Communism and the retention of markets

[hatzel]

So we've all heard those tired old arguments against communism: "what if somebody doesn't do any work but still wants to take loads of free stuff?" or "what if one commune chooses to hold back its produce (or produce the bare minimum to serve themselves alone, to drastically reduce their workload) but still wants other communes to give it stuff?" and all such stuff. In return we've heard those tired old retorts: "people will be glorious pure altruistic souls radiating from the heavens, so they'll gladly share," "the 'laziness' of individuals or communes wouldn't be significant because they're only a few whilst the majority do stuff" and the old classic "lazy individuals would be socially ostracised or refused access to products, those communes that don't share won't be shared with, and this will encourage them to participate fully."

It's the last I'm interested in. Does this proposal constitute a retreat to a latent (and admittedly rather loose) market? Presumably those who would cut off individuals and/or communes for doing nothing would also do so if somebody only worked for 5 minutes a week, or if a commune only released one or two items a month. This suggests that there is a 'cut-off point,' a minimum level of production/-ivity that must be met, which implies a certain correspondence between 'giving' and 'receiving.' For me, this seems like a tacit barter market, a system wherein one must bring an adequate offer to the table in order to participate in the exchange, and the adequacy of the offer would be judged according to the state of the economy at that time, questions of supply and demand, all the stuff that influences any other market.

In standard everyday activity - with people freely sharing their produce - the market appears to be overcome, as there is no explicit exchange of goods or labour, yet the decision to fall back on what appears to be a market in exceptional circumstances and times of crisis suggests to me that commodity and labour markets remain an underlying feature of these conceptions of communism, only overtly emerging when one 'contradicts' the unspoken rules of said markets. This raises questions of whether or not the market is overcome even in those situations where it isn't instantly noticeable.

So my questions are mainly to those who forward ostracism and expulsion as a means of preserving a communist society, but others are equally free to throw in their opinion: does this approach rely on the perpetuation of a tacit market? Does this suggest that the market is, in fact, perpetual, and cannot be abolished (unless one could somehow bring about absolute self-sufficiency)? Does this actually matter all that much?

Fire away, my pretties!

[Kotze]

Whether market relations have to be retained depends on what you mean by market relations. People who identify as communists or anarchists often say they are against markets and for doing things in a direct democratic way, whatever that means. How to define the difference between market feedback and democratic feedback then?

You can say markets are better than voting, because
-the majority doesn't dictate everything, minorites have their share
-what's more, markets also look at preference strength
-they are frequently updated

You can say that none of these features are incompatible with voting, because
-there are proportional voting systems
-there are also various proposals that employ ratings or allocating voting points
-voting could happen very frequently by use of online tools and population sampling

Besides, the pro-market claim regarding people getting their fair share on things that matter a lot is highly dubious when there is very unequal purchase power.

The way I personally distinguish democratic processes and market processes the difference is whether an accumulation of power happens — in game-design terms whether victory points can be used as a means to get victory points. If you can't use money like that, it isn't money. (Let's not assume this is what everybody means who talks about being pro markets, but I'm fine with using that meaning considering how real markets work out.)

What is the problem with local residents or workers themselves deciding whom they associate with?
-The problem is that these decisions are not just about associations with other people, but with places and machinery. When people with special access to specific stuff are the only ones who decide who else has that access, they can use that power to make it more exclusive. Going by my definition that's a market process.

Is any decision mechanism that has penalties or rewards for work performance a market mechanism?
-Not according to my definition. All it needs is that those especially rewarded don't get more weight in voting who gets these rewards. Likewise, when a jury decides to put you in jail this shouldn't reduce the probability that you get drafted for such a jury yourself.

Jails? Booo!
-Booo yourself :P

[Zulu]

if somebody doesn't do any work

Then it's not communism by definition.

Communism is the state of affairs when nobody in their right mind would refrain from picking up at least some socially useful task.

[hatzel]

Then it's not communism by definition.

Communism is the state of affairs when nobody in their right mind would refrain from picking up at least some socially useful task.

...relevant to the OP how? :confused: (Without even beginning to address the flagrantly messianic credentials you clearly want to apply to communism, which exposes you as a great big numpty, as far as I'm concerned...)

