That communism has to be a society of physical abundance and is dependent
on the develoment of productivity.

2. That in a communist economy goods will be freely distributed

3. That socialism is aa classless society.

These positions were Soviet orthodoxy, but were disputed by the CPC
during the late 50s and the 60s.

Now I will try and show that these positions lay at the heart of some
of the contradictions that affected the USSR.

Consider the gross production of a Soviet type socialist economy measured in hours
of labour. In order to analyse this and break it down into components
I will use a set of variables that are somewhat different from those
used to analyse a capitalist economy

Variable Means
G Gross production in labour hours
L Number of hours worked by the population in a year
Mc Means of production consumed
M Means of production produced
A Accumulation of means of production
F Freely distributed goods and services
C Consumer goods that are sold
W Wages that are paid to workers
U Unproductive consumption ( ie defence )
Sp Surplus product
Np Necessary Product

We have the following constraints on the system.

G = L + Mc

Gross productions labour content is equal to current labour + labour expended earlier
in means of production.

A = M - Mc

Accumulation is the increase in stock of means of production

Sp = U + A

Surplus product is the unproductive and productive uses of the surplus

Np = C + F

The necessary product is the free goods and the purchased consumer goods

L = Sp + Np

The total labour performed equals the labour in the surplus product and
the labour in the necessary product.

Now if money wages are paid then their labour value must be constrained
such that W >= C. If there are savings then wages can exceed consumer goods.
for now though we will assume no savings so that W =C

Now consider the ratio Np/(Mp+Np) in a capitalist economy this would be
equivalent to v/(c+v). In a capitalist economy this is equivalent to
the apparent labour cost out of total costs.

In the socialist economy on the other hand, the apparent costs of production
are W+Mp and the apparent labour share of total costs is W/(W+Mp) so it is clear that
the W/(W+Mp) < Np/(Mp+Mc) since Np = C+F > W

What does this mean?

It means that the apparent cost of living labour is lower in the socialist
economy than in the capitalist economy to the extent of F the free goods
and services.

Now Marx argues that the limit on the development of technology by capital
lies in the fact that it only costs living labour at perhaps 50% of the
actual living labour expended ( assuming a 100% rate of exploitation).
This means that Capital is systematically reluctant to employ labour
saving technologies that would be socially rational, but which are
irrational from the standpoint of capitalist cost accounting.
It follows that since the Soviet socialist system of calculation
systematically underestimates true labour costs compared to a capitalist
economy it will be less likely to employ 'capital intensive' but labour
saving technologies than a capitalist economy would.

In consequence its rate of technical development and rate of growth of
productivity will be lower than a capitalist economy once the period
of extensive industrialisation is over.

The more the system shifted towards distribution of free goods and
services the lower would be the rate of technical change compared to
a capitalist economy with the same ratio of necessary to surplus labour.

Here then is the contradiction -- the pursuit of a communist economy based
on the free distribution of goods and services slowed down the rate of
technical progress on which Khruschev had depended for his communism of
material abundance and undermined his promise 'we will bury you' directed
at the USA.

This was the logic of the actual economic system of accounting of
Soviet socialism, but this system of accounting is an attenuated version
of the system that some on this list propose. If we were to push F up and
C down relative to the USSR, as some are advocating we would end up with
an economy that performed even less well relative to capitalism than the
USSR.

That is why it is absolutely essential for a future socialist economy
to do strict labour value accounting, only this allows objective selection
of production techniques which maximise overall social productivity
with respect to the available labour resources. Each step away from
labour value accounting is a step away from technical progress.
Historically capitalism was better at developing technology than slavery
because it allowed a more accurate measure of marginal labour costs.
Once a slave owner had bought a slave, marginal labour costs seemed zero,
hence he had a minimal incentive to introduce labour saving machinery.
Socialism can only be more efficient than capitalism to the extent that
it replaces capitalisms partial costing of labour with a full costing of
labour.

There are other contradictions that arise from the Soviet policy ( also
advocated by those I am arguing against ) but that is enough for this evening.

S.Artesian

12th July 2011, 04:46

Am I missing something here? What is Mp? I don't find a definition or description in the list of variables.

S.Artesian

12th July 2011, 05:35

I am going in this piece to return to the original point of the thread
which Artesian and Red Dave have reminded us still remain undeveloped :
investigating the contradictions of socialism.

In doing this I am going to be looking in particular at the contradictions
of Soviet style socialism, both because it was internationally the most
influential, and more significantly in the case of this forum, because
key theoretical positions of the CPSU are shared by some members of
the forum which whom I have been arguing. These members identify themselves
as being anti-soviet socialists, but in actuality they share key ideas
about socialism and communism with the official views of the CPSU, and
I will argue, it is these key ideas that they share with the CPSU that
lie at the heart of some of the contradictions of Soviet socialism.

Point 1. Nobody you've been arguing with in this thread thinks the Soviet Union was socialist.

Point 2. Nobody has identified himself or herself as an anti-soviet socialist.

Consider the gross production of a Soviet type socialist economy measured in hours
of labour. In order to analyse this and break it down into components
I will use a set of variables that are somewhat different from those
used to analyse a capitalist economy

Variable Means
G Gross production in labour hours
L Number of hours worked by the population in a year
Mc Means of production consumed
M Means of production produced
A Accumulation of means of production
F Freely distributed goods and services
C Consumer goods that are sold
W Wages that are paid to workers
U Unproductive consumption ( ie defence )
Sp Surplus product
Np Necessary Product

We have the following constraints on the system.

G = L + Mc

Gross productions labour content is equal to current labour + labour expended earlier
in means of production.

A = M - Mc

Accumulation is the increase in stock of means of production

Sp = U + A

Surplus product is the unproductive and productive uses of the surplus

Np = C + F

The necessary product is the free goods and the purchased consumer goods

L = Sp + Np

The total labour performed equals the labour in the surplus product and
the labour in the necessary product.

Now if money wages are paid then their labour value must be constrained
such that W >= C. If there are savings then wages can exceed consumer goods.
for now though we will assume no savings so that W =C

Now consider the ratio Np/(Mp+Np) in a capitalist economy this would be
equivalent to v/(c+v). In a capitalist economy this is equivalent to
the apparent labour cost out of total costs.

In the socialist economy on the other hand, the apparent costs of production
are W+Mp and the apparent labour share of total costs is W/(W+Mp) so it is clear that
the W/(W+Mp) < Np/(Mp+Mc) since Np = C+F > W

What does this mean?

It means that the apparent cost of living labour is lower in the socialist
economy than in the capitalist economy to the extent of F the free goods
and services.

Now Marx argues that the limit on the development of technology by capital
lies in the fact that it only costs living labour at perhaps 50% of the
actual living labour expended ( assuming a 100% rate of exploitation).
This means that Capital is systematically reluctant to employ labour
saving technologies that would be socially rational, but which are
irrational from the standpoint of capitalist cost accounting.
It follows that since the Soviet socialist system of calculation
systematically underestimates true labour costs compared to a capitalist
economy it will be less likely to employ 'capital intensive' but labour
saving technologies than a capitalist economy would

Point 3: Reference please. What Marx argues regarding expanded reproduction in Vols 2 and 3 is that the increasing value of the material, technical "dead" components in the production process, expelling the living, variable component, impairs the valorization process to the point that accumulation creates the condition where insufficient surplus value is extracted to sustain the valorization of the entire production process.

Capitalists will not employ just any old technology, but will employ those technologies that a) create new products or the need for new products and b) reduce the capitalist's cost price-- displacing the cost of the living labor which is transferred directly and completely to the commodity, and replacing it with the fixed assets as fixed capital that transfer their value only incrementally through production. This, BTW, Marx remarks as leading to a lengthening of the time of return on the capitalist's investment. Anyway, it's another facet to the tendency of the rate of profit to decline.

In consequence its rate of technical development and rate of growth of
productivity will be lower than a capitalist economy once the period
of extensive industrialisation is over.

The more the system shifted towards distribution of free goods and
services the lower would be the rate of technical change compared to
a capitalist economy with the same ratio of necessary to surplus labour.

Here then is the contradiction -- the pursuit of a communist economy based
on the free distribution of goods and services slowed down the rate of
technical progress on which Khruschev had depended for his communism of
material abundance and undermined his promise 'we will bury you' directed
at the USA.

