Help explaining distribution in a communist society

[Tim Finnegan]

In a discussion in another forum, the topic of the distribution of goods in a communist society came up. This stuff is far from my strongest point (I have a strong point? http://media.bigoo.ws/content/smile/miscellaneous/smile_280.gif), so I could use a bit of help hammering some sort of explanation into shape.

The question is posed in this format:





P: How does a person obtain needed goods?

A: Is the method of obtaining goods at all affected by the occupation of the person (i.e. the goods that they produce)?

i: If so, exactly how?
ii: If not, then how do people exit worthless occupations (i.e. artists who produce paintings nobody wants)?


B: Does this method have a limitation?

i: If so, how is the limitation determined?
ii: If not, then what's stopping people from obtaining an inordinate and unsustainable amount of goods?


C: Is the method of obtaining goods efficient?
D: Is the method of obtaining goods fair?



With an example for capitalist society being given (its validity is neither here nor there, it's just for illustration):




P: A person goes to a particular store and uses their money to purchase the goods. This money was obtained through performing their occupation.
P(A): Yes,
P(A)(i): the occupation of the person determines how much money they have, and thus the ability and limitation of purchasing goods.
P(A)(ii): This issue does not exist, since if an occupation is worthless, then (most of the time) the person will not obtain the money necessary to obtain needed goods.

P(B): Yes,
P(B)(i): the limitation is the sum of money a person receives from their occupation (presumably equivalent to the worth of their occupational production; see sections C and D)
P(B)(ii): This issue does not exist, since people don't have an infinite supply of money. People cannot get more TVs and computers than society is capable of producing (or the few first ones getting all of society's capacity, and the late showers getting nothing).

P(C): Presumably. How valuable a person's occupation is, usually directly contributes to the amount of money the person receives (which is used to obtain the fruits of others' occupations). As such, we have more or less the same input and output for a person in the system.

P(D): Presumably. Same as in section C, if a person's occupational production is worth a certain amount of money, then they will usually receive about that same amount of money in compensation. If they don't, then the reigning capitalistic idea of entrepreneurs stepping in to eliminate inefficiencies would save the day. An entrepreneur could make profit by compensating currently-under-compensated workers more than their current compensation, but less than their actual contribution. The end result would be equitable (or close thereto) compensation for labour.Now, my first instinct is to say either that communism, being a society in which distribution is based on need and not exchanged, simply can't be simplified like that, or that the form of distribution is something that would have to be figured out as the system is constructed, but both of these feels like a bit of a cop-out. Any ideas on how to reply?

[Jose Gracchus]

The key is that money functions for people, in the capacity of consumption, as a measured claim on goods. However, there is no necessity that the distribution center need attempt to 'economize' on various prices on products, since the 'measured claims on goods' (let's call them consumption points) are not used to finance the operation of the point of distribution. Rather, a planned economy ensconced in a society without states, without classes, and without alienation and fundamental social antagonisms (e.g., between regions, individual production units, etc.) determines output and allocation. Take Parecon for example; in parecon there is a reiterative process of participatory negotiation and planning to develop a society-wide consciously organized systems of resource investment, production, allocation, and distribution. The consumption points may be distributed partially at large as a social income, somewhat distributed on the basis of performance of socially necessary labor, and partially on other basis. Society would also be allocating labor fairly according to the various desirability-vs.-necessity mixes. Plenty of productive and social labor may be performed voluntarily for its own sake in a communist society. Undesired but necessary labor may be automated as much as possible, but what is left may be distributed fairly across the population, with perhaps a stipend of consumption points for such tasks.

Of course, it is important to note that hardly everything in contemporary society is purchased in some kind of 'store'-like marketplace. I think nowadays with even the home as social space with social labor (take for instance, home-cooked meals) being displaced by ever more commoditized services, it becomes harder to imagine an alternative. But everyone's grandparents grew up in a society where there was far less market penetration into every nook-and-crany of everyday social life. People did not always cart to and fro strip malls through endless sprawl via their lifestyle-oriented individual vehicles. One should avoid capitalist apologetics where they tend reify the categories of the immediate contemporary capitalist society as a timeless 'human' quality.

