How Socialism Can Organize Production Without Money

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I don't agree with some of the rhetoric, but still a great article.

http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/how-socialism-can-organise-production-without-money-adam-buick-pieter-lawrence-1984

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Very good article, I admit that I need to re-read it a few times because issues like these are far more important that the majority of things we go on about on this site

[Yuppie Grinder]

Best response to Mises's criticism of post-scarcity economy I've read. It could do without all the misrepresenting the Bolsheviks.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Best response to Mises's criticism of post-scarcity economy I've read. It could do without all the misrepresenting the Bolsheviks.

Completely agree

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Anyone else want to discuss this?

[Ottoraptor]

I thought this was pretty good. I don't think the anti-bolshevism was too horrible, being somewhat anti-leninist myself I might be biased, but it is too be expected since Adam Buick is a member of the SPGB. I think that when he did criticize the bolsheviks and council communists, he did so for the right reasons. It never sat well with me that the council communists fell into the trap of labor vouchers and use labor time for calculation. I'm fairly tired at the moment and will respond more later.

[Luís Henrique]

There were three possible reactions to Von Mises's criticism:

To accept that money would have to continue to be the unit of economiccalculation in "socialism";
To argue that labour-time could be the unit of economic calculation "in aneconomy where neither money nor exchange were present";
To argue that in socialism "calculation in natura [in kind] can take the placeof monetary calculation".

There would be a fourth reaction, which would be, "in a communist society economic calculation would become unnecessary and obsolete".

Luís Henrique

ETA: Which is what Bordiga actually says:


In post-bourgeois society, therefore, it will not be a question of "measuring value by labour-time", as fools believe, but of finishing altogether with the measurement of value.Of course, this is no longer "economic calculation" at all; it is the "replacement of government of men by administration of things", the end of labour and the end of economy - not merely the replacement of economic calculation in money by economic calculation in natura, which seems to imply some kind of centralised bartering.

[robbo203]

There would be a fourth reaction, which would be, "in a communist society economic calculation would become unnecessary and obsolete".

Luís Henrique

ETA: Which is what Bordiga actually says:

Of course, this is no longer "economic calculation" at all; it is the "replacement of government of men by administration of things", the end of labour and the end of economy - not merely the replacement of economic calculation in money by economic calculation in natura, which seems to imply some kind of centralised bartering.


No it doesnt. Calculation in kind means just that. The technical process of stock control carried on in retail establishments like supermerkets today, for example, involves calculation in kind. So you monitor the rate at which your tins of baked beans are being cleared from the shelves and work out from that how much fresh stock needs to be ordered from the suppliers, accordingly

A socialist society - or any kind of feasible society - will need to continue with calculations of this nature - but will dispense complete with monetary calculations. And of course barter as well

There is something about all this here

http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm

[Luís Henrique]

No it doesnt. Calculation in kind means just that. The technical process of stock control carried on in retail establishments like supermerkets today, for example, involves calculation in kind. So you monitor the rate at which your tins of baked beans are being cleared from the shelves and work out from that how much fresh stock needs to be ordered from the suppliers, accordingly

But this is not economy, it is management. Economic calculation would be calculation of value, which is unnecessary in a socialist society.


There is something about all this here

http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm

Thanks, going to have a look at it.

Luís Henrique

[Tim Cornelis]

The article, by no means, refutes the criticisms made by Von Mises. It mostly misrepresents Von Mises' views, but I have no time to elaborate. I think anyone who seriously looks into his criticisms will find there is no refutation, only nuances.


But this is not economy, it is management. Economic calculation would be calculation of value, which is unnecessary in a socialist society.

If you have any superficial understanding of economics you will know economic calculation is an absolute necessity for any economic activity.

You want to build a road without economic calculation? You would just start building with no concern over how much resources you need to build that road, you just grab any random amount of resources. Of course, no one is stupid enough to do so. When building a road in a communist society you assess how much resources are needed to do so:
- how much labour (time)
- how much asphalt
- what machinery is needed
- etc.
And this constitutes economic calculation in kind (and labour time).

[Luís Henrique]

If you have any superficial understanding of economics you will know economic calculation is an absolute necessity for any economic activity.

Sure; but what is "economic" activity?


You want to build a road without economic calculation?

OK. Let's suppose a socialist society will have some business building roads - which I'm far from sure, but never mind, it doesn't matter for the subject we are discussing.


You would just start building with no concern over how much resources you need to build that road, you just grab any random amount of resources. Of course, no one is stupid enough to do so. When building a road in a communist society you assess how much resources are needed to do so:
- how much labour (time)
- how much asphalt
- what machinery is needed
- etc.
And this constitutes economic calculation in kind (and labour time).

Well, no. You do have to make engineering calculations to understand what is needed to build a road - indeed, to build the particular road we want to build at this moment. If you want to build x kilometers of a y meter wide road, with the appropriate material to withstand the actual climatic and geological conditions, to sustain a given predicted traffic - then you don't need any economic calculation; you need a technical calculation, that will tell you how much asphalt, crushed stone, stone slabs, concrete, dead labour (ie, machines) and live "labour" time you need.

What the Misean argument is? Not that you can't calculate that in a socialist "economy" (which obviously you can). But that you wouldn't be able to choose the most economic method if, in any case, there were two or more different methods for building the same road - while in a capitalist economy the choice would be attained by economic calculation, ie, by summing up the costs of each method, and deciding which is cheaper.

In practice, this means exactly that Mises is telling us that a socialist "economy" can't decide on the best proportion between dead labour and live labour - which in turn means that, according to Mises, socialism eliminates the incentive for technological advancement, necessarily becoming economically inefficient, and being defeated in competition by capitalist economies, if any remains.

And, evidently, he was right in what came to "state-and-market socialist economies" as they existed in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other "working class paradises" around the world. And he was right exactly because these were still economies, centered around competition and efficiency, but at the same time denied themselves the appropriate economic mechanisms for calculating economic efficiency - which cannot, by any means, be calculated in natura, because it evidently implies value and cost comparisons, deciding what method is cheaper.

The proper communist argument, I think, is that communism is no longer an "economy", and we will be no longer seeking for economic efficiency. In other words, the criteria to decide between two different methods of production will boil down to two different aspects: first, quality of the product (we don't mind if the product is somewhat more "expensive" (ie, demanding in terms of human and natural resource) as long at it fits better the needs we intend to satisfy); and, second, whether those methods are more or less demanding in terms of human time, regardless of whether this makes them "cheaper" - meaning that we will systematically seek technological advancement, even where a capitalist economy would decide against it as anti-economical.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm

Thanks for that link; very enlightening indeed. Unhappily it made me even more certain that there is a difference between economic calculation and technical calculation, and that the former is unnecessary in a communist society. Perhaps I'm misreading it?

Luís Henrique

[robbo203]

The article, by no means, refutes the criticisms made by Von Mises. It mostly misrepresents Von Mises' views, but I have no time to elaborate. I think anyone who seriously looks into his criticisms will find there is no refutation, only nuances.