Point 4. This does not constitute a contradiction, as a slower rate of technical progress is not a conflict between labor and the condition of labor. It is not a relation of production that comes into conflict with the organizing principle of the society.

Point 5. What comrade Cockshott has provided us with here, once we plow through the symbolic logic is the state planner's equivalent, the parallel, and in fact verification of the old bourgeois adage that "without competition, there's no technical progress."

Enough for one night. More tomorrow. However, Cockshott's last paragraph is quite interesting and thought-provoking

RED DAVE

12th July 2011, 16:03

syndicat

12th July 2011, 18:30

Perhaps robbo should insert "social" before "individuals according to their self-determined needs."

what is a "social individual"?

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 00:22

what is a "social individual"?

An individual who realizes his or her needs are part of a collective process of development and stimulation and thus has no need to hoard, monopolize, accumulate objects, articles for purposes other than that of use.

syndicat

13th July 2011, 00:58

Jose Gracchus

13th July 2011, 01:04

A bigger issue is even social individuals would have trouble making rational "all-social" decisions due to the limitations on relevent information available to any single person. There must be institutions capable of gathering, organizing, and providing relevent information about the availability of resources, social labor (and the distribution of desirability and willingness within that sphere) and also the desired goods and services (and some meaningful way to rank and evaluate the relative need and desire among them).

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 01:05

that would be a kind of semantic sleight of hand...trying to define the problem out of existence. isn't there a need for some notion of what a legitimate or just share of the social product would be? people may want things for use...but still attempt to take more than would be legitimate. also, why think that people would be 100 percent "social individuals" by that definition?

This is your usual stock in trade. "Maintain the same framework. No changes in how human beings interact with each other despite the overthrow of commodity fetishism. The problem can't be dismissed simply by thinking people will change, be changed."

Yeah, it can. Sorry, if there's an economic basis for behavior today, from looting, to swindling, to hoarding, then changing the economy is going to do away with the basis for that behavior.

Is it going to be perfect? 100% No recidivism? Nope. Doesn't have to be. Just has to be "in general" "on average." There are examples of things working this way-- without the "virtue of selfishness" throughout history, not the least of which was the rational management of the commons prior to enclosure in England.

Jose Gracchus

13th July 2011, 01:08

But how does that remove the problem of information? We need everyone to be able to make meaningful and rational decisions using information regarding everyone else and all the material factors.

syndicat

13th July 2011, 01:27

This is your usual stock in trade. "Maintain the same framework. No changes in how human beings interact with each other despite the overthrow of commodity fetishism. The problem can't be dismissed simply by thinking people will change, be changed." and personal insult is apparently your stock in trade. who said anything about "maintaining the same framework" as present society?

Yeah, it can. Sorry, if there's an economic basis for behavior today, from looting, to swindling, to hoarding, then changing the economy is going to do away with the basis for that behavior.
yes there is an economic basis for behavior today. but i don't hear a plausible conception of an "economic basis" for behavior not being governed in the way it is under capitalism. what i hear from you is hand waving. among the problems waved away is the information problem that TIC refers to. if people do not have to make their choices within finite budgets, but anything goes, there is no way for the economic system, whatever it is, to capture and implement their preferences, that is, what the people actually want.

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 03:09

and personal insult is apparently your stock in trade. who said anything about "maintaining the same framework" as present society?

yes there is an economic basis for behavior today. but i don't hear a plausible conception of an "economic basis" for behavior not being governed in the way it is under capitalism. what i hear from you is hand waving. among the problems waved away is the information problem that TIC refers to. if people do not have to make their choices within finite budgets, but anything goes, there is no way for the economic system, whatever it is, to capture and implement their preferences, that is, what the people actually want.

Who sets the budgets? What interests do these budgets represent? How do the budget setters gain access to the supposed critical information. Why do the budget makers, the labor-voucher issuers, the planners have better information?

If the participation of the producers in each part of the production process and the planning process is authentic input, with production based on need and use, why then do you suggest, think, propose that these same participants--or those intimately associated with them, will be incapable of having the same information, making the same authentic decisions regarding use and need when, away from the production floor, they act as consumers?

There is a separation and perhaps even an antagonism inherent in your distinctions between producers and consumers that I believe is absolutely unwarranted. To make the appropriate decisions regarding production based on need requires the same information, and social consciousness necessary for rational decision regarding consumption.

ar734

13th July 2011, 03:30

okay. prices and valuations formed through market processes,

Didn't Marx make it clear that prices (the monetary expression of value) and value are both determined in the process of production and not, as the monetarists and capitalists claim, through market processes (or, as they say now, through marginal utility?)

it's necessary to have a common scale of valuation

I thought the value (of commodities) was determined, on average, by the socially necessary amount of labor time embodied in them. And that these values were expressed in prices through supply and demand. Although now prices are usually established by monopoly pricing. Did I miss something, like the 20th century?

ar734

13th July 2011, 03:38

But how does that remove the problem of information? We need everyone to be able to make meaningful and rational decisions using information regarding everyone else and all the material factors.

Can't all that be handled with computers? Why doesn't the information problem come under Marx's "administration of things?"

ar734

13th July 2011, 03:43

There is a separation and perhaps even an antagonism inherent in your distinctions between producers and consumers that I believe is absolutely unwarranted. To make the appropriate decisions regarding production based on need requires the same information, and social consciousness necessary for rational decision regarding consumption.

Or as Marx said, in the Grundrisse, currently a much neglected group discussion, production is consumption, consumption is production. Both are moments of the same unity.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 16:54

ome kind of capitalism, then the contradictions are not surprising at all.

As to the CPSU, I doubt that people who do not think that the USSR was socialist share many positions with it. The CPSU was the official club of the leadership and bureaucracy of state capitalism. Why should anyone who considers themself to be a socialist share much with them in theoretical terms?

RED DAVE
Why indeed, but many people who are critics of the CPSU on this list do share the theoretical points with them that I listed above and which, if applied in practice would lead to many of the contradictions experienced by the USSR from the 60s on.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 16:56

Or as Marx said, in the Grundrisse, currently a much neglected group discussion, production is consumption, consumption is production. Both are moments of the same unity.

Yes but being somebody engaged for example in the production of newspapers gives you no special insight into the labour and resources required to produce boots

RED DAVE

13th July 2011, 17:05

[m]any people who are critics of the CPSU on this list do share the theoretical points with them that I listed above and which, if applied in practice would lead to many of the contradictions experienced by the USSR from the 60s on.That's correct.

Continuation of state capitalism leads to all the contradictions of state capitalism. However, the USSR and its ilk were not socialism. There was no workers control of production. So the contradictions of these states were/are not the contradictions of socialism.

Until you understand that the USSR, etc., were not socialism, no useful discussion of the alleged contradictions of socialism can take place. It's like trying to understand the role of entailage under capitalism. Because there was no entailage uunder fully developed capitalism, the discussion is useless.

RED DAVE

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 17:09

Yes but being somebody engaged for example in the production of newspapers gives you no special insight into the labour and resources required to produce boots

Nothing "gives" any individual special insight into the labour and resources required to reproduce society. Only the collective insights of all provides the ability to "see" more deeply.

Moreover, and more importantly, the task [again of all] is to eliminate the confinements, the restraints, the imposed lack of insight, inherent in "fixing"
individuals as bootmakers, newpaper printers, etc.

syndicat

13th July 2011, 17:47

Who sets the budgets? What interests do these budgets represent? How do the budget setters gain access to the supposed critical information. Why do the budget makers, the labor-voucher issuers, the planners have better information?when the working class creates, from below, a new social arrangement, based on their management of production, they will need to make various kinds of decisions about the new institutions they create.

for sake of simplicity, we could imagine a scenario where in making these decisions, through a congress, for example, they give everyone an equal share of the social product. I'm not proposing this. I'm just taking this as an example. This implies a finite limit to their consumption. So, they make their decisions about consumption by staying within those limits...unless there are rules for situations where someone can go over (such as provision of free health care where the "consumption" depends on the particular medical situation of each person).

communities or regions or the whole revolutionary territory, through their congresses, can also decide on what proportion of consumption is to be provided in the form of systems of social provision versus private consumption of individual consumer goods. this decision will also affect things like household budgets or an individual's budget because that pertains to their private consumption. and it also shapes the size of the budget for public goods & services.

now, the working class, in the transformative situation I'm discussing, might decide that it would be safest to require that able-bodied adults below retirement age (whatever they decide that is to be) make themselves available to the society to do useful work through their participation in the various self-managing organizations that run the various parts of social production, and that they earn their individual consumption entitlement that way. for example, if everyone earns such an entitlement at the same hourly rate (as I favor), then length of time working would determine the individual's budget.