[ckaihatsu]

The most important difference with a socialized means of production would be that -- *outside* of whatever formalized system of labor-hour compensation might be enacted -- *no one* could *privately* lay claim to the available *surplus* from society's mass production.

So while there would no doubt be comprehensive administration over outstanding humane needs and available liberated labor that could be applied to fulfill such need, we could -- for the sake of argument -- envision a "surplus" of productive "excess" produced that escapes comprehensive administrative planning.

Normally, under capitalism's violence-enforced laws of private property, if an orchard happened to produce an excess of apples, that excess of unsold production would just be considered as part of the private orchard, and the orchard would probably just write it off as a financial loss.

With *socialized* production, however, a surplus of apples (or whatever), *not* required by those with first claim to it -- the liberated workers who served to bring them forth -- would be a surplus available to *anyone* -- anyone who should happen to want to consume apples (or whatever). The surplus could *not* be privatized, for the sake of ownership itself, because there would be no markets anymore, and the very method of market-based exchanges would be too *bothersome* a practice to bring back from history for it to be of any usefulness to a society that simply produced and distributed, en masse.

In this way *consumption* could be highly individualistic, but *production* would be very *socialized* since no one could make any *private* claims as to its functioning. (This is distinct from capitalism in which *costs* are socialized while benefits are *privatized*.)








Is it usually distribution based only on fulfilling people's needs, or based on how long they work, or how much value they produce?





The following post describes the best structuring of it that I've ever seen -- consider that a post-capitalism liberated labor itself could be included in this model and 'distributed' accordingly.








It's about distribution systems. Communism (socialism with communal distribution) is usually conceived as a gift economy, but I think a democratic-community model of distribution is a much more accurate depiction of what the intent is. Hypothetically you could have various cities democratically deciding to have different distribution models for different product groups. That seems the most workable model to me.

- Market
- Labor vouchers
- Communal-Democratic
- Gift





This is an excellent point, one I'm surprised we haven't seen earlier. You're placing these various, differentiated methods of distribution on a sliding scale according to the relative *abundance* of the component goods and services produced within.

Perhaps, then, one of the major tasks of a mass collectivized political economy administrating all of this would be to simply categorize *all* goods and services according to their abundant availability, on this sliding scale -- I picture it as a circular bulls-eye centralized point of (all) production, radiating its production outward, with gift distribution closest to the center (indicating abundance), then a bulk-pooled communal-democratic method outside of that, followed by a ratio-based labor voucher system outside of that, with a market-type system (of floating exchange rates) on the outlying peripheral area for least-common and more-specialized items.


What type of distribution does socialism usually imply?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/type-distribution-does-t157806/index.html


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

[ArrowLance]

The answers given by the capitalist to answers C and D both start with the word "presumably" meaning they are assumptions that can only be made because they seem reasonable from the capitalist system of logic. This makes it a problem of circular logic.

I would say capitalist distribution of goods is neither fair nor efficient. There are still those in hunger, people die regularly for lack of healthcare insurance. How, if these shortages or restrictions exist, can the distribution be efficient or it be fair?

I understand this was not the nature of your question, but still felt it should be addressed in the thread.

[ZeroNowhere]

Now, my first instinct is to say either that communism, being a society in which distribution is based on need and not exchanged, simply can't be simplified like that, or that the form of distribution is something that would have to be figured out as the system is constructed, but both of these feels like a bit of a cop-out.I don't think that the second is at all problematic. Communism is a mode of production which is the necessary, if not immediately conscious, end of the proletarian state, not some lovingly rendered utopia for immature novelists and political poetasters, or indeed a specific mode of distribution at all. We can, of course, theorize about the patterns which will probably be followed in the event of a proletarian revolution, but this is by its nature fairly vague and hypothetical, and such a pattern will no doubt be followed with all of the stringency by which prices approximate prices of production.


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 [for] 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.