.

Really? Perhaps you ought to elaborate because I, for one, have no idea what you are on about

[Lowtech]

The reason why it is not possible to use labour-time as a general equivalent in place of money is that the exchange-value of a product does not depend on the actual amount of labour incorporated in that product in the course of its production from start to finish but on the amount of socially-necessary labour incorporated in it, which is by no means the same (otherwise an inefficient worker would, because he took more time, produce more value than an efficient worker, but this is not the case).

exchange value is an artificial conundrum. these concepts are only a problem because we're not moving out of the market paradigm.

with the market removed, what we have left is the logistics of allocating a resource from where it is produced to where it is needed.

we know how much water, food, materials are needed per person, the rest can be satisfied with local production with 3D printers/rapid prototyping equipment etc.

[Zulu]

Of course, calculation in kind is what is needed, but the problem is how to get there from here? And that's exactly that the Bolsheviks were occupied with, and what this article does not say a single line about.

[robbo203]

Of course, calculation in kind is what is needed, but the problem is how to get there from here? And that's exactly that the Bolsheviks were occupied with, and what this article does not say a single line about.


Calculation in kind is what is practised every single day of the year in every single capitalist enterprise in business. Go to your local supermarket and check out what the shelf fillers are doing.

We dont need to institute calculation in kind - no conceivable kind of economy, including capitalism, could function without it. We simply need to rid society of that parallel form of accounting which is monetary accounting and the socio economic relationships of class ownership that underlie this form of accounting.

The economisation of resources that the money systemn is supposed to perform (while wasting vast amounts of resources on unproductive activities, such as banking, in the process) can easily be performed via a self regulating system of stock control, directly taking into account the relative scarcities of different stocks

[Zulu]

can easily be performed via a self regulating system of stock control, directly taking into account the relative scarcities of different stocks

Whatever that means, and regardless of its technical feasibility, there is a large portion of the population called the petty bourgeoisie that won't fall for it, because they simply do not want to. That banking waste serves them better. They would stop participating in the economic activity en masse, and there goes your entire economy down the drain. That's not to speak about the massive "free lunch" problem which cannot be eliminated unless there is a lengthy transitional period during which the need for material incentive to labor withers away along with other "birthmarks of capitalism".

[robbo203]

Whatever that means, and regardless of its technical feasibility, there is a large portion of the population called the petty bourgeoisie that won't fall for it, because they simply do not want to. That banking waste serves them better. They would stop participating in the economic activity en masse, and there goes your entire economy down the drain. That's not to speak about the massive "free lunch" problem which cannot be eliminated unless there is a lengthy transitional period during which the need for material incentive to labor withers away along with other "birthmarks of capitalism".

Not that I accept your thesis anyway - this whole business about the so called petty bourgeois is grossly overblown in my view - but what has this got to do with the proctical oirganisation of a socialist economy using calculation in kind? Calculation in kind is an existing reality; it does not need to be implemented at some future date when socialism is implemented

[Strannik]

Argument of von Mises is a relatively cheap trick where a correct statement is tied with a false one in order to make both appear correct.

Capitalist exchange economy has two fundamental concepts: abstract value (money) and abstract property right. One is constantly exchanged for another with the hope of accumulating more rights to property. And capitalism cannot eliminate money market nor private property or the cycle of accumulation breaks and their economy grinds to halt.

Socialism, however, does not exchange anything. It distributes labour. It does not need to know whether right to an individual commodity has a higher or lower price, because society keeps holding the right to all resources. In order to organize production in socialism you need two things: the social inventory (common list of all resources) and sequence of labour tasks (answers to questions what to do with resources, when to do it and who should do it).

This task list has to be constantly reconstructed by society as a whole. Its inputs have to include information about social inventory, all individual orders for usership rights, individual offers for fulfilling these orders and finally social policies. If constructed in such a manner, individuals can organize their actions not based on how much property rights they accumulate, but based on whether they desire a particular configuration of material resources more or less than another possible configuration.

This kind of social arrangement, based on general social planning is the prerequizite for moving forward to true economic abundance in a world of limited resources.

[Zulu]

Calculation in kind is an existing reality

Well, of course, but this is overtrivialization. Naturally, each person calculates his needs in kind: "I need such&such number of this and such&such amount of that today/this week". But complications mount as soon as you get above this level. Society cannot afford to wait for every last one of its members and production units to submit their individual requests, or whatever it is you envisage your system as, because that would immediately stall all production. The calculation needs to be done before those requests are submitted, so that all products, including the end-user consumption items would be at the right places of the supply chain the moment requests for them are submitted.

[robbo203]

Well, of course, but this is overtrivialization. Naturally, each person calculates his needs in kind: "I need such&such number of this and such&such amount of that today/this week". But complications mount as soon as you get above this level. Society cannot afford to wait for every last one of its members and production units to submit their individual requests, or whatever it is you envisage your system as, because that would immediately stall all production. The calculation needs to be done before those requests are submitted, so that all products, including the end-user consumption items would be at the right places of the supply chain the moment requests for them are submitted.

It is quite impossible for society to work out in advance everything what is needs to produce down the last 3mm screw and there is absolutely no need for it to do so, anyway. The whole point about a self regulating system of stock control is that it is self regulating. As stocks of baked beans become depleted in your local distribution centre, this automatically triggers a signal to the suppliers in the form of an order for fresh stock of baked beans. In fact, much like what happens today in your local supermarket....

[Zulu]

self regulating.

To me this smells exactly the same as the belief in the "invisible hand of the market". Although the belief of such obscurantists as Von Mises is somewhat less obscurant, as they realize that the self-regulation is the smoothest when there is a stock of the "universal equivalent".



down the last 3mm screw

And this is just a common anti-commie propaganda trick, like the one with the "common tooth brushes".

[robbo203]

To me this smells exactly the same as the belief in the "invisible hand of the market". Although the belief of such obscurantists as Von Mises is somewhat less obscurant, as they realize that the self-regulation is the smoothest when there is a stock of the "universal equivalent".



Only to a non-marxist would the idea of a self regulating system of stock control appear to equate with the "invisible hand of the market" or sanction the concept of a "universal equivalent". To a Marxist it is pretty obvious where the idea of a "universal equivalent" comes from. It stems from the exigencies of production for sale = to ensure equivalence in the exchange ratios. Its got nothing to do with non market production directly for use (communism/socialism).

That apart, you have overlooked the simple and obvious point that a self regulating system of stock control by definition is one that employs the notion of calculation in kind and that this makes a complete nonsense of your assertion.


And you have not provided any argument whasoever to substantiate your claim that we need to work out in advance everything that needs to be produced and then produce it. This simply is not possible in the real world and I dont think you have any clue of what you are talking about.