If the participation of the producers in each part of the production process and the planning process is authentic input, with production based on need and use, why then do you suggest, think, propose that these same participants--or those intimately associated with them, will be incapable of having the same information, making the same authentic decisions regarding use and need when, away from the production floor, they act as consumers?It's only possible for the economic system to obtain information about what people most desire if people must make hard choices for what they wish to consume based on being limited to a finite budget. People reveal what their preferences are when they make those choices.

now i know that in neoclassical economics there is what they call "revealed preference" where they assume that choices in the market measure simply preferences. this is not in fact true of a capitallist economy, because these choices also reflect relative bargaining power. but i'm assuming a situation where the old class structure has been removed and the relative powers of people in the economy are equalized. while the doctrine of "revealed preference" is one of the fallacies of bourgeois economics, that doesn't mean there can't be such a thing.

There is a separation and perhaps even an antagonism inherent in your distinctions between producers and consumers that I believe is absolutely unwarranted. To make the appropriate decisions regarding production based on need requires the same information, and social consciousness necessary for rational decision regarding consumption. nope. there will be people who are not producers. they have no say?

the perspective of people who ride the local transit system is not the same as the drivers and mechanics. it is the preferences of the population of potential users for the transit service that must determine what services are provided. the kinds of decisions it is appropriate for the workforce of the transit service to make are not the same as those of the users of the service. so there is inevitably a distinct perspective and distinct local interests that arise from different situations. but in a society where the means of production are owned by the whole society and work is managed by the workers themselves, and there is no separate planning & managing elite over them, there is no class antagonism.

what is required is a way for the society to allot use rights or power of management over means of production to groups of workers. we can't suppose they have the right to do whatever they want...they would not then be accountable to the rest of society. there is also a question of making the most & best use of the means of production. and that requires a way to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of production. it may happen over time that a particular product is not the best or effective use of the resources being used to produce it, perhaps because of declining demand for it. and there is then a possibility that particular work organizations could be disbanded and their people and resources transferred to some other kind of work.

now it may be that the worker organizations manage this re-arrangement or redeployment of resources, but information about what people want has to be a factor that shapes this.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 19:41

Dave, my economic argument did not rest on any specific feature of the USSR, but on the 3 premises I listed. Those equations to any socialist economy which does not fund services through income tax.

RED DAVE

13th July 2011, 19:53

Dave, my economic argument did not rest on any specific feature of the USSR, but on the 3 premises I listed. Those equations to any socialist economy which does not fund services through income tax.I assume the following are you three premises:

1. That communism has to be a society of physical abundance and is dependent on the develoment of productivity.

2. That in a communist economy goods will be freely distributed

3. That socialism is aa classless society.All well and good, but there is a fourth premise that is far more important than any of these:

4. Under socialism, the working class controls the economy.

You have conveniently forgotten this. Unless this is the basic premise, whatever society we are dealing with is not socialism. You may argue that your three premises are de facto socialism, but I'm not so sanguine about this.

RED DAVE

ar734

13th July 2011, 19:56

Yes but being somebody engaged for example in the production of newspapers gives you no special insight into the labour and resources required to produce boots

True, but nowadays a bootmaker can be retrained easily to produce newspapers; it's only a matter of learning how to use a new machine.

And, once newspaper workers and bootmakers realize they are all part of the same class and not separate parts of industry, then the issue will no longer be competition between different workers but rather rational cooperation in total production.

This sort of thing is already happening. Many teachers and municipal employees are represented by the Teamsters Union. So it's not that teachers don't know how to be truckers, but that the whole class of workers see themselves as a class. (Lukacs, etc.) Capitalists have been doing this for a long time. The CEO of General Motors can be a former vice-president of Microsoft, or a general counsel of Sarah Lee's. It dosen't matter whether you build trucks, or write computer programs or bake cakes. It's all a matter of rational management of "scarce resources." The irrationality of the market system will be replaced.

A further step is the general, sympathy or solidarity strike.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 21:19

Dave I am quite happy to grant your point, but it does not remove the contradiction that I pointed out.

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 22:01

I assume the following are you three premises:

All well and good, but there is a fourth premise that is far more important than any of these:

4. Under socialism, the working class controls the economy.

You have conveniently forgotten this. Unless this is the basic premise, whatever society we are dealing with is not socialism. You may argue that your three premises are de facto socialism, but I'm not so sanguine about this.

RED DAVE

Most of all, the premise of Cockshott's arguments is that the proletariat remains a proletariat, exchanging its labor, or its labor power, for a wage.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 22:27

True, but nowadays a bootmaker can be retrained easily to produce newspapers; it's only a matter of learning how to use a new machine.

And, once newspaper workers and bootmakers realize they are all part of the same class and not separate parts of industry, then the issue will no longer be competition between different workers but rather rational cooperation in total production.

This is all true, but it does not answer the problem raised by Syndicat and the Inform candidate: how does a consumer who works in one, or even in two or three trades at once, estimate the work that went into things she or he consumes that were produced by quite different trades. Many many products that you use every day are the result of work by trades and skills that you perforce know nothing of. How are you to estimate the effort that these people have gone to in providing you with say a laminated kitchen cabinet, or a smart phone unless these products are marked in some way with the number of hours of human effort that went into making them?

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 22:50

when the working class creates, from below, a new social arrangement, based on their management of production, they will need to make various kinds of decisions about the new institutions they create.. I think it's fair to say that Cockshott mistrusts these institutions and his arguments for democracy, are based on expediency-- a willingness, a voluntarism for the proletariat to remain the proletariat, exchange labor, labor power, for a wage, with so-called "objective determinations" as to who gets what, with the determinations, in reality, made by a professional sector of planners who of course are subject to controls-- but the "ultra-democracy" of authority bestowed by lot, or schedule "your turn in the barrel, Mark, and your next Martha," is contradicted by the enforcement of the division of labor and the permanence of the wage system in various guises. This works directly against the "release" of labor from accumulation; this works directly against the increasing the productivity of labor.

The overriding necessity of the revolution in power is to find a way, to find ways to bring about the radical reduction in the working day. That reduction is the organizing principle of the socialist economy and alone can ensure rational use of resources and optimal allocations of labor. Everything else leads sooner or later to a squandering of labor power.

for sake of simplicity, we could imagine a scenario where in making these decisions, through a congress, for example, they give everyone an equal share of the social product. I'm not proposing this. I'm just taking this as an example. This implies a finite limit to their consumption. So, they make their decisions about consumption by staying within those limits...unless there are rules for situations where someone can go over (such as provision of free health care where the "consumption" depends on the particular medical situation of each person).
It presupposes a finite limit which exists to be overcome; to be eliminated. We do not propose equal, and diminished shares, of the social product. We maintain and enforce equal shares until, as Marx put it, the "all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly"; until the "productive forces have also increased with the all round development of the individual"; until "labor from a mere means of life, has itself become a prime necessity of life."

Again all this requires radical reductions in the "working day" as inherited from the bourgeois order in all its miserable overproduction and under-satisfaction.

communities or regions or the whole revolutionary territory, through their congresses, can also decide on what proportion of consumption is to be provided in the form of systems of social provision versus private consumption of individual consumer goods. this decision will also affect things like household budgets or an individual's budget because that pertains to their private consumption. and it also shapes the size of the budget for public goods & services.

Would anyone propose, as part of the "low level of communism" restrictions on access to medical care? Of course not; but look at the role medical care plays and will continue to play in social reproduction, as a social cost. Are we going to claim that this is not effective, rational use of labor power and cut people off while we develop new rational, locally based, preventative medicine centers that will reduce the need for certain more time-consuming, extensive treatments in the next generation? I hope the answer, again, is "of course not."

now, the working class, in the transformative situation I'm discussing, might decide that it would be safest to require that able-bodied adults below retirement age (whatever they decide that is to be) make themselves available to the society to do useful work through their participation in the various self-managing organizations that run the various parts of social production, and that they earn their individual consumption entitlement that way. for example, if everyone earns such an entitlement at the same hourly rate (as I favor), then length of time working would determine the individual's budget.
It's only possible for the economic system to obtain information about what people most desire if people must make hard choices for what they wish to consume based on being limited to a finite budget. People reveal what their preferences are when they make those choices.
This is nothing but differential compensation that will only reproduce divisions of labor, fracturing of the working class, and diminish the productivity of social labor in favor of individual reward.

