Models of Distribution

[Sensible Socialist]

Hello all.

I've had some trouble explaining how a socialist/communist society would distribute resources and enact laws. I know the basic ideas and I consider myself decently versed on the theory, but explaining it in words seems to be a troubling point when talking to others about socialism. Mainly, how would local communities, communes I guess, "link up" with each other. Secondly, along those lines, would it soley be for resource distribution or for political (laws, regulations, etc.) means?

I'm even confused as to how to put this into words, so I'll just pose the question most often asked: how would law and order be maintained over a large region? What would happen if communities didn't become part of the larger scheme?

Frankly, I didn't have an answer. What if a community is located on top of a valuable resource deposit, yet they are isolating themselves from the surrounding communes? What larger body would have the authority to gian resources from that area, if there was one. Would a seperate body authoritze such an extraction, while a different organization carry out the work?

Are law-making bodies and organizations based around professions or labor different or one in the same?

I understand I'm probably being extremely vague or confusion, although it is two in the morning, so take a knife and cut me some slack. If you can answer even part of the questions I've asked, it would be a really big help.

[robbo203]

Hello all.

I've had some trouble explaining how a socialist/communist society would distribute resources and enact laws. I know the basic ideas and I consider myself decently versed on the theory, but explaining it in words seems to be a troubling point when talking to others about socialism. Mainly, how would local communities, communes I guess, "link up" with each other. Secondly, along those lines, would it soley be for resource distribution or for political (laws, regulations, etc.) means?

I'm even confused as to how to put this into words, so I'll just pose the question most often asked: how would law and order be maintained over a large region? What would happen if communities didn't become part of the larger scheme?

Frankly, I didn't have an answer. What if a community is located on top of a valuable resource deposit, yet they are isolating themselves from the surrounding communes? What larger body would have the authority to gian resources from that area, if there was one. Would a seperate body authoritze such an extraction, while a different organization carry out the work?

Are law-making bodies and organizations based around professions or labor different or one in the same?

I understand I'm probably being extremely vague or confusion, although it is two in the morning, so take a knife and cut me some slack. If you can answer even part of the questions I've asked, it would be a really big help.


A useful rule of thumb might be Marx's suggestion in Capital

The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organization of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers.

In the lower or first stage of communism (Critique of the Gotha Programme) he advocated a rationing system in the form of labour vouchers

For the higher stage , when the "springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly", free access to goods and services produced by volunteer effort according to the principle "from each according to ability to each according to need"

[Blake's Baby]

I think some of your questions logically don't make sense, as I hope you will see.

So; one community has access to a useful resource that others don't - say, some kind of fossil fuel. But if they exploit that in order to 'corner the market' and use their stockpile as leverage against their neighbours, how will they also get food, textiles, washing machines, and all the stuff being produced by all the neighbouring communes? They may have lots of coal but unless you can synthsise steak and kidney pies from it, all their workers will have died of starvation before they can enact their evil plan.

The point is that the economy is interconnected. We are all part of a society that includes the world - this is real already, pretty much (OK there are maybe some people in the Amazonian rainforests or deepest darkest Borneo that might not have been contacted but we can pretty much say that the whole world population is linked together).

When we overthrow capitalism and unite the planet in the interests of the world population, this will be even more apparent. There are no 'islands of socialism' because nowhere can be truly self-sufficient; this is why socialism wasn't possible until capitalism had developed productive technology and created the world market, and it's also why the revolution must be worldwide.

So there are no 'islands of capitalism' (independent communities 'trading' with the revolutionary territories) either. If capitalist social relations survive then the revolution isn't yet finished; the workers of the community stockpiling the coal need to overthrow the bosses that are running the community, because (even if property has been collectivised in that community) if it's not socially and economically integrated into the revolutionary territory, it's not part of the revolution...

The revolution is not the property of isolated revolutionaries. It is the property of humanity. Taking a mining town and hanging a red flag from the pit head, then instituting 'your own' state, using compelled (or waged) labour to continue to extract a resource (which if you're trading it is therefore still a commodity), and bargaining with other communities for your own gain at the expense of the revolution, would get you overthrown (or maybe dropped down a mineshaft) pretty quick I suspect (I hope).

[UnknownPerson]

Generally,
Socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.
Communism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm sorry but that's idiotic if you think about. OK, the argument about whether Marx conceived of a seperate 'socialist stage' aside, '... to each according to his work' is the second biggest crock going (after '... to each according to his legal stake in ownership').

'... to each according to his work' means that those who cannot work (or contribute if you prefer) have no right to access the social product. Sorry, but I don't want to live in a world where only fit people are allowed to eat, and children, the sick, the elderly, or anyone else not integrated into production, literaly has to beg to be supported. Absolutely not. Everyone deserves to share the social product whether they can work or not.

'... to each according to his work' has nothing to do with socialism. It is a bureaucratic and hugely anti-human slogan, used by Marx to demonstrate that the Communists ('scientific socialists') had a better understanding of the needs of the working class and humanity as a whole, than did the 'utopian socialists'. It's not a recipe for the transitional society.

[jake williams]

Hello all.

I've had some trouble explaining how a socialist/communist society would distribute resources and enact laws. I know the basic ideas and I consider myself decently versed on the theory, but explaining it in words seems to be a troubling point when talking to others about socialism. Mainly, how would local communities, communes I guess, "link up" with each other. Secondly, along those lines, would it soley be for resource distribution or for political (laws, regulations, etc.) means?

I'm even confused as to how to put this into words, so I'll just pose the question most often asked: how would law and order be maintained over a large region? What would happen if communities didn't become part of the larger scheme?

Frankly, I didn't have an answer. What if a community is located on top of a valuable resource deposit, yet they are isolating themselves from the surrounding communes? What larger body would have the authority to gian resources from that area, if there was one. Would a seperate body authoritze such an extraction, while a different organization carry out the work?

Are law-making bodies and organizations based around professions or labor different or one in the same?

I understand I'm probably being extremely vague or confusion, although it is two in the morning, so take a knife and cut me some slack. If you can answer even part of the questions I've asked, it would be a really big help.
Communism isn't "the ideology of communes". Communism is not a network of small communities anymore than a modern bourgeois democratic state is a network of small communities. Communism is about the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

The actual relationship between local, regional and international governments can more than vary, and it's up to the people who live there. It's not something fundamental to the nature of "communism" as such at all.