Even something as simple as a 3 mm screw requires material inputs, machinery. energy etc to manufacture. Assuming you could reach agreement on how many 3mm screws "society" needed, you would then have to work out what you needed to produce this quantity of 3mm screws. Since there are millions upon millions of different items - for screws alone there are probably hundreds of different types and lengths of screws - how would you figure that out? And even if you could figure all that out how could you ensure you met the production targets of each of millions upon millions of of different inputs and outputs and in the ratios set down according to your mega input output table. Siunce production is integrated and social - to meet one target requires that you meet the rest

The answer is of course you can't do this in this a priori sense and it would be stupid even to try. Even something as straightforward as a natural disaster that wiped out part of the corn crop in the US mid-West would have knock on consequences that would ripple through and upset all your carefully worked out calculations. You would have just wasted all you time on a fruitless gesture

Because the world is a dynamic and complex place there is absolutely zero chance of your scenario coming about. Realism requires us to recognise that a degree of self regulation has to be built into a feasible model of the future - including a non market communist/socialist model

[Zulu]

That apart, you have overlooked the simple and obvious point that a self regulating system of stock control by definition is one that employs the notion of calculation in kind and that this makes a complete nonsense of your assertion.
No it doesn't, because the universal equivalent is "a kind" in its own right, of which there may be "a stock", so it perfectly fits into your system of "self-regulating stocks", whatever it is.



Even something as straightforward as a natural disaster that wiped out part of the corn crop in the US mid-West would have knock on consequences that would ripple through and upset all your carefully worked out calculations. You would have just wasted all you time on a fruitless gesture


Yaeh, we've been through this before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-nature-soviet-t169000/index9.html), so this time just simply try to describe how exactly your "self-regulating system" would "self regulate", including but not limited to the case of something as straightforward as a natural disaster that wiped out part of the corn crop in the US mid-West. I bet it would simply adjust the "stock" of people to match the shortage of food without even a hint of a relief effort.




Realism requires us to recognise that a degree of self regulation has to be built into a feasible model of the future - including a non market communist/socialist model

And since sapient human beings are part of my model, their conscious activity at centrally planning everything is all that there needs to be to meet your criterion of "self regulation".

[robbo203]

No it doesn't, because the universal equivalent is "a kind" in its own right, of which there may be "a stock", so it perfectly fits into your system of "self-regulating stocks", whatever it is.


No. Simply no. Calculation in kind, which is what a self regulating system of stock control operates with, precludes by definition a universal equivalent. Money is fundamentally a social relationship - not a physical thing as such. This is basic Marxism. Calculation in kind is the counting of physical things in physical terms - cans of baked beans, bottles of wine, cubic metres of builders sand. You can't calculate how many baked beans there are in terms of cubic metres of sand, can you now?





Yaeh, we've been through this before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-nature-soviet-t169000/index9.html), so this time just simply try to describe how exactly your "self-regulating system" would "self regulate", including but not limited to the case of something as straightforward as a natural disaster that wiped out part of the corn crop in the US mid-West. I bet it would simply adjust the "stock" of people to match the shortage of food without even a hint of a relief effort.

Don't be silly. Of course a self regulating system, which is the only option available anyway, would respond to the above situation in the same way as if you were to run out of baked beans in your local distribution centre - by triggering an order for fresh stock or in this case, more food from supplies elsewhere. In fact , efficient stock control systems utilise and put into the practice the notion of buffer stocks - precisely to accommodate unexpected flcuations in the supply and demand. It is the ludicrous idea of apriori society-wide planning which, even if it could get off the ground, would be totally inflexible in the face of a disaster such as the above for the reasons explained





And since sapient human beings are part of my model, their conscious activity at centrally planning everything is all that there needs to be to meet your criterion of "self regulation".

This makes no sense at all. What are you talking about? Any conscious human being can only grasp a minsucule part of the total complex picture of a production system - any production system. No one, not even a technocratic elite armed with the most sophisticated computers can plan the totality of what goes on in production. That is cloud cuckoo land thinking

[Zulu]

Money is fundamentally a social relationship - not a physical thing as such. This is basic Marxism.

Basic Marxism is that capital is fundamentally a social relationship. And capital can express itself in physical things, such as factory walls, machines in the factory, a safe in the office and golden coins in that safe, and the coins are quite physical. You see, money emerged historically as a physical object, and like it or not, bottles of wine were counted in round-shaped pieces of gold. Perhaps, it's no coincidence, that Von Mises' adepts have always supported the gold standard...

So like I said half a year ago, it's only a matter of time till money emerges in your system exactly the same way it emerged around 1000 BC and then evolves to paper money, credit money, derivatives and all that stuff we have now.



efficient stock control systems utilise and put into the practice the notion of buffer stocks - precisely to accommodate unexpected flcuations in the supply and demand. It is the ludicrous idea of apriori society-wide planningwhich, even if it could get off the ground, would be totally inflexible in the face of a disaster such as the above for the reasons explained
Problem is, such "buffer stocks" can be piled up only on a preplanned basis, and if you want them to be available to the entire society, the planning needs to be society-wide. Whereas a "self-regulating" system without conscious human imput simply won't "know" that such things as droughts exist until after the fact.

[robbo203]

Basic Marxism is that capital is fundamentally a social relationship. And capital can express itself in physical things, such as factory walls, machines in the factory, a safe in the office and golden coins in that safe, and the coins are quite physical. You see, money emerged historically as a physical object, and like it or not, bottles of wine were counted in round-shaped pieces of gold. Perhaps, it's no coincidence, that Von Mises' adepts have always supported the gold standard...



Absolute tosh, of course. Youve got it the completely the wrong way round. Here's Marx on the subject:

A Negro is a Negro. Only under certain conditions does he become a slave. A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital. Torn away from these conditions, it is as little capital as gold is itself money, or sugar is the price of sugar.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/)




So like I said half a year ago, it's only a matter of time till money emerges in your system exactly the same way it emerged around 1000 BC and then evolves to paper money, credit money, derivatives and all that stuff we have now.

Let me get this straoght then. According to you unless you have absolute and complete apriori society wide planning in which EVERYTHING down to the last 3mm screw has planned in advance by some central planning authority vested with godlike powers to predict peoples tastes - all 7 billions of us - over the course of the next 5 year plan AND to persuade Mother Nature not to unleash some natural disater that would upset all those carefully worked out input-output ratios, then we will just have to settle for the capitalist market.

After all, if its not central planning in your sense then it must involve some self regulation or spontaneous adjustment of supply and demand, right? And that according to you leads unerringly to ...ahem ..."paper money, credit money, derivatives and all that stuff we have now". No argument whatsoever is advanced to support this ridiculous claim, its simply an ex cathedra prounouncement on your part. You say it is so therefore it must be so. But where's your proof? Where? Where?


Sorry but I dont think you have the slightest clue what you are talking about. At all





Problem is, such "buffer stocks" can be piled up only on a preplanned basis, and if you want them to be available to the entire society, the planning needs to be society-wide. Whereas a "self-regulating" system without conscious human imput simply won't "know" that such things as droughts exist until after the fact.