Look, the bourgeoisie love talking about "hard choices"-- that's what they claim "no free lunch" means. But we know there are free lunches. The bourgeoisie eat free everyday.

I cannot envision a "socialist" society that says to individuals--- "You got some hard choices to make as individuals. Either you get enough food for yourself, your kids, your aged parents, or you can get those hockey skates for your daughter... uhh...unless of course you want to work some extra hours."

You know what happens next when it comes to these "hard choices"? The man or the woman who wants both and all has to curry favor with whoever [randomly, or appointed, or elected] makes the decisions about distributing extra hours. Maybe he or she kicks back to that person. Maybe he or she says-- I'll work 10 extra, but put me down for eight and you keep the 2. In any case you have shattered what we could call the social productivity of labor. You have fractured social consciousness, the self-overcoming of the limitations of being "proletariat" by the proletariat through collective action.

Hard choices for individuals based on individual budgets? All that shows is how poorly designed, organized-- how unsocialist the labor process remains even under the direction of so-called "revolutionists."

nope. there will be people who are not producers. they have no say?
Of course they do. Do we limit how much a person can utilize that system based on their "individual" "hard choices." Based on their individual contributions? Based on their labor hours? Do we make people show their "labor vouchers" to utilize mass transit. Do we deduct from those vouchers for each ride. The answer to that must be, if there is to be a "social" in social-ism, no.

the perspective of people who ride the local transit system is not the same as the drivers and mechanics. it is the preferences of the population of potential users for the transit service that must determine what services are provided. the kinds of decisions it is appropriate for the workforce of the transit service to make are not the same as those of the users of the service. so there is inevitably a distinct perspective and distinct local interests that arise from different situations. but in a society where the means of production are owned by the whole society and work is managed by the workers themselves, and there is no separate planning & managing elite over them, there is no class antagonism.
That sounds like my argument but I claim that the perspective of people who ride the transit system will be not different from the drivers and mechanics. That's called collective, social consciousness. That's the consciousness of the social individual.

Why do you claim that the perspectives are necessarily different-- unless of course you presuppose a system that requires the exploitation of the labor of the transit workers. If the transit workers insist on a reduction of hours of service but the demand for transit service in off-peak and overnight hours has increased as we reduce the working day for most, are we going to lengthen the working day of transit workers... or are we going to reduce the working day of the transit workers in tandem by and in order to increase social productivity by installing automatic train operation, automatic train protection

what is required is a way for the society to allot use rights or power of management over means of production to groups of workers. we can't suppose they have the right to do whatever they want...they would not then be accountable to the rest of society. there is also a question of making the most & best use of the means of production. and that requires a way to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of production. it may happen over time that a particular product is not the best or effective use of the resources being used to produce it, perhaps because of declining demand for it. and there is then a possibility that particular work organizations could be disbanded and their people and resources transferred to some other kind of work.
I recognize you have the best of intentions here, but your exposition leads me to sense the "lifeboat" theory lurking behind the logic.

now it may be that the worker organizations manage this re-arrangement or redeployment of resources, but information about what people want has to be a factor that shapes this.Yes, that information as to what is needed is essential; and all that information has to be subordinated to the overriding need of reducing the working day and working towards eliminating the division of labor.

Paul Cockshott

13th July 2011, 22:54

Most of all, the premise of Cockshott's arguments is that the proletariat remains a proletariat, exchanging its labor, or its labor power, for a wage.
Not so. What we advocate in TNS is payment according to labour performed not the sale of labour power, it thus involves the abolition of the wages system which is based on the sale of labour power. It is the sale of labour power that lies at the heart of capitalist exploitation and the extraction of surplus value. If workers are paid in labour vouchers the same number of hours that they work then there is no exploitation and the wages system is abolished.

After people have sold their labour power to a firm in today's system, they then have, out of that wage to both buy their consumer goods and pay indirect and direct taxes to the government, out of which social services are funded.
This general feature, we say, should be retained in a socialist economy, but with the abolition of indirect taxes, and with a vote by the whole population on the level of tax and on the main budget headings.

There is a spectrum here which I try and arrange below

TNS Model Capitalism Soviet Socialism Artesians Model

workers paid workers paid workers paid workers paid
100% of value 50% of value 25% of value 0% of value
created created created created

High incentive moderate low incentive very low incentive
to improve incentive to improve to improve productivity
labour productivity
productivity

The idea that the essence of socialism is to pay people nothing and distribute goods for free leads to a system that is less efficient than capitalism because it shares the same basic cost structure as the slave mode of production.
There too the producers were paid nothing but got food and clothing distributed to them for free. Artesian criticises the USSR as state capitalism but the ideal model from which he criticises it is actually a system of public slavery.

syndicat

13th July 2011, 23:05

i propose equal remuneration per hour of work, and then you say:

This is nothing but differential compensation that will only reproduce divisions of labor, fracturing of the working class, and diminish the productivity of social labor in favor of individual reward.

how is equal rates of pay per hour "differential compensation"?

moreover, i don't believe that equal rates of pay will be sustainable without a systemic, worker-controlled, effort to redesign jobs so as to re-integrate the conceptual, planning tasks, expertise, and decision-making authority with the physical doing of the work, so that all workers have elements of skill and knowledge, and the capacity to participate effectively in collective management.

if expertise and key kinds of experience, as in planning and decision-making, are concentrated into a few people, the people who have acquired those skills can then demand special privileges because the rest of the workforce, bereft of the key skills, will be dependent on them.

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 23:30

Not so. What we advocate in TNS is payment according to labour performed not the sale of labour power, it thus involves the abolition of the wages system which is based on the sale of labour power. It is the sale of labour power that lies at the heart of capitalist exploitation and the extraction of surplus value. If workers are paid in labour vouchers the same number of hours that they work then there is no exploitation and the wages system is abolished.

After people have sold their labour power to a firm in today's system, they then have, out of that wage to both buy their consumer goods and pay indirect and direct taxes to the government, out of which social services are funded.
This general feature, we say, should be retained in a socialist economy, but with the abolition of indirect taxes, and with a vote by the whole population on the level of tax and on the main budget headings.

There is a spectrum here which I try and arrange below

TNS Model Capitalism Soviet Socialism Artesians Model

workers paid workers paid workers paid workers paid
100% of value 50% of value 25% of value 0% of value
created created created created

High incentive moderate low incentive very low incentive
to improve incentive to improve to improve productivity
labour productivity
productivity
The idea that the essence of socialism is to pay people nothing and distribute goods for free leads to a system that is less efficient than capitalism because it shares the same basic cost structure as the slave mode of production.
There too the producers were paid nothing but got food and clothing distributed to them for free. Artesian criticises the USSR as state capitalism but the ideal model from which he criticises it is actually a system of public slavery.

Nice chart. If workers are paid 100% of the value created, where is the socially available surplus coming from.

There too the producers were paid nothing but got food and clothing distributed to them for free. Artesian criticises the USSR as state capitalism but the ideal model from which he criticises it is actually a system of public slavery.
This however, is another bit of Cockshott's smear work, audacious in the extreme from some one who thinks, endorses, defends Stalin's use of terror as a socialist means of extracting surplus. I've had it up to my neck with this sort of smearing from this guy... especially a guy who can produce in his book without quotation marks qualifying the use of racist terms such remarks as:

Enemies of political democracy like South African whites deplore the way the doctrine of one man one vote ignores natural human inequality. Is a civilised white man really to be compared with a nigger fresh out of the bush? Enemies of economic democracy deplore the Marxist doctrine of the labour theory of value for the way it falsely homogenises people....

True, people are different. The work of a college professor is different from that of a labourer. The culture of a Boer is different from that of a Zulu. A man is different from a woman. To those at the top of the heap, difference justifies differentials. The view from the bottom is different.
Cheap shot? Because we know Cockshott isn't really a racist, and himself doesn't use that term when referring to people of African origin? Just about as cheap as accusing me of advocating public slavery when I've argued for the immediate, drastic reduction of the working day; the collective overcoming of the division of labor.