[Zulu]

...relevant to the OP how?

Like: the situation, described in th OP is impossible.

It's like asking: What would you do, if you came to a restaurant, ordered a lobster, and the boiled thing on your plate suddenly said to you in English "Don't eat me, man!"?





messianic credentials


WTF is that?

[robbo203]

You can say markets are better than voting, because
-the majority doesn't dictate everything, minorites have their share
-what's more, markets also look at preference strength
-they are frequently updated

You can say that none of these features are incompatible with voting, because
-there are proportional voting systems
-there are also various proposals that employ ratings or allocating voting points
-voting could happen very frequently by use of online tools and population sampling

Higher stage communism has all the above stated advantages of the market and more but, obviously, completely eliminates all trace of the market. People freely take from the common stores while voluntarily cooperating with one another to produce the things they need. The pattern of appropriation of consumer goods reveals aggregates patterns of consumer preferences to which production units can respond on a self regulating basis. Not only that, the very nature of a communist free access system precludes any build up of hierarchical power since it deprives any individual or group of the kind of economic leverage they would need to exercise over others in order to ensure their social dominance.

Economic equality - the fact that will all have precisely the same relationship to the means of production which we commonly own - will serve to reinforce our sense of mutual interdependence and sharpen our sense of moral obligation. It will foster an attitiude of personal responsibility and help to underpin a truly democratic ethos far surpassing what exists today

[hatzel]

Like: the situation, described in th OP is impossible.

You know if you'd bothered to read beyond the first line you would have noticed that the situation described in the OP is communism, and the discussion isn't actually about whether or not people would work. I even mentioned that "tired old" discussion, which I thought kind of maybe suggested I didn't want to have it againnn *hint hint*

Or, if I happened to be from the Zulu school of posting:


if you came to a restaurant, ordered a lobsterWell I wouldn't do that would I because lobster isn't kosher. Why are you talking about stuff that's never going to happen? Of course your post is totally all about me (not) eating lobster, that's the topic here, that's the discussion, but why would we discuss that because I don't eat lobster?!

Seriously that's where you're at at the moment...


WTF is that?You know like when the Messiah comes and then suddenly the whole world is perfect and wonderful and everybody is (to quote from the OP you may or may not have briefly skimmed over) "glorious pure altruistic souls radiating from the heavens" and everything's goooood-ah. And you're seemingly making the same claims about communism, that it ushers in some era of unbridled perfection, no questions asked...

Actually I say messianic, but a quick reading of the old texts about the Messianic Age will show that even they didn't make such audacious claims, and acknowledged that even with the direct intervention of G-d Itself, to raise the world to some thitherto unseen level of existence, and exalt it in its entirety...still there are flaws, and still there are problems, and still there are imperfections. So yeah...perhaps 'messianic' is far too tame a word in this situation...

[Kotze]

hatzel,

my impression is that Zulu misunderstood your point of view as assuming an extreme selfishness in people, and now you misunderstand Zulu as believing in the opposite extreme.

Of course, standards of decent behaviour depend on the situation. "For four years, there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while half an hour away it was just as strictly forbidden." -Kurt Tucholsky, Der bewachte Kriegsschauplatz (=The Guarded Theatre of War), 1931. The question is to what degree change will happen.

Countries with differently developed welfare institutions exist, and the right-wingers' handwringing about moral hazard this or that has been shown to have little in common with reality. Not only is it a plausible assumption that people will behave better in socialism, to some degree; if people started to behave as egotistically as is so commonly assumend in mainstream econ texts, I don't see how humans would survive for even a week. (Just yesterday I saw somebody carrying a lot of food and I was very hungry and I instantly had an idea how to make that person disappear without a trace, as that is a mindgame I occupy myself with a lot — and yet I didn't act on that, if memory serves me right.)

So far, so obvious. Hmm, what degree of change, hmmmmmm. Demanding some institution to function even if 100% of people are assholes 100% of the time is asking too much, but how much sacrifice can be expected? If a minority might occasionally get some small advantage by acting in a selfish manner, but that is somewhat risky and is not something that can be built into a bigger lasting advantage, if it only requires small sacrifices by the less selfish to stop big bad effects of egotistical behaviour, that's good enuff for me.