This confirms what I thought. You dont know what society wide planning is or what a self regulating system is at all. Its got nothing to do with the presence or absence of "conscious human input". Your supermarket worker today can quite consciously monitor the rate of depletion of baked beans from the supermarket shelf and calculate more or less how many tins might be needed to satisfy the demand for baked beans next week. She cannot be totally certain, of course, but she can make an educated guess and add a few more tins in her order for good measure to cover any unexpected surge in demand. Thats is what is meant by a "buffer" stock. She is not preplanning for the needs of the "entire society" for baked beans - let alone all the other needs of that society. She cant. Nobody can. And there is absolutely no need to anyway. Think about it . How on earth can some central body on high even begin to set about determining what they think individuals throughout society want to consume and then set about coodinatiing the inputs and establishing the appropriate production ratios to meet these targets? And what would be the point anyway since everything changes , rendering the plan useless the moment it came off the bureaucrats shelf

The idea is absolutely ludicrous and if it is ludicrous then it logically foillows that some degee of spontaneity and self regulation in the sphere of production is absolutely inevitable. My preference is for a communist self regulating economy rather than a capitalist one. Whats yours?

[Lowtech]

Well, of course, but this is overtrivialization. Naturally, each person calculates his needs in kind: "I need such&such number of this and such&such amount of that today/this week". But complications mount as soon as you get above this level. Society cannot afford to wait for every last one of its members and production units to submit their individual requests, or whatever it is you envisage your system as, because that would immediately stall all production. The calculation needs to be done before those requests are submitted, so that all products, including the end-user consumption items would be at the right places of the supply chain the moment requests for them are submitted.

Exactly. Are you the only light of reason in this entire thread? Some other posters are implying that a communist economy needs to emulate a market, which is not only false, its rediculous.

Just no progress with some.

[Zulu]

Torn away from these conditions, it is as little capital as gold is itself money, or sugar is the price of sugar.


This in no way contradicts what I said. Gold was just gold, then it became money. At times other things (some of them more useful than gold) were used for money. And in reality you can't just "tear something away from its conditions".





According to you unless you have absolute and complete apriori society wide planning in which EVERYTHING down to the last 3mm screw ... then we will just have to settle for the capitalist market.
No, according to me, we'll have to settle for the capitalist market, if we don't begin constructing a centrally planned economy, which will ideally in a couple of centuries reach the "resolution" allowing to plan everything down to the last 3mm screw, but will include strategic reserves in case for all sorts of feasible disasters from the get go. Energy and mining will be fully planned in kind first, then it will encompass more and more industries with each planning cycle. Unlike you, I don't think getting from here to there will take one night.





After all, if its not central planning in your sense then it must involve some self regulation or spontaneous adjustment of supply and demand, right? And that according to you leads unerringly to ...ahem ..."paper money, credit money, derivatives and all that stuff we have now".

For the entire period of socialism we'll need to retain some kind of money (maybe in the form of some labor tokens, although I've been having my reservations about this whole "according to labor" thing recently), but with the clear understanding that it's a "birthmark of capitalism", waiting to be done away with when the construction of a fully communist economic basis is complete.




where's your proof?
In the fact that the anarchy of the primitive "self-regulating" "communism" has already led to the appearance of money once... No, actually not once, since money were invented independently in many places on Earth.




Your supermarket worker today can quite consciously monitor the rate of depletion of baked beans from the supermarket shelf and calculate more or less how many tins might be needed to satisfy the demand for baked beans next week. She cannot be totally certain, of course, but she can make an educated guess and add a few more tins in her order for good measure to cover any unexpected surge in demand. Thats is what is meant by a "buffer" stock.
Actually, no. Supermarkets don't have any "buffer stocks", because that would slow down circulation, take storage space that could be used for moving other items, etc. Instead, they up the prices when something is getting "hot". And even if they did, I seriously doubt that they'd have in mind something so big as a "natural disaster that wiped out part of the corn crop in the US mid-West". That would catch them completely unprepared, and they would run dry of supplies very fast, unless they had prices and riot police to enforce them so that those who couldn't pay would legally starve in a "self-regulating system". So it would be actually prudent in your model - much more prudent that it is now - that every citizen gets his "Alex Jones survival pack" to do their part of the self regulating calculation in kind...





My preference is for a communist self regulating economy rather than a capitalist one. Whats yours?
A "self-regulating" (as opposed to "planned by human") economy can't be communist. I could quotemine M&E on this, but let me instead remind you of just two prerequisites that an economy must meet to be considered communist:

1) Abundance - so that there'd be enough goods and services available to satisfy the needs of every human body on this planet.

2) The "New Man", whose primary need will be labor, so that the supply of those goods and services doesn't drop below the abundance level, once they become freely available.

Neither of these two prerequisites exist at this time, so although I do just 4lulz cast my vote for your supermarket anarchist economy, I realize that it would be over quite quickly, and then it would be back to business as usual.

[robbo203]

Exactly. Are you the only light of reason in this entire thread? Some other posters are implying that a communist economy needs to emulate a market, which is not only false, its rediculous.

Just no progress with some.


Do you know what a market is? It is an institution that entails the buying and selling of commodities in which access to goods and services is (usually) conditionally upon the exchange of money for such things. Asserting that a communist economy is not, and cannot possibly be, one based on apriori societywide planning is in no way, shape or form, suggesting that it needs to "emulate the market". What a ridiculous remark! The relatively decentralised nature of a communist economy has no bearing whatsoever on the conditions under which people will have access to such goods and services - namely free access or access without any quid pro quo exchange being involved as in the case of a market


The physical process of stock control has got nothing to do with the market per se. Yes, it operates today within what is a market economy but to suggest that it somehow signifies a market economy is like saying that factories or farms are essentially market institutions becuase they respond to market incentives and that a non market communist economy will therefore dispense with factories and farms!

Utterly absurd

[Zulu]

Exactly. Are you the only light of reason in this entire thread? Some other posters are implying that a communist economy needs to emulate a market, which is not only false, its rediculous.

Just no progress with some.

This one (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialism-and-queues-t175782/index.html) appears to be more intelligent.

[Zulu]

communist economy will therefore dispense with factories and farms!


Well, it kinda will, because the entire economy will operate like single factory. Or a space station.

[robbo203]

No, according to me, we'll have to settle for the capitalist market, if we don't begin constructing a centrally planned economy, which will ideally in a couple of centuries reach the "resolution" allowing to plan everything down to the last 3mm screw, but will include strategic reserves in case for all sorts of feasible disasters from the get go. Energy and mining will be fully planned in kind first, then it will encompass more and more industries with each planning cycle. Unlike you, I don't think getting from here to there will take one night.


You still dont get it. There cannot be such a thing as an economy in which everything is planned in advance in one single integrated plan in which literally millions of inputs and outputs are interlinked within some kind of giant Leontief type matrix.

IT IS A LITERAL IMPOSSIBILITY!. Forget it.