Oh... and one other thing... Cockshott needs to learn a bit more about the class struggle in South Africa as the Zulus were often placed by the apartheid forces in oversight positions, being charged with disciplining the miners in and out of their barracks; and were also used to attack the ANC militants.

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was chief minister of the Zulus. In 1970, Buthelezi was appointed leader of the KwaZulu territorial Authority and in 1976 became chief minister of the Kwazulu Bantustan.

He formed the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975 and broke with ANC in 1979.

During the great battles in and around Soweto, and in and around the mines, both the youth of Soweto and the NUM fought violently with the Zulus of the IFP, with each side willing to give those unfortunates caught without protection "rubber necklaces"-- imprisoning the victim inside a stack of discarded auto or truck tires and then setting the stack on fire. The difference between the ANC and Buthelezi's IKP? Buthelezi was working with General Magnus Malan, chief of the apartheid government's South African Defense Force.

Just a technical difference I'm sure.. like the difference between radically reduction in the working day; ending the division of labor and "public slavery."

EDIT:

Look at these 2 paragraphs:

Not so. What we advocate in TNS is payment according to labour performed not the sale of labour power, it thus involves the abolition of the wages system which is based on the sale of labour power. It is the sale of labour power that lies at the heart of capitalist exploitation and the extraction of surplus value. If workers are paid in labour vouchers the same number of hours that they work then there is no exploitation and the wages system is abolished.

After people have sold their labour power to a firm in today's system, they then have, out of that wage to both buy their consumer goods and pay indirect and direct taxes to the government, out of which social services are funded.
This general feature, we say, should be retained in a socialist economy, but with the abolition of indirect taxes, and with a vote by the whole population on the level of tax and on the main budget headings.
Check the bold in paragraph 1 and the bold in paragraph 2. Does anyone else see a contradiction there? Does anyone see the preservation of the wage-system in the retention of "this general feature" "in a socialist economy"-- minus of course the indirect taxes?

2nd EDIT: Hey, and one more thing Cockshott can't get right--- I have never, ever, ever referred to the fSU as state capitalist. Tell me Paul, are you sober when you think this shit up? As Leon asked in Blade Runner, "Do you make this stuff up yourself, or do they write them down for you?"

S.Artesian

13th July 2011, 23:35

i propose equal remuneration per hour of work, and then you say:

how is equal rates of pay per hour "differential compensation"?

What you wrote was:

now, the working class, in the transformative situation I'm discussing, might decide that it would be safest to require that able-bodied adults below retirement age (whatever they decide that is to be) make themselves available to the society to do useful work through their participation in the various self-managing organizations that run the various parts of social production, and that they earn their individual consumption entitlement that way. for example, if everyone earns such an entitlement at the same hourly rate (as I favor), then length of time working would determine the individual's budget.
It's only possible for the economic system to obtain information about what people most desire if people must make hard choices for what they wish to consume based on being limited to a finite budget. People reveal what their preferences are when they make those choices.

Differential compensation based not on wage rates, but on hours of work. The battle for overtime: Have you ever worked in a factory, or on a railroad, where seniority entitles you to first consideration for extra compensation through extra hours of work?

You would be amazed at the sort of dealing that goes on so that some workers get called for the extra work ahead of others.

ar734

14th July 2011, 01:28

How are you to estimate the effort that these people have gone to in providing you with say a laminated kitchen cabinet, or a smart phone unless these products are marked in some way with the number of hours of human effort that went into making them?

In other words how does an auto worker know what a loaf of bread is worth? Don't they make that decision now using the price mechanism and supply and demand? Or, if you like, marginal utility, or monopoly pricing, etc. The price of a commodity generally reflects its true value. There are ups and downs, but the price comes back to its "natural value" (Smith.)

I'm not suggesting that labor continue to be a commodity. But once a worker (or society in general) takes control of the value of her own product, the value can still be expressed by a price. Just that she gets the full value, less social costs.

Why should socialism care whether the market, supply and demand, expresses value in price, as long as only society controls the market? Because the market has to be "free?" There probably hasn't been a free market in 150 yrs, surely.

I am very interested in what you think about this. Are you suggesting "labor notes/vouchers/labor banks?" I think I have a better understanding why some socialists don't like pricing. You can't really tell how much human effort went into a laminated cabinet or smartphone. You might be able to figure out how many hrs went into each, but when you try to factor in education, raw materials, skill, transportation, etc. it probably becomes nearly impossible. Although with computers we are getting closer.

As Marx said, "Value, therefore, does not stalk about with a label describing what it is." Capital, Vol 1, Ch 1. Why not let the price tag serve that function. Except that society determines the costs and price (as monopoly capital does now) and who gets what, which competition between workers does now, for wages.

Or would you argue that eliminating the wages system also demands eliminating the price system?

ar734

14th July 2011, 01:44

If workers are paid in labour vouchers the same number of hours that they work then there is no exploitation and the wages system is abolished.

As Marx showed, all labor is ultimately expressed as general, unskilled labor. However, I don't think he suggested that one hour of unskilled labor is worth more, has more value than, one hour of skilled labor. Society should still determine how much each individual should contribute and how much should be distributed to each.

It seems to me that it would nearly be impossible to use a system in which one hour of labor = one (x) hour of labor voucher. You might be able to say one hour labor is equal to five hours mid skill labor or twenty hours highly skilled labor. This means the surgeon gets paid 20x what a janitor gets paid. However, the children of both get the same education, health care and both live dignified lives. Nobody wants to be a janitor? Fine, divide the unagreeable work equally among all. The surgeon has to provide x community service hours each month. The computer programmer has to do the same.

Jose Gracchus

14th July 2011, 01:45

Wow, I don't know what to say, but that chart Cockshott gives us just screams "tenacious and resurgent Proudhonism" to me. I kind of agree with S. Artesian but also syndicat: I think something like the arrangements that syndicat describes, involving a total re-work of job design and concept, but some kind of social accounting and a measured claim on goods/services (with adequate institutions to ensure what is produced is a balance between what people want to do and what people want to use) and initially some institution to prevent shirking and a lack of solidarity is necessary. I don't see how that conflicts with radical reductions in the length of the average working day, especially considering how much unproductive bullshit is contained within contemporary capitalism. Where such a collective, social, and regenerative program will end up is hard to describe with any certainty - but we do need a basic model for the transitionary system to breakdown capitalist tendencies and bring about the conditions of the communist mode of production. Such a transitionary system does preserve some of the categories and tendencies of the capitalist society from which it emerged, now shortly after the seizure of power by the immediate producers, led by the proletariat, in the state-territory and the urban-social-productive space. But this is natural, as the proletariat is itself a creature of capitalist society, destined to abolish itself, and Marx himself notes that "the new society is marked with the birthpangs." I agree with Engels that it would be at least a generation after this had been globally generalized before all traces and birthpangs would diminish and subside, and the need for any kind of quid pro quo relations and social accounting in this sense (even in parecon) which resembles the old society will cease to be alienated in any fashion and part of a nearly totally voluntary and social enterprise. That starts on Day 1, but it doesn't move to completion instantly.

syndicat

14th July 2011, 08:21

Differential compensation based not on wage rates, but on hours of work. The battle for overtime: Have you ever worked in a factory, or on a railroad, where seniority entitles you to first consideration for extra compensation through extra hours of work?

You would be amazed at the sort of dealing that goes on so that some workers get called for the extra work ahead of others.

completely ignores the context of course. I'm talking about a socialized economy. an economy controlled by workers. and then you parachute my comments into a capitalist economy where seniority was instituted as an imperfect way to fight management favoritism and arbitrariness and precariousness of making a living.

now, if what you say were a problem, one could suppose that a worker controlled system of production would develop ways to deal with it. they might even parcel out the available work equally. depends on what the workers themselves would decide.

but in principle there's no reason to exclude apriori the idea that some people might want to work less, and thus have less consumption entitlement or others might want to work more.

S.Artesian

14th July 2011, 13:18

completely ignores the context of course. I'm talking about a socialized economy. an economy controlled by workers. and then you parachute my comments into a capitalist economy where seniority was instituted as an imperfect way to fight management favoritism and arbitrariness and precariousness of making a living.