Game theory should not be used to optimize for a hypothetical setting where everybody is an egotistical master strategist, but it can be a useful tool for finding mechanisms that limit how much honest people get screwed over.

Example: A bunch of items is to be evenly divided between you and me. One of us, you, gets the task of making a minimal bundle for yourself, that is a set of items you prefer to the rest of the stuff that you won't prefer anymore if any single item is moved from that bundle to the rest of the stuff. I get to choose whether I let you take that bundle or whether I give you the rest plus one item I choose from the bundle. If you know well what my interests regarding these items are you might get a better deal for yourself by making a not-so minimal bundle, though that comes at a risk, especially if I have some preferences about justice and am willing to make a small sacrifice to punish a meanie. If you are honest about making a minimal bundle, then no matter how I choose there's no risk of getting an allocation where you would rather have the stuff I get than the stuff you get.

[hatzel]

hatzel,

my impression is that Zulu misunderstood your point of view as assuming an extreme selfishness in people, and now you misunderstand Zulu as believing in the opposite extreme.

That may very well be the case. I admit that all I'm seeing is somebody going off on a tangent, rather than discussing the actual point I've attempted to raise, and given how interesting I think that point is (yeah I'm blowing my own trumpet here, hah) it's ever so slightly frustrating to see totally irrelevant stuff thrown around. Though perhaps that was my own fault, for not articulating myself clearly enough or something. Who knows...

But now we're on game theory, and the allocation of bundles. One then has to ask oneself: what happens if a mutually agreeable solution is not instantly found? What if somebody 'breaks' the 'rules' of this hypothetical game? What do the mechanisms you speak of, to limit how much honest people get screwed over, reveal about the nature of the relationship during the normal functioning of society, when the mechanisms are not called upon, though exist as a latent possibility?

Perhaps the question is influenced partly from my strange desire to declare all our various ideals either impossible or contradictory, and partly by those who commence their study of politics from the state of exception, and the implications of such even in the absence of the SoE. Hence I take the state of exception in communism, the moment of crisis, the call for mechanisms, in order to support the claim of debunking the grandiose claims of some/many/most(?) communists.

Somebody simply brushing off the possibility of crisis as a theoretical point of discussion is wasting my time...

[Offbeat]

and the old classic "lazy individuals would be socially ostracised or refused access to products, those communes that don't share won't be shared with, and this will encourage them to participate fully."

I don't think lazy individuals should be ostracised or refused access to products, resources will be abundant enough for some people to be lazy if that's what they really want. But I can't see that happening, being lazy and doing nothing would be boring, everyone would need some occupation to fill their time. As for communes refusing to share, why would they?

[ckaihatsu]

I don't think lazy individuals should be ostracised or refused access to products, resources will be abundant enough for some people to be lazy if that's what they really want. But I can't see that happening, being lazy and doing nothing would be boring, everyone would need some occupation to fill their time. As for communes refusing to share, why would they?


Once the threat of counterrevolution is gone it would be difficult to imagine any kind of a "security" mentality within a communist society. By definition everything would be open-access, including orchards and productive machinery. Anything not-claimed and unused would be freely available, so nothing could stop "outlying" members of society from being more-productive on an individualistic basis than is possible today, with current laws protecting private property. (In other words some people may want to have more of a gatherer-hunter mode of existence, in a modern society.) (Not myself.)

[Revolution starts with U]

I think the relevant question is, how far into communism are we talking here? Is this like Federation-style replicators tech? Or are we still subject to natural scarcity?

If the former; involvement is entirely irrelevant. Nobody has to participate, other than maintencance and use of the replicators.

If the latter, I still don't think participation would be any more, and almost certainly less, relevant than it is today. I just simply don't think the issue you want to discuss will or should even happen. It's easily shown that people closer to their communities have a distaste for poverty, and work to alleviate it. With actual economic power to do so (you know, no extraction of surplus value), there's no reason to believe they will exclude non-participators any more than they do today... and again, almost certainly less.

But in reality I think this calls for a Rafiq-type line: ... Why are we discussing what "communism" will "look like" in the "future?" :confused:

[hatzel]

Arggghhh this is sooooo infuriating! :cursing:

The actual occurrence or non-occurrence of the event isn't important, only what the potential of the event as a systematic crisis revels about the nature of the system itself...