Even if you could somehow satisfactorily establish from some single world centre what the worlds entire population wanted - how would you even begin to do that? - and then worked out the production targets for these millions of different things taking into account all the complex technical ratios involved (e.g. how many tons of steel does it take to produce 100 tractors and what about terchical innovations that alter this ?) the postion would still be ABSOLUTELY HOPELESS .

Since the outputs of some things serve as inputs for others any shortfall in any part of the plan would have ripple effects that would modify the plan as a whole. At any one point in time there are likely to be thousands of cases where the amount of a given product that is produced diverges from what is planned for all sorts of reasons including of course natural disasters. That being so what would be the point of centralised planning in this sense anyway? It would be a complete waste of time and resoruces. You could not use it as a guide for anything

The Soviet Union , some would argue, was the most ambitious attempt to implement a system of planning of this nature but the most that it could handle was a few hundred products - not the hundreds of thousands of prodcuts to be found in the real world. A cats array of decisions had of necessity to be devolved downwards to the state enterprises themselves such as the technical compostion of products. On its own terms the Soviet system was a complete failure - not a single plan was ever really fulfuilled. What usually happened was the plan was modified midstream to make it appear as if it was being fulfilled. Sometimes the plan was not even made available to the state enterprises after commencement of the implentation period

Finally consider what is involved in society wide planning. To stand any chance of working production targets would have to met rigourously acoss the board. The only way in which that could be done is through a system of brutal coercion and the centralised direction of labour . Soiciety wide planning would amount to a form of technocratic fascism which no communist in their right mind would touch with a bargepole.



Actually, no. Supermarkets don't have any "buffer stocks", because that would slow down circulation, take storage space that could be used for moving other items, etc. Instead, they up the prices when something is getting "hot".

Obviously you have never worked in a supermarket as a shelf filler, :rolleyes: Supermarkets dont wait for the tins of baked bins to run our before they contact the suppliers or wholesalers. They keep some stock in reserve to put out on the shelves as and when required. There is no point in putting up the price of baked beans if you havent got any tins of baked beans to sell! A supermarket that ran out of "hot" lines of stock as you call it would soon find their customers patronising some other store. So it is very much in their interest to keep some stock in reserve just in case they need to respond to surges in demand. Of course they have to balance this against other considerations such as floor space and the shelf of products as well. Getting the balance right is what makes for effective stock control and this will be as true in a communist society as in a market capitalist society

[Lowtech]

Do you know what a market is?yes I do. the market is the paradigm of commodities in exchange based on erratic wants of individuals and the false belief that such a process is itself economics or an axiom of economics.
You still don't get it. There cannot be such a thing as an economy in which everything is planned in advance in one single integrated plan in which literally millions of inputs and outputs are interlinked within some kind of giant Leontief type matrix.

IT IS A LITERAL IMPOSSIBILITY!. Forget it.you're only correct if one believes that a communist economy is central planning of exchange. like a single gigantic amazon.com that all people order their goods from and employs everyone. however this belief is incorrect, a planned economy is not central planning of exchange, it is central planning of logistics. a communist economy, or more simply an economy without a market will have minute resemblance to our current example of production. only a narrow understanding of economics and humanity would produce the assumption that communism would not also involve the redesign and reassessment of all commodities, skill sets and even the full redesign of cities. any view less than that is archaic and misconstrues communism.


Even if you could somehow satisfactorily establish from some single world centre what the worlds entire population wanted - how would you even begin to do that? - and then worked out the production targets for these millions of different things taking into account all the complex technical ratios involved (e.g. how many tons of steel does it take to produce 100 tractors and what about technical innovations that alter this ?) the position would still be ABSOLUTELY HOPELESS.again, you advocate a market. only a market treats erratic wants as a means to "allocate" resources. capitalism demonstrates daily that this is a completely idiotic, wasteful, insufficient and dangerous method in meeting need. whether you realize it or not, you either A) do not understand economics well enough to observe what parts of our current economy are unnecessary or B) you post at revleft to willfully misconstrue and confuse while simultaneously implying that communism will fail at central planing of exchange, supporting your belief that capitalism is superior.
The Soviet Union , some would argue, was the most ambitious attempt to implement a system of planning of this nature but the most that it could handle was a few hundred products - not the hundreds of thousands of products to be found in the real world. A cats array of decisions had of necessity to be devolved downwards to the state enterprises themselves such as the technical composition of products. On its own terms the Soviet system was a complete failurebureaucratic failure is not the same as communism failing. forgive me for lumping you in with capitalists, but if you don't understand state capitalism and totalitarianism failed in the USSR and not communism, you are very likely a capitalist and certainly not a communist.
Finally consider what is involved in society wide planning. To stand any chance of working production targets would have to met rigorously across the board. The only way in which that could be done is through a system of brutal coercion and the centralized direction of labour . Society wide planning would amount to a form of technocratic fascism which no communist in their right mind would touch with a bargepole.you are utterly false. but setting that aside, what alternative do you advocate? be honest. no need for semantics or subversion. let your views speak for themselves. you won't make me cry if you told me how you really feel about capitalism.

[Zulu]

IT IS A LITERAL IMPOSSIBILITY!. Forget it.

The same used to be said about steamships and airplanes. Guess how that has turned out.





technocratic fascism

OK, why don't you just admit that you keep spewing your technophobic anarchist nonsense just because you dislike the idea of central planning?

Anyway, "technocratic fascism" is an oxymoron. Because social engineering technologies are just as indispensable to a technocracy as any others, and fascism with its completely irrational approach to society at the very basis of its doctrine precludes those from being properly developed.

By contrast, communism can be nothing but technocratic, and consistent technocracy can be nothing but communist. Because it's a scientific fact that social inequality is by itself a factor diminishing the productivity of labor and the overall efficiency of society, so it needs to be eliminated to maximize efficiency (its elimination is not an end, but a means to an end).





Obviously you have never worked in a supermarket as a shelf filler

Obviously you have never worked in a supermarket as a manager, or you'd know that they may lose bonuses and even become subjects of corporate security investigation, if any item isn't sold out as fast as company specifications prescribe. Naturally, some stock needs to be kept in the back of the supermarket itself, but it's limited to the average demand for the item per certain period (no more than two weeks for most items). I repeat again, this system has absolutely zero chance of responding to an unexpected surge in demand for an item. But that's even beside the point. The point is how do you allocate labor in your system so that those beans could be produced in the first place? And such trifles like, at which supermarket does one get a new 100km maglev commuter line from point A to point B? This topic is called "How can you organize production", not distribution, remember?

[Lowtech]

By contrast, communism can be nothing but technocratic, and consistent technocracy can be nothing but communist. Because it's a scientific fact that social inequality is by itself a factor diminishing the productivity of labor and the overall efficiency of society, so it needs to be eliminated to maximize efficiency (its elimination is not an end, but a means to an end).

Masterfully and eloquently worded. this topic is concluded IMO!