No, I'm not ignoring the context. You defined the context. The context is that workers, as individuals, will have to make "hard choices" based on "individual budgets."

You may think you're talking about a socialized economy, but the reality of the context is that you are mimicking a capitalist economy.

The issue isn't that some "may want to work more." What an absurdity. The issue is necessity. Is there a social necessity for some to work more? If so... why?

Is there a social necessity to reward some more than others?

Is there an individual necessity to utilize labor time as a means of exchange for more of commodities. If so, why?

That's the context you established.

Paul Cockshott

14th July 2011, 14:01

Paul Cockshott

14th July 2011, 14:14

.

It seems to me that it would nearly be impossible to use a system in which one hour of labor = one (x) hour of labor voucher. You might be able to say one hour labor is equal to five hours mid skill labor or twenty hours highly skilled labor. This means the surgeon gets paid 20x what a janitor gets paid. However, the children of both get the same education, health care and both live dignified lives. Nobody wants to be a janitor? Fine, divide the unagreeable work equally among all. The surgeon has to provide x community service hours each month. The computer programmer has to do the same.

There are two types of skill that you may be talking about
1. Skill within a given trade, one programmer may be faster than another, one draughtsperson may be able to complete designs faster.
2. Differences between types of skills - the skill of a Dentist is different in kind from the skill of a roofing engineer.

In the first case it might be reasonable for the workers in a team who were all doing the same kind of work to say Susan did more of this particular job than any of the rest of us so she should be credited with a more hours and the rest of us with a bit less each.

In the second case though, there is no objective basis to say that the productivity of a Dentist is higher than that of a roofer, so there is no reason why they should not each get the same number of hours credited to their account.
In attaching a value to the output of for example dentistry or roofing, the planning system would have to charge to dentistry the labour cost of training dental staff, including the hours put in by dental students. The assumption is that in a socialist economy education is free and people are paid a normal wage for the work of studying.
There is thus no reason to reward the dentist specially on qualifiation, but the local health board would have to meet a part of the social training costs of dentists in proportion to the number of dentists working in their area.

syndicat

14th July 2011, 17:18

The issue isn't that some "may want to work more." What an absurdity. The issue is necessity. Is there a social necessity for some to work more? If so... why?

Is there a social necessity to reward some more than others?

Is there an individual necessity to utilize labor time as a means of exchange for more of commodities. If so, why?
people may not be able to have everything they might want. i assume that if workers control the economy they can avoid anyone suffering deprivation.

but scarcity is inevitable. we only want to work so many hours per week. and if some people are working at a given time to produce X the laws of physics prevent them from also producing some thing else, Y, at that time. so there are things we might want which we must give up when we decide to commit hours of work & resources to producing X.

workers as a whole may establish a typical workweek. and a typical level of consumption for working that amount of time.

but if this is a more than adequate level of consumption, some may want to work less and are willing to consume less correspondingly. should they be prevented from doing so?

and are things people would consume "commodities"? What is commodity production? i would think one condition of commodity production is that the producing organization "owns" the product and can demand revenue for it, which is the basis of its income. that is, it is the "residual claimant." yet this condition isn't satisfied in the social arrangement i propose. worker production organizations don't "own" revenue from sale of products. if they did, then they could remunerate themselves based on sales revenue. and that would generate a huge amount of inequality in rates of compensation per hour of work.

nonetheless, we do need a way of measuring the effectiveness of a production organization. if the prices of the products internalizes all the social opportunity costs (as does not happen in a market system) we can then obtain a measure of the benefits provided and the costs incurred.

ar734

14th July 2011, 17:21

There are two types of skill that you may be talking about
1. Skill within a given trade, one programmer may be faster than another, one draughtsperson may be able to complete designs faster.
2. Differences between types of skills - the skill of a Dentist is different in kind from the skill of a roofing engineer.

In the first case it might be reasonable for the workers in a team who were all doing the same kind of work to say Susan did more of this particular job than any of the rest of us so she should be credited with a more hours and the rest of us with a bit less each.

In the second case though, there is no objective basis to say that the productivity of a Dentist is higher than that of a roofer, so there is no reason why they should not each get the same number of hours credited to their account.
In attaching a value to the output of for example dentistry or roofing, the planning system would have to charge to dentistry the labour cost of training dental staff, including the hours put in by dental students. The assumption is that in a socialist economy education is free and people are paid a normal wage for the work of studying.
There is thus no reason to reward the dentist specially on qualifiation, but the local health board would have to meet a part of the social training costs of dentists in proportion to the number of dentists working in their area.

Ok. So, a group of roofing workers (or the entire group of, say the U.S.) could objectively determine their own pay. The roofers say, "Our work has a value per day of 8 hrs, but Susan is a hard worker so she gets 9 hrs credit today."

And dentists would also receive a value of 8 hrs. And the class of dentists would decide whether Dentist Caroline deserves to receive any extra pay.

And this because it is impossible to discover the real value of an hour of dentristy or roofing. Would not a black market immediately arise which would somehow compensate the dentist more than the roofer?

syndicat

14th July 2011, 17:30

1. Skill within a given trade, one programmer may be faster than another, one draughtsperson may be able to complete designs faster.
2. Differences between types of skills - the skill of a Dentist is different in kind from the skill of a roofing engineer.

In the first case it might be reasonable for the workers in a team who were all doing the same kind of work to say Susan did more of this particular job than any of the rest of us so she should be credited with a more hours and the rest of us with a bit less each.

In the second case though, there is no objective basis to say that the productivity of a Dentist is higher than that of a roofer, so there is no reason why they should not each get the same number of hours credited to their account.but the problem is that a person's productivity isn't solely due to them. it depends on who they work with, their genetic endowment from their parents (a larger, more muscular person can run faster or lift more, say), or the equipment they have available, or their early childhood circumstances which helped develop their cognitive abilities, etc.

there is no reason to pay someone more because of things that are not due to them. this is why i think everyone should be given the same credit per hour of work. of course someone may be slacking off, not pulling their weight. but their coworkers will know this if this is happening. and they'll resent it. they can warn someone, penalize them in some way...or fire them if it persists. but in an egalitarian, worker run system I think there would be...and should be...an assumption of everyone who is able contributing insofar as they are able to do so, and, in that sense, putting in a similar effort.

ar734

14th July 2011, 17:58

worker production organizations don't "own" revenue from sale of products. if they did, then they could remunerate themselves based on sales revenue. and that would generate a huge amount of inequality in rates of compensation per hour of work.

But why shouldn't workers be paid the full value of their work? Isn't that the whole basis for socialism? Any social costs, such as education, health care, retirement, etc. would come out of socially agreed (by voting) taxes. The value of the work would be expressed in prices, set by supply and demand.

Obviously this is a long way from the ultimate goal of from each according to her ability (the ability to perform surgery or carpentry) to each according to her needs (children, housing, etc.)

S.Artesian

14th July 2011, 18:01

Artesian asks how, if workers are paid 100% for labour done, where is the surplus?

From taxes on income.
Taxes, democratically approved, are the only non-exploitative mechanism for allocating a social surplus. In the case of a democratically voted on tax, everyone knows how much of the labour they have done is going to social ends.

It would be a matter of democratic debate what sort of tax should be levied: should there be taxes on alcohol to discourage consumption for example, or what exemptions there should be from taxes on income to take into account family size etc. I personally favour a scheme by which tax obligations would be in the form of a fixed obligation in hours per year taking into account family obligations but with a zero marginal rate of tax on labour earnings. The effect might be that you had to pay say 11 hours tax a week, as a single person but that any labour earnings above this are untaxed so as not to undermine incentives to work.

The reason I compare Artesians proposals to public slavery is not to be rude but because he is in effect saying that in his ideal socialism people would be forced to work a fixed number of hours a week for the worker's state and in return would be paid nothing and would have no choice over the number of hours they worked.
This proposal makes the old USSR seem a very haven of freedom and human rights in comparison.

The disincentive effects of this hardly bear thinking. In the USSR there was the joke about 'they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work'. Artesian is proposing that the workers state will not even pretend to pay people.

Let's unpack the massive disinformation contained above--

1. Cockshott claims workers receive 100% of the value of their labor. Some of that value is received in the form of benefits that are distributed socially-- i.e. health care, transportation, education-- financed by deductions from the 100% of the value returned to individual workers, and workers of a class. That's socialism, per Cockshott.