[Ostrinski]

The socialist mode of production is fully realized through free association. However, if shirking became a problem, if plans fail to be met, if productivity falls, then policies can surely be enacted to combat these problems.

[Zulu]

hatzel,

my impression is that Zulu misunderstood your point of view as assuming an extreme selfishness in people, and now you misunderstand Zulu as believing in the opposite extreme.

This is not about believing in the extremes (if anything, I don't believe in the opposite of the extreme of selfishmess), it's about imprecise definitions, and the idea to smuggle some "tacit markets" into communism (justifying it with the fact that the discussion is "old as hell" and therefore the OP's train of thought should be accepted without criticism, while it is, in fact, fallacious from the get-go), which is, in Marxist-Leninist terms, the right deviation, opportunism and counterrevolutionary diversion.

If the OP means the first stage of communism, aka socialism (socialist construction, transitory period), then the problem described will be, of course, present for a very long time, but it will be approached from the angle of its gradual elimination (because it is required for the next stage of communism - so that it could finally fit its own definition!), and not from the angle of making concessions to it.

[MarxSchmarx]

So we've all heard those tired old arguments against communism: "what if somebody doesn't do any work but still wants to take loads of free stuff?" or "what if one commune chooses to hold back its produce (or produce the bare minimum to serve themselves alone, to drastically reduce their workload) but still wants other communes to give it stuff?" and all such stuff. In return we've heard those tired old retorts: "people will be glorious pure altruistic souls radiating from the heavens, so they'll gladly share," "the 'laziness' of individuals or communes wouldn't be significant because they're only a few whilst the majority do stuff" and the old classic "lazy individuals would be socially ostracised or refused access to products, those communes that don't share won't be shared with, and this will encourage them to participate fully."

It's the last I'm interested in. Does this proposal constitute a retreat to a latent (and admittedly rather loose) market? Presumably those who would cut off individuals and/or communes for doing nothing would also do so if somebody only worked for 5 minutes a week, or if a commune only released one or two items a month. This suggests that there is a 'cut-off point,' a minimum level of production/-ivity that must be met, which implies a certain correspondence between 'giving' and 'receiving.' For me, this seems like a tacit barter market, a system wherein one must bring an adequate offer to the table in order to participate in the exchange, and the adequacy of the offer would be judged according to the state of the economy at that time, questions of supply and demand, all the stuff that influences any other market.

In standard everyday activity - with people freely sharing their produce - the market appears to be overcome, as there is no explicit exchange of goods or labour, yet the decision to fall back on what appears to be a market in exceptional circumstances and times of crisis suggests to me that commodity and labour markets remain an underlying feature of these conceptions of communism, only overtly emerging when one 'contradicts' the unspoken rules of said markets. This raises questions of whether or not the market is overcome even in those situations where it isn't instantly noticeable.

So my questions are mainly to those who forward ostracism and expulsion as a means of preserving a communist society, but others are equally free to throw in their opinion: does this approach rely on the perpetuation of a tacit market? Does this suggest that the market is, in fact, perpetual, and cannot be abolished (unless one could somehow bring about absolute self-sufficiency)? Does this actually matter all that much?

Fire away, my pretties!

I'm inclined to agree with your barter analogy, but I wouldn't go so far as to call that a market.

One distinctive feature of a market is that the exchange occurs exclusively through two individual entities, perhaps with mediators to facilitate this exchange (e.g., if I have dollars but the seller only deals in rupees I have to go through an intermediary to first convert dollars to ruppees).

The fact is that in a democratically planned economy, while there might be bartering, this doesn't mean that there are markets composed of autonomous individuals. The key is that what to produce and who to allocate it to depends not solely on the means of exchange but on democratic decision making - hence the "to each, according to his needs". For example, if I have a sick parent that has to live with me, I should get double rations for the parent, not because I work twice as hard as a single person who only needs single rations. That makes it completely different from a market mechanism, at least as it concerns labor. Now, I can imagine a situation where somebody who finds they don't need twice the food (perhaps because they and their parent are vegetarians so replacing one person's meat rations more than covers for enough vegetables and carbs) to sell their ration coupons to another individual, say a gluttenous single, in exchange for that person's say video game coupon, or even labor. That is probably a good approximation to a market situation. Within reasonable bounds, that doesn't bother me. I think in a well integrated, democratic society with limited or minimial alienation, abuses of such are system are highly unlikely.