[robbo203]

you're only correct if one believes that a communist economy is central planning of exchange. like a single gigantic amazon.com that all people order their goods from and employs everyone. however this belief is incorrect, a planned economy is not central planning of exchange, it is central planning of logistics. a communist economy, or more simply an economy without a market will have minute resemblance to our current example of production. only a narrow understanding of economics and humanity would produce the assumption that communism would not also involve the redesign and reassessment of all commodities, skill sets and even the full redesign of cities. any view less than that is archaic and misconstrues communism


No you still dont understand. You still dont seem to grasp what the issue is about at all. It is precisely the logistical problem that completely rules out society wide planning . It simply cannot be done . It is simply not possible to plan in an apriori sense the totality of production but you dont seem to understand what is meant by this. Talk of "redesigning cities" and whatnot is all very well but it doesnt begin to touch on the problem. Even redesigning a city would have to involve a considerable degree of practical devolutiuon to all the multiple agencies involved in such a huge and multifaceted task

The totality of production encompasses, and relates to, not only the millions of different products but also the quantitities in which they are produced. Some products are producer goods , others are consumer goods. For each of these millions of products, production targets would need to be set in your schema which would have to be calibrated to take into account things such as technical ratios. - how much of a given input is required to produce some given output. Society wide planning is the proposal to work out in advance what all these production targets are going to be and for this proposal to stand even the slightest chance of working it will have to ensure somehow that these millions of production targets are met right across the board without exception Why? Because the fulfulment of some targets depends on the fulfilment of others that serve as inputs for the former. It is the interdependent nature of modern production that torpedoes the very idea of society centralised planning from the word go


I dont think you have the slightest clue of just how impossibly huge - or just plain impossible - a task it is you propose to undetake with this batty idea of yours. Firstly. you are going to have work out what people need. That sound easy for an armchair theorist if you dont trouble yourself with thinking about how this could be done. Who is the better able to to tell you what you need - you or some bureaucrat in an office somewhere. I think the answer is obvious, even if being social animals, we are conditioned by the society in which we live. Your needs may be different from mine because our circumstances differ. This imposes an additional layer of complexity on an already complex problem. Then you have to ensure somehow that people do not consume more - or indeed less - than has been allowed for by the Plan but must sticl the personal basket of goods allocated to each citizen. In short, that the pattern of consumer demand remains rigidly fixed for the duration of the Plan. You can't for example permit consumer preferences to change in any way as this would create imbalances - shortages of some goods, surpluses of others. Any attempt to rectify these imbalances would in fact mean overriding and departing from the Plan and going down the road towards a self regulating economy which you have spurned but you cant seem to see this.

But if the demand side of the equation poses massive problems for your schema of society wide planning then these pale by comparison with the problems associated with the supply side. How, for a start, are you going to ensure that the production targets of each of the millions of products of a modern economy are going to be met across the board (as they will need to be for the Plan to work) My guess is that you would be compelled in the end to resort to the coercive direction of labour by a central authority and so what you would end up with is a kind of technocratic fascist state in a which a slave class is obliged to carry out the instructions issued a ruling class. What is absolutely certain is that it would have absolutely nothing to with communism whatosever. You would also have to rule out any kind of technological innovation for the duration of the Plan as well since this too would almost certainly modify the technical ratios involved in the production of numerous products as so render the Plan incoherent. And then there all sorts of unforeseen events - like natural disasters or accidents - that would totally (and morover constantly) disrupt the whole structure of the Plan and have ripple effects that would completely undermine all those carefully worked out input-output ratios contained in the plan. At the end of the day the Plan would be worth less than the paper it was printed on. In point of fact it would never ever see the light of day and a huge amount of social effort would be utterly wasted in the pursuit of something that was impossible to implement

I could go on but you have enough on your plate as it is - trying to defend the indefensible.







.again, you advocate a market. only a market treats erratic wants as a means to "allocate" resources. capitalism demonstrates daily that this is a completely idiotic, wasteful, insufficient and dangerous method in meeting need. whether you realize it or not, you either A) do not understand economics well enough to observe what parts of our current economy are unnecessary or B) you post at revleft to willfully misconstrue and confuse while simultaneously implying that communism will fail at central planing of exchange, supporting your belief that capitalism is superior.bureaucratic failure is not the same as communism failing. forgive me for lumping you in with capitalists, but if you don't understand state capitalism and totalitarianism failed in the USSR and not communism, you are very likely a capitalist and certainly not a communist.you are utterly false. but setting that aside, what alternative do advocate? be honest. no need for semantics or subversion. let your views speak for themselves. you won't make me cry if you told me how you really feel about capitalism.


Sigh. Not this dumb-arse brain-dead argument again. It has already been patiently explained to you that a self regulating system of stock control is not and cannot be in itself a market process involving the exchange of commodities. For sure a market economy like any other conceivable economy in the modern world must utilise a self regulating system of stock control but that is not - repeat , NOT- the same thiing as saying that such a system is indicative of a market per se. There are many kinds of institutions that exist in our currrent capitalist market economy which will exist in a non-market communist society. Farms and factories currently respond to market incentives so by your warped logic farms and factories would no longer exist in a communist society and we will presumably susbisist on a diet of fresh air in such a society. Come to think of it , "planning" is widely practiced at every level of adminsitration in a capitalist society - does that means there will be no planning on a communist society. Whoops just shot yourself in the foot there, havent you?


Oh and forgive me for pointing out but your pig-ignorant comment that I am "very likely a capitalist" says much more about your lack of communist understanding than it does about me and reveals that, amongst many other things, you dont seem to understand what a capitalist is. A capitalist is a person who possesses sufficient capital not to have to sell his or her labour power to someone - something I can assure you I am not - and says nothing at all about his or her political standpoint. Herr Engels was a capitalist based in Manchester but that did not prevent him being a socialiist as well, did it now?

[Lowtech]

No you still dont understand.

I certainly don't understand the mess you pass on as "economics." what I find fascinating is you never describe anything, even the slightest bit, in mathematical terms. you give me some half assed definition of a capitalist.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

The only mathematical distinction between the plutocratic class and the rest of us is that the rich consume more than they produce. See the mathmatical description? the rich consume more than they produce. See how it has a nice ring to it? Quite simple I know, but effective.

Mathematics lends just that much more credibility to an "economics" argument. Are you writing this down?

now, how do capitalists exploit, not just workers but the entire economy? Artifical scarcity. no need for long winded paragraphs of mouth drooling.

Regarding erratic wants and bureaucracy telling us what we want, spare us your archane view of economics. we know the amount of materials needed to feed, cloth, educate, medically care for and shelter a human being. if someone wants to whine about wants, he may mash a few buttons on a 3D printer and make himself a nice pair of shoes or perhaps sandals, I don't want to descriminate based on footwear preference. Are you still writing this down? Good.