Workers are compensated individually, and thus are not "forced" to work. or work more. or be "more productive." Such "productivity" is voluntary.

Compensation is socialism.

2. Cockshott claims that Artesian advocates slavery because, according to Cockshott, Artesian is against individual compensation, and individual differentials in compensation.

But do the workers receive the same social compensation as in Cockshott's "full value" scheme? Do workers still create their own basis for extensive education? Do workers still create their own access to and expansion of public transportation? Do workers still produce the basis for improved universal health care? Do workers not continue to produce, and receive, every bit of what we call "social reproduction"? Of course they do

So the difference between "socialism" and "slavery" according to our defender of the terrorist school of socialist accumulation is--- individual compensation, and individual differentials in compensation. Short version: the paycheck-- or the price paid for the sale of labor. Only now dollars are replaced by the real essence of money, the real basis for exchange value, labor time.

The fact that individual and differential compensations existed in the fSU alongside slave labor, of course, is a mere technicality, and not indicative as to how far the fSU, and Cockshott's big Proudhonism, stand away from socialism.

3. Let's recall that at the beginning of these discussions was Cockshott's highly idiosyncratic interpretation of Marx's "lower stage of communism" where labor vouchers, embodying differentials for "higher" individual "productivity are a permanent feature to be carried over to the "higher stage" where now such vouchers, such pay, is "improved" and adjusted for family size, etc. Where Marx sees the transcendence of the voucher system, and the individual compensation program, Cockshott sees it maintenance, its real domination of the social condition of labor. Now that is a contradiction of socialism, but one that is not in Marx's analysis, but rather in Cockshott's pseudo-socialism.

Where Marx sees the transformation of the social condition, the social basis, the organization of production from one where labor is, and remains, a means of exchange for necessities, a means for compensation, a means for reproducing in fact the worker as a worker instead of producer and into a condition, a social relation among producers where labor is emancipated-- where Marx sees labor expressed and recognized as a need itself, where the organizing principle is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," Cockshott envisions the preservation of labor not as labor power, but as labor time, as value for compensation.

Cockshott says as much when he criticizes what he thinks is my view by stating: "would be forced to work a fixed number of hours a week for the worker's state and in return would be paid nothing." Encapsulated in this "criticism" is Cockshott's positivist construction where workers always remain workers compensated by the "worker's" state. No matter how "democratic" Cockshott pretends to make it, it is a superficial democracy concealing the division of society into workers exchanging their labor for compensation and those administering that compensation. In essence those administering the compensation are administering the impulse to capitalist restoration.

The bottom line for Cockshott is just the warmed over "pseudo-socialist" version of the capitalist mantra that there is no "free lunch" and if individual compensation, and differentials in compensation, for labor time are not allowed, productivity will decline, people will fuck off, the lazy louts that we are, and will all be wallowing in a dead garden of empty beer cans and crumpled crisp bags while we belch and fart our way to oblivion.

The USSR did enough to make socialism unpopular by moving part way towards Artesians ideals, putting his proposals into practice would create a society of permanent shortages in the shops, a demotivated population, and a stagnant technology since he prohibits rational calculation of labour costs as a relic of capitalism. Some of the worst features of the Soviet economy in the 1960s and 70s are here raised to an extreme level

Fucking hilarious. The fSU made socialism unpopular by moving part way to my views? As opposed to what-- the good old days of the 30s and 40s? The days of the forced collectivization, the driving down of consumption in the first 5 year plan when socialism was wildly popular? Sure because there was all that wonderful "pioneer spirit," right? As opposed to the salad days of socialism in the 30s when revolutionary struggle after revolutionary struggle was disabled, and destroyed by tactics and strategy issued under the direction of the Soviet bureaucracy? As opposed to the good old days of surplus extraction by terror, by imprisonment, by slavery? Come on, who's zoomin' who, as the song asks?

Let's be clear, I do not oppose Marx's formulation in CotGP regarding vouchers. That formulation,however, is certainly not Cockshott's. Moreover, Marx certainly recognizes the limitations of that system, and those limitations are beyond the mere "inequality" contained within the formal equality. The limitations are in the permanence of such a system that maintains labor as labor-time for individual, and differential compensation.

And I do think Marx's own formulation is tentative and will require consider adjustments, supplements, etc if and when we ever get the chance to execute a revolutionary program.

In the meantime, Cockshott raised a point claiming that Marx sees a limit to capital's ability to increase the productivity of labor in that, by obtaining so much free labor, the incremental improvement in cost-price achieved by technological improvement is basically "not worth it" to the capitalist.

I asked for reference because I've come across this in other places, including, surprisingly enough to me since I pretty much think Grossmann's analysis of the breakdown in accumulation is the best I've encountered, in Grossmann's The Law of Accumulation and the Breakdown of the Capitalist System where he states:

Marx was the first to show that under capitalism there is far less scope for the application of improved means of production. From the standpoint of capital what matters is economies in the use of paid labour, and not labour as such. For example, if the production of a commodity costs society 10 hours of labour time, it would make use of any machine that could economise on the labor time-- even if 9.5 hours were still needed to produce that commodity. But if a capitalist pays the worker the equivalent of say, 5 hours of labour, he will only find the use of machinery to his advantage if it costs him less than the 5 hours.

This may be the case for a particular capitalist, but we are talking about the social average, we are talking about the abstract, general, capitalist.

The problem with this formulation is that of course the capitalist doesn't figure labor into paid and unpaid portions. The capitalist figures the cost-price of commodities based on the total cost of the capital consumed in their production. So a machine that can reduce cost-price by reducing the labor cost over the total annual, or time, of turnover will be employed.

Any machine that reduces the labor cost by a greater amount than the cost its own use transfers to the commodity will, on average, find its way into production.

This is the phenomenal expression of the fact that the introduction of machinery reduces the necessary labor time, and increases the mass of surplus-labor time. As long as that surplus labor time is sufficient to valorize capitalist production, and the expansion of capitalist accumulation, technology that provides even modest incremental boosts will be deployed. The problem is that at a certain point, the mass of surplus value extracted is insufficient to sustain the valorization of the accumulation process. The labor process stands opposed and antithetical to the valorization process. Which is why overproduction is truly a result of overaccumulation.

Grossmann goes on to talk about Asia and Africa where living labour is so cheap that it does not pay the capitalist to use machinery. Certainly that existed [and still exists in places] but the history of that is not that labor for capitalist production was so cheap, but rather that labor for "non-capitalist" production was so cheap, so embedded in subsistence production, or in "subsistence plus" production, or in indentured type production [haciendas], that capitalism, or should we say the "archetype" capitalism cannot penetrate those relations [think of the Chinese peasantry in the 19th and early 20th century, or the Mexican ejidos, pueblos, and haciendas] and must adapt to, and adapt them to its circuits of exchange. This of course is the material basis for uneven and combined development.

Anyway I bring this up since I haven't been able to track down where Marx makes the assertion.... and while I think I'm right on this, I wonder if others have information in support or to the contrary.

ar734

14th July 2011, 18:15

but in an egalitarian, worker run system I think there would be...and should be...an assumption of everyone who is able contributing insofar as they are able to do so, and, in that sense, putting in a similar effort.

I'm trying to understand this in a concrete sense: If your child needs brain surgery because he fell off his bicycle, then an hour of surgery is equal in value to an hour of a carpenter working to repair your roof.

I'm all for the egalitarian society, but I just don't see how this can work. Especially if I am the carpenter and it's my kid. I just want the best surgery my society can offer. I don't expect to get paid the same as the surgeon.

After re-reading the Gotha Program I think one problem with the voucher system is that it provides only for the duration of the labor time, instead of including the intensity of the labor.

ar734

14th July 2011, 18:57

Here is Marx from the Critique of the Gotha Program:

"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 is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right...

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."

Thus, under the initial phases of communist society there is unequal pay for unequal work. It is inevitable because society is emerging from capitalism.

robbo203

14th July 2011, 20:03

The idea that the essence of socialism is to pay people nothing and distribute goods for free leads to a system that is less efficient than capitalism because it shares the same basic cost structure as the slave mode of production.
There too the producers were paid nothing but got food and clothing distributed to them for free. Artesian criticises the USSR as state capitalism but the ideal model from which he criticises it is actually a system of public slavery.