[ckaihatsu]

With all due respect I find your *construction* of the question overall to be problematic -- you're placing the market / barter / exchange mechanism in the prominent position of protagonist while the people / workers / communes are *secondary* here. This is the conventional construction we're all-too-*used* to seeing, due to capitalism's fetish of the commodity.





So we've all heard those tired old arguments against communism: "what if somebody doesn't do any work but still wants to take loads of free stuff?" or "what if one commune chooses to hold back its produce (or produce the bare minimum to serve themselves alone, to drastically reduce their workload) but still wants other communes to give it stuff?" and all such stuff.


It's problematic for *any* revolutionary to forget about the slavery of machinery, and to over-emphasize intermediary social exchange aspects (markets, barter, distribution, etc.) in its place.

A post-capitalist social environment wouldn't be a return to villages and countrysides. I think the very use of the term 'commune' can be misleading since it tends to invoke just that -- hamlets of thatched-roof homes from which craftspeople labor with loving diligence to produce useful personal creations on a one-for-one time-to-results basis.

Instead, we should be talking about 'the full enslavement of machinery' so as to "rescue" it from the current primacy of the social-exchange ritual. With the proletariat in command no machine could "escape" into *any* sense of private ownership or local control. Rather *all* productive equipment would be treated as so many apple trees found in the wild, to be taken from at will with no thought paid as to "exchanges".





In return we've heard those tired old retorts: "people will be glorious pure altruistic souls radiating from the heavens, so they'll gladly share," "the 'laziness' of individuals or communes wouldn't be significant because they're only a few whilst the majority do stuff" and the old classic "lazy individuals would be socially ostracised or refused access to products, those communes that don't share won't be shared with, and this will encourage them to participate fully."


To hear now of the ritual of the exchange taken down to the *individual* level is even *more* intolerable. You're clearly entertaining a moralistic line here, and it's unacceptable for any *political* discussion.

The issue should *always* be on how to control productivity *en masse*, and not how to employ bourgeois legalistic reasoning to apply to the national citizen.





It's the last I'm interested in. Does this proposal constitute a retreat to a latent (and admittedly rather loose) market? Presumably those who would cut off individuals and/or communes for doing nothing would also do so if somebody only worked for 5 minutes a week, or if a commune only released one or two items a month. This suggests that there is a 'cut-off point,' a minimum level of production/-ivity that must be met, which implies a certain correspondence between 'giving' and 'receiving.' For me, this seems like a tacit barter market, a system wherein one must bring an adequate offer to the table in order to participate in the exchange, and the adequacy of the offer would be judged according to the state of the economy at that time, questions of supply and demand, all the stuff that influences any other market.


Certainly we can ask this question on any per-item basis, since there may always be "outlying" specialty or rare items that could not simply be mass-produced. But from a *political* perspective these, then, are *irrelevant* since they're *not* of mass concern. What people do with their own lives is *not* a political issue.





In standard everyday activity - with people freely sharing their produce - the market appears to be overcome, as there is no explicit exchange of goods or labour, yet the decision to fall back on what appears to be a market in exceptional circumstances and times of crisis suggests to me that commodity and labour markets remain an underlying feature of these conceptions of communism, only overtly emerging when one 'contradicts' the unspoken rules of said markets. This raises questions of whether or not the market is overcome even in those situations where it isn't instantly noticeable.


Who's to say that there *would* be a "decision to fall back on what appears to be a market in exceptional circumstances and times of crisis" -- ??

Perhaps you're merely playing devil's advocate here, but it's also -- perhaps unwittingly -- *validating* a strawman formulation. Certainly a semi-successful or fully-successful revolution would continue to face challenges, as from natural disasters, but there's no reason to invoke a 'market mentality' as being a kind of "natural" fall-back *instinct*. It could be a *possibility*, but I think past a certain point of revolution it would simply be an anachronism.