I can admit, I could be wrong about you being a capitalist, however with the on an on endless babble about why a planned economy can't meet the erratic wants of everyone on the planet and the argument that this will lead to utter failure, is in fact simplified to a few assumptions:

-economy must function based on wants, choices, essentially the concept we call today "the consumer"

-economy is comprised of disorganized production centers that "exchange" goods

-you cannot predict the wants of individuals

-to plan an economy all commodities must be allocated at micro scales by one central authority.

the first three directly define a market. so you are passing on a market as itself being the fundimental function of economics. Which is false and one cannot simultaneously believe that and be a communist.

The last assumption is simply a garbage definition of communism so crude that it is an easier target than actual communism for someone wishing to spread miss information, spreading the subconscious dilusion that capitalism (a market) is superior.

If I am wrong, you seriously need to rethink your theories, you're coming off way too rockefeller for my tastes.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The only mathematical distinction between the plutocratic class and the rest of us is that the rich consume more than they produce. See the mathmatical description? the rich consume more than they produce. See how it has a nice ring to it? Quite simple I know, but effective.

Unfortunately, also quite simplistic, since this is true of, for example, workers in the service sector, who produce nothing.

Of course, those in the service sector perform labour which produces value within the dominant logic of capital, but I'll be damned if I've in anyway made "stuff" appreciable to what I've consumed. Running with that first thought, though, and saying that "labour" in general, as it is understood in relationship to capital is what counts, what about the "lumpen" and disenfranchised of society. A homebum, for example, certainly plays a social function w/r/t capital, but to say that a homebum produces anything is pretty silly - and they certainly consume.


Mathematics lends just that much more credibility to an "economics" argument. Are you writing this down?

Of course, "credibility" doesn't necessarily conform to applicability, or a relationship to the real world. Mathematics has a beautiful internal logic, but its application is by no means in-and-of-itself objective, nor, as regards economics, can it say anything except in relation to a particular (subjective) project.

[Lowtech]

Unfortunately, also quite simplistic, since this is true of, for example, workers in the service sector, who produce nothing.it must be simple, otherwise it allows for semantics, and unlike some here, I enjoy serious discussion, not mindless angry banter


Of course, those in the service sector perform labour which produces value within the dominant logic of capital, but I'll be damned if I've in anyway made "stuff" appreciable to what I've consumed. Running with that first thought, though, and saying that "labour" in general, as it is understood in relationship to capital is what counts, what about the "lumpen" and disenfranchised of society. A homebum, for example, certainly plays a social function w/r/t capital, but to say that a homebum produces anything is pretty silly - and they certainly consume.i'm not quite sure i understand, however the fact i'm describing about the rich consuming more than they produce is that yes, what the rich do is mathematically equivalent to welfare, however it is unregulated and those it supports (the rich) are aggressively arrogant and have a sense of entitlement they refer to as "ownership."




Of course, "credibility" doesn't necessarily conform to applicability, or a relationship to the real world. Mathematics has a beautiful internal logic, but its application is by no means in-and-of-itself objective, nor, as regards economics, can it say anything except in relation to a particular (subjective) project. i mean no disrespect to you personally, however if you don't discuss economics in mathematical terms, you're not being serious and your opinions on "economics" are a waste of time. period.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

i mean no disrespect to you personally, however if you don't discuss economics in mathematical terms, you're not being serious and your opinions on "economics" are a waste of time. period.

I certainly think you're entitled to that, but I would contend that talking about economics in exclusively mathematical terms is every bit as much a waste of time. We may be able to sketch the mathematical relationship between, for example, production and surplus value, but that doesn't necessarily demonstrate an ethical point, or describe the subjective experience of alienation.

Similarly, when trying to imagine post-capitalist modes of production, we can throw around numbers, and it may very well be useful, but it fails to address absolutely central subjective questions about living communism.

[Lowtech]

I certainly think you're entitled to that, but I would contend that talking about economics in exclusively mathematical terms is every bit as much a waste of time. We may be able to sketch the mathematical relationship between, for example, production and surplus value, but that doesn't necessarily demonstrate an ethical point, or describe the subjective experience of alienation. economics itself is purely mathematical. every problem we face today with markets crashing, bubbles, inflation, debt, all these worthless terms comes down to one thing, you're dealing with numbers. And when the mathematical, logistical problems arise, our current pseudo economy cannot cope. Why? not enough of us are thinking in numbers, not enough of us are done with the bull shit semantics and social constructs that got us here in the first place.
Similarly, when trying to imagine post-capitalist modes of production, we can throw around numbers, and it may very well be useful, but it fails to address absolutely central subjective questions about living communism.there is no capitalist mode of production, its production designed to retain value for the elites. also, surplus value is just one of the many terms for artificial scarcity. get on the train man, its leaving. don't keep debating the old terms, and decide now wether or not you really want to make a diference, or just enjoy having coffeehouse debates?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

economics itself is purely mathematical. every problem we face today with markets crashing, bubbles, inflation, debt, all these worthless terms comes down to one thing, you're dealing with numbers. And when the mathematical, logistical problems arise, our current pseudo economy cannot cope. Why? not enough of us are thinking in numbers, not enough of us are done with the bull shit semantics and social constructs that got us here in the first place.

Erm . . . except that there are interventions in "the economy" that can't be reduced to any calculus. The economy is, for example, often speculation on class war - an insurrection, a strike, or a "political" crisis has real effects on the economy because "the economy" doesn't exist as a free-floating construct where numbers and commodities circulate independently of any subject. A "perfect" capitalist economy might, but the subject intrudes.



there is no capitalist mode of production, its production designed to retain value for the elites. also, surplus value is just one of the many terms for artificial scarcity. get on the train man, its leaving. don't keep debating the old terms, and decide now wether or not you really want to make a diference, or just enjoy having coffeehouse debates?

No, I'm pretty sure there's a capitalist mode of production. Further, the same mode of production minus the "retain[ing] value for the elites" gets you, what? Tito's Yugoslavia?

Also, don't "coffee house" me. If you want to talk walk about IRL organizing feel free to PM me.

[Lowtech]

Erm . . . except that there are interventions in "the economy" that can't be reduced to any calculus. The economy is, for example, often speculation on class war - an insurrection, a strike, or a "political" crisis has real effects on the economy because "the economy" doesn't exist as a free-floating construct where numbers and commodities circulate independently of any subject. A "perfect" capitalist economy might, but the subject intrudes.




No, I'm pretty sure there's a capitalist mode of production. Further, the same mode of production minus the "retain[ing] value for the elites" gets you, what? Tito's Yugoslavia?

Also, don't "coffee house" me. If you want to talk walk about IRL organizing feel free to PM me.

Of course those things have real effects on the economy, however the issue remains that we should not allow abstract value to interfere with measurement and logistics of accountable physical value. Economics is quite mechanical. look at a combustion engine, if you see no economic insight from that, we have nothing further to discuss.

[Ottoraptor]

Exactly. Are you the only light of reason in this entire thread? Some other posters are implying that a communist economy needs to emulate a market, which is not only false, its rediculous.

Just no progress with some.