This is about the most crass and rdiculous argument against a communist society that I have yet encountered. It is not even true from even the most cursory inspection of the facts since the cost structure of a slave mode of production involves the costs of maintaining an oppresive state apparatus. From a sociological perspctive it is devoid of any insight into the nature of a communist society to compare it system of public slavery but then Cockshott is neither a sociologist not, it would seem, a socialist.

Paul Cockshott

14th July 2011, 20:19

but the problem is that a person's productivity isn't solely due to them. it depends on who they work with, their genetic endowment from their parents (a larger, more muscular person can run faster or lift more, say), or the equipment they have available, or their early childhood circumstances which helped develop their cognitive abilities, etc.

there is no reason to pay someone more because of things that are not due to them. this is why i think everyone should be given the same credit per hour of work. of course someone may be slacking off, not pulling their weight. but their coworkers will know this if this is happening. and they'll resent it. they can warn someone, penalize them in some way...or fire them if it persists. but in an egalitarian, worker run system I think there would be...and should be...an assumption of everyone who is able contributing insofar as they are able to do so, and, in that sense, putting in a similar effort.
That is fair enough as a general principle but in the end it should be up to a democratic decisions by the work group.

Paul Cockshott

14th July 2011, 20:32

In the meantime, Cockshott raised a point claiming that Marx sees a limit to capital's ability to increase the productivity of labor in that, by obtaining so much free labor, the incremental improvement in cost-price achieved by technological improvement is basically "not worth it" to the capitalist.

I asked for reference because I've come across this in other places, including, surprisingly enough to me since I pretty much think Grossmann's analysis of the breakdown in accumulation is the best I've encountered, in Grossmann's The Law of Accumulation and the Breakdown of the Capitalist System where he states:

The relevant passage is here

The use of machinery for the exclusive purpose of cheapening the product, is limited in this way, that less labour must be expended in producing the machinery than is displaced by the employment of that machinery. For the capitalist, however, this use is still more limited. Instead of paying for the labour, he only pays the value of the labour-power employed; therefore, the limit to his using a machine is fixed by the difference between the value of the machine and the value of the labour-power replaced by it. Since the division of the day's work into necessary and surplus-labour differs in different countries, and even in the same country at different periods, or in different branches of industry; and further, since the actual wage of the labourer at one time sinks below the value of his labour-power, at another rises above it, it is possible for the difference between the price of the machinery to vary very much, although the difference between the quantity of labour requisite to produce the machine and the total quantity replaced by it, remain constant.*33 But it is the former difference alone that determines the cost, to the capitalist, of producing a commodity, and, through the pressure of competition, influences his action. Hence the invention now-a-days of machines in England that are employed only in North America; just as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, machines were invented in Germany to be used only in Holland, and just as many a French invention of the eighteenth century was exploited in England alone. In the older countries, machinery, when employed in some branches of industry, creates such a redundancy of labour in other branches that in these latter the fall of wages below the value of labour-power impedes the use of machinery, and, from the standpoint of the capitalist, whose profit comes, not from a diminution of the labour employed, but of the labour paid for, renders that use surperfluous and often impossible. In some branches of the woollen manufacture in England the employment of children has during recent years been considerably diminished, and in some cases has been entirely abolished. Why? Because the Factory Acts made two sets of children necessary, one working six hours, the other four, or each working five hours. But the parents refuse to sell the "half-timers" cheaper than the "full-timers." Hence the substitution of machinery for the "half-timers."*34 Before the labour of women and of children under 10 years of age was forbidden in mines, capitalists considered the employment of naked women and girls, often in company with men, so far sanctioned by their moral code, and especially by their ledgers, that it was only after the passing of the Act that they had recourse to machinery. The Yankees have invented a stone-breaking machine. The English do not make use of it, because the "wretch"*35 who does this work gets paid for such a small portion of his labour, that machinery would increase the cost of production to the capitalist.*36 In England women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats,*37 because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus population is below all calculation. Hence nowhere do we find a more shameful squandering of human labour-power for the most despicable purposes than in England, the land of machinery. From Capital Part IV, Chapter XV
MACHINERY AND MODERN INDUSTRY.

Paul Cockshott

14th July 2011, 20:37

This is about the most crass and rdiculous argument against a communist society that I have yet encountered. It is not even true from even the most cursory inspection of the facts since the cost structure of a slave mode of production involves the costs of maintaining an oppresive state apparatus. From a sociological perspctive it is devoid of any insight into the nature of a communist society to compare it system of public slavery but then Cockshott is neither a sociologist not, it would seem, a socialist.
I am talking about the cost structure in the production process, all states have a socialist state facing opposing capitalist states would also have heavy military costs. I was ignoring these costs in both cases. The argument I am applying relates to the costs in production. If we follow Artesian and treat labour as a free input, since to pay workers is apparently oppressive, then you remove all basis for rational calculation of improvements in technology. I am just applying the argument from Marx's capital that I cited immediately above. The lower the apparent cost of labour the slower the development of technology.

S.Artesian

14th July 2011, 21:27

I am talking about the cost structure in the production process, all states have a socialist state facing opposing capitalist states would also have heavy military costs. I was ignoring these costs in both cases. The argument I am applying relates to the costs in production. If we follow Artesian and treat labour as a free input, since to pay workers is apparently oppressive, then you remove all basis for rational calculation of improvements in technology. I am just applying the argument from Marx's capital that I cited immediately above. The lower the apparent cost of labour the slower the development of technology.

What I said was your proposals to pay labor, to maintain labor as a means of exchange, your conception not just of permanent differentials, but permanent refinement of differentials is nothing other than a mimicking of capitalism, and of capitalism at its piecework best, or worst.

For the record you're the one with the track record of endorsing slavery and terrorism as socialism, not me. Ask anyone who has read the introduction to TANS. You're the one with the track record of defending "free inputs."

And what is a "free input." Is it labor not constituted as value producing? No, that's not what a free input is. Under capitalism, its labor-time that is uncompensated through the wage. But not just through the wage. A free input exists when labor is expropriated at intensities beyond its ability to reproduce itself. This is what must be kept in mind in "socialism." The task that determines the transformation from the lower to the higher stage is not increased individual compensations, increased differential compensations but expanded social reproduction for all.

Compensation is supposed to be replaced by expanded social reproduction.

That's what Marx is getting at in COTGP when he talks about the higher stage, and "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Let me point out here, that that "slogan" of Marx is exactly what the bourgeoisie and its free marketeers point to when they claim Marx's analysis leads to the enslavement of labor. So maybe I'm in good company, and Cockshott? Not so good. Wouldn't be the first time for Cockshott.

Regarding Marx's quote from vol1: Thanks. Here's the problem: he does not situate the this analysis in its full historical development. What Marx describes is a moment in the historical development of capitalism. Certainly capitalism possesses unevenness, and in periods when the market is restricted, isolated, that unevenness insulates, almost like a tariff the less developed capitalist production.

However for every single example Marx or anyone wants to trot out about this limitation on the organic composition of capital, there is in fact a later counter example-- like Mexico in the early 20th century, the period leading up to and during its revolution when in fact the most advanced capital machinery was imported into an economy that had never reorganized agriculture and create a sufficient domestic market. Mexico's early industrial development is characterized by advanced means of production being operated at half-speed, half-capacity, and less than half-profit.

And not to mention the "long deflation" of 1873-1898. where competition in the US at least was so intense, with real prices declining, every rationalization of production to minimize cost was eagerly seized up, with nominal wages declining, but real wages actually increasing in the US as the price of commodities declined steeply.

Not to mention the situation today where capital animates the most advanced production processes through the engagement of cheaper labor in Mexico, in Thailand, South Korea, China etc to boost the rate of surplus value and the mass of profits. How does that square with the notion that the lower the rate of labor renumeration, the slower the technical development?

It doesn't. It means the under capitalism, where profitability is the governing principle, overall [I]social development, social reproduction, is sacrificed, or stunted, or restrained by the inability of capital to overcome the limitations of local social conditions and in favor of production for the world markets.

It does not follow that with the abolition of capital, with the equal sharing in the general increasing production of increased social wealth, where technology is not constrained by the limits of valorization, productivity must decline unless we make "payment by the state" a permanent feature.