So my questions are mainly to those who forward ostracism and expulsion as a means of preserving a communist society, but others are equally free to throw in their opinion: does this approach rely on the perpetuation of a tacit market? Does this suggest that the market is, in fact, perpetual, and cannot be abolished (unless one could somehow bring about absolute self-sufficiency)? Does this actually matter all that much?

Fire away, my pretties!


Again, I'll maintain that the very conceptualization of an us-and-them dichotomy is less-than-revolutionary in its construction, and is *not* helpful.

I'll counterpose it to a mass political economy in which journalism would inform individuals as to where their efforts might best be placed, for their consideration.

[Kotze]

This is not about believing in the extremes (if anything, I don't believe in the opposite of the extreme of selfishmess), it's about imprecise definitions, and the idea to smuggle some "tacit markets" into communismGoing by post #9, the idea was something like: Criticize nice-sounding socialist promises by probing what they say about less nice things that might have to be done in a few emergency cases, because these exceptions have an influence on what is normal. An institution that holds little power during "normal" times, but is very powerful during "exceptional" times, and that itself decides what the normal and exceptional times are, is in reality very powerful the whole time. This even holds if the institution never claims the exception, but people have an uneasy sense that it might.

Example: Suppose you visit me and I'm asking you to help me in my garden, and you do, and to help me clean the house, and you do, and to help me with some other stuff, and you do that as well. After that, you say you didn't like much doing all that and you only did it because I was aiming my gun at you the whole time. I counter that I didn't order you to do anything and didn't even shoot once.

Do you think the way I distinguish in post #2 between market processes and democratic processes is useful? Would you call the proposal with the hat (http://www.revleft.com/vb/case-central-planning-t142473/index.html?t=142473) a market process?


I'll maintain that the very conceptualization of an us-and-them dichotomy is less-than-revolutionary in its constructionI agree with that. People who are members of a community (whether residential or work sector) should not have a special privilege for restricting people from joining or leaving.

[hatzel]

the idea to smuggle some "tacit markets" into communism
making concessions to itYou appear to have misunderstood - I am certainly not trying to 'smuggle' markets into communism. If anything I'm accusing others of doing so, by examining the friction between their grandiose claims and their practical proposals. I'm probing the line that separates (non-market) 'sharing' from (market) 'trade,' doubting that a clean distinction can in fact be made. I'm challenging the notion that 'democratic' and 'market' forms of economic management are mutually exclusive, by seeking points of (potential) overlap; one would be terribly foolish to assume that economic decision-making takes place on a transcendental plane wholly detached from - and unconstrained by - prevailing economic processes, and in the interplay between ideal and reality, sparks of reaction find that they are given undue space.

I'm seeking to display that some/many/most/whatever conceptions of communism fail to overcome the market, instead merely subduing it, pushing it to the margins where it permeates inwards, always threatening to encroach and reestablish itself - this begs the question of whether this spectral market can ever truly be abolished, though I ask this not in the interests of 'making concessions,' but in order to find a point from which a better, genuinely anti-market communism can be articulated. I am forced to acknowledge, however, that 'anti-market' and 'non-market' are not necessarily synonymous...

(At this point I would have replied to ckaihatsu, but I'm not actually sure how any of the words written relate to those quoted above them, and even if I did I'm not sure I understand what they mean in isolation in any case so I won't be much good here, will I? Fuck economics it's langgggg)

[Azraella]

You might want to check out Parecon (http://www.zcommunications.org/participatory-economics-and-the-self-emancipation-of-the-working-class-by-tom-wetzel). Warning: I consider the ideas essentially socialist/communist though plenty of others(even on this site alone) do not. I'll also note that the book explains the concepts better and you might be able to pirate that.

[ckaihatsu]

I am certainly not trying to 'smuggle' markets into communism. If anything I'm accusing others of doing so, by examining the friction between their grandiose claims and their practical proposals. I'm probing the line that separates (non-market) 'sharing' from (market) 'trade,' doubting that a clean distinction can in fact be made.


I do appreciate what you're getting at, Hatzel, but I'm also registering a note of concern at your choice of what you picked -- it's a fine line between *critiquing* a certain hazard, and *entertaining* that hazard yourself.

I guess I would just *personally* prefer to see a stronger *positive* line -- one that breaks cleanly from any reliance on market-based conceptions.