I think you are misinterpretting what Robbo is getting at. What they are saying is that the store fronts through which goods are distributed in a communist society should have a program set up that keeps track of goods coming in and out and when they run out of something sends this to industry that produces a particular good ( possibly along with other information involving peoples consumption) and that information is used by the industry in developing their plan. In order to plan effectively people will need to have such information available to them and having it already computerized will help with the fact they will be getting a lot of this information from various sources. It would only be idiocy to not provide planners with the most detail information in a format that is easily use in computation. If you think this is a market or market like system, then you will have to explain what your alternative is (ignoring the fact that this discussion is in and off itself utopian in the first place).

EDIT: I should note I don't think that we should wait until it gets to the point that the store fronts run out of something to then try to replace it, but we would need a mechanism to make sure planners have the information they need to make a plan and to make sure places don't run out of the things they need.

[Lowtech]

I think you are misinterpretting what Robbo is getting at. What they are saying is that the store fronts through which goods are distributed in a communist society should have a program set up that keeps track of goods coming in and out and when they run out of something sends this to industry that produces a particular good ( possibly along with other information involving peoples consumption) and that information is used by the industry in developing their plan. In order to plan effectively people will need to have such information available to them and having it already computerized will help with the fact they will be getting a lot of this information from various sources. It would only be idiocy to not provide planners with the most detail information in a format that is easily use in computation. If you think this is a market or market like system, then you will have to explain what your alternative is (ignoring the fact that this discussion is in and off itself utopian in the first place).

EDIT: I should note I don't think that we should wait until it gets to the point that the store fronts run out of something to then try to replace it, but we would need a mechanism to make sure planners have the information they need to make a plan and to make sure places don't run out of the things they need.

Current commodities and distribution centers are very much obsolete in communist terms. most if not all current commodities are designed for exchange value, not use value or logistics oriented. And yes, anything that resembles a society of "consumers" and economics based on commodities in exchange, bwteen either individuals, groups or entire industries, yes this is still the market paradigm. communism doesn't replace just the "mode" of production, it is a complete restructuring of entire cities, commodities, transportation, any understanding less than this is archaic and missconstrues communism.

[Paul Cockshott]

I don't agree with some of the rhetoric, but still a great article.

http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/how-socialism-can-organise-production-without-money-adam-buick-pieter-lawrence-1984

Certainly a very good article for 84.

It overstates the case for planning in kind. That is necessary but the existence of planning in kind does not mean that labour time accounting is not needed.
It is required because the social division of labour between activities remains a fundamental reality and if one is to chose between different ends on which social labour has to be expended say healtcare, education, housing, transport, then the community has to have some relatively simple representation of this. Deciding how many people will be employed - directly and indirectly on each activity is probably the only comprehensible way of deciding this. It is also difficult to see how any sensible consumer choice is possible if the social cost of different consumer goods is not presented to people - and that social cost is primarily one of human time expended.

[ckaihatsu]

Not that I accept your thesis anyway - this whole business about the so called petty bourgeois is grossly overblown in my view - but what has this got to do with the proctical oirganisation of a socialist economy using calculation in kind? Calculation in kind is an existing reality; it does not need to be implemented at some future date when socialism is implemented


Calculation-in-kind, if you mean the swapping of finished products, can only at best be a *mechanism* that too-easily would become commodity-fetishized itself, since it's on the *consumer* side of things.

Really, the whole market exchange paradigm is so thoroughly enmeshed in our minds that we may unwittingly be making reformist-oriented arguments -- somewhat helpful but woefully limited, as usual.

Just for the sake of being hard-line here I'll say that the entire calculation-in-kind is a spurious construction -- why would *any* exchanges continue to exist when all baseline, major modern needs would be fulfilled from fixed distribution center / supply chain locations -- ? Either production has a feed-in destination point, as a part of a larger ongoing assemblage, or else it is a finished product and should be directly shipped to whoever ordered it -- no exchanges.

[ckaihatsu]

Also, while your vigilance against the inevitable pitfalls of linear-type central planning is always welcome, Robbo, one might actually relax a little here and note that even the tightest, strictest top-down central plan would have 'wiggle-room' from lateral *geographic* possibilities, at any point, at the nominal discretion of the workers -- which would be even more promising in a fully worker-controlled social reality.

In other words we know that *any* organized, bureaucratic approach to material needs will reveal its weakest parts in those areas that sink down to a reintroduction and reliance on (black) markets. Likewise, the *worst* abstracted comprehensive central planning would, by definition, fail in many parts, with more local-type participation having to take up the slack, to provide interim social organizational overhead. We're seeing this in a sense in the critical fiscal problems with the states, given the ongoing capitalist economic crisis of solvency, only papered over periodically with the creation of additional extensions of federal debt.

The weakest parts of any top-down plan would mean that, due to any of a number of real-world variables, it was 'failing', leaving particular sections of the organization prone to devolving to lesser forms of economic activity -- anarchic ones, presumably.

I *defend* your line, Robbo, for its logistical value, and will note for everyone that there *could* simply be an ongoing 'shotgun approach', wherein producers of any size might just make whatever stuff available, in an "entrepreneurial" way, with resulting data used for making adjustments in realtime going forward, for all production entities. (This would equate to using a purely randomized state for initial starting conditions, in 'complexity' terms.)

[ckaihatsu]

The proper communist argument, I think, is that communism is no longer an "economy", and we will be no longer seeking for economic efficiency.


This is a crucial point, one I'll follow by saying that it would be interesting to posit a rough-sketch balancing out of the material forces of [1] material availability, [2] labor availability, [3] size/toughness of the project goal, [4] efficiency of socially productive activity, and [5] measures for improvements and upgrades.

Really, we do this exact same sort of activity, each and every one of us, just in interacting with our immediate environments -- intake, outflow, internal organizing, improving, etc. These are just everyday routines for any entity, whether organic or organized in some other way.





In other words, the criteria to decide between two different methods of production will boil down to two different aspects: first, quality of the product (we don't mind if the product is somewhat more "expensive" (ie, demanding in terms of human and natural resource) as long at it fits better the needs we intend to satisfy); and, second, whether those methods are more or less demanding in terms of human time, regardless of whether this makes them "cheaper" - meaning that we will systematically seek technological advancement, even where a capitalist economy would decide against it as anti-economical.


This speaks to the inherent limitations of a capitalism-based production, as of a prevailing conservatism regarding technological developments. (If it is cheap enough and does the job well enough -- regardless of all other considerations like is the worker getting a living wage or not -- then a profit-centric organization will have insufficient motivation to take on additional uncertainty for the sake of unknown technological potentials and payoffs.)

Technological development is always tricky because of the uncertainties involved -- depending, of course.

It's inherently a social commitment to a certain direction, and is so inherently a mark of conservatism at the same time, dialectically, since efforts will continue to be directed towards it well after its completion instead of towards immediately working on an even *newer*, relatively-more-upgraded version of the same.

In the absence of the capitalist primitive-accumulation driving dynamic, the very definition of 'appropriate technological development' would have to be actively wrestled with and collectively decided on, for all areas of material development.