Define Capitalism [Archive]

Jimmie Higgins

6th March 2013, 13:18

Capitalism is a set of economic relations where production is organized on the basis of "turning capital into more capital" through the exploitation of labor (M-C-M1).

Capitalism is the system where workers sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie and get a small percentage of their value in return. That's the short simple answer at least.

^Workers don't recieve a percentage of the value they produce, they recieve a wage. Wages are set and independent of what you produce, for example I could make 10 cheeseburgers in an hour or I could make 100, but I'm still only going to get paid $7.25 for that hour. Employers pay wages out of pocket, it isn't a share of the profit. In fact some workers get paid before they even perform their work and most before the product they make is even sold.

I think you're both kinda right. Workers sell their labor on the market and get paid a wage. But in a sense it is a percentage of the value of their labor - the value of a commodity is made from an abstracted cost of labor added to the costs of materials, but since workers are paid a wage and not according to this abstract labor value, the difference becomes the surplus, the profits. If workers fight for more wages, then they arn't creating more value for the commodity (and then increasing the potential price) but they are cutting into profits by taking-back more of the surplus value they have created. Conversly, lowering wages or increasing the pace of work increases profits. This is what causes inherent tensions in the system and why "a rising tide" won't float all boats in capitalism - this is also why right now, production can stagnate but pressures put on workers and reduction in wages have allowed, for example, US capitalism to regain profits even while capitalism in general remains in crisis.

Kindness

6th March 2013, 15:33

please delete

Doflamingo

7th March 2013, 03:10

Capitalism: [Ka-pi-tol-i-sum] (n) Waste matter discharged from the bowels; excrement.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

7th March 2013, 03:50

I think these answers kind of miss something in that they tend to refer to capitalism in the abstract - "capitalism is this or that characteristic" - but we need to grasp it as an historical reality. Capitalism came out of the bloody end of European feudalism, particularly the overlapping enclosure of common lands, the colonization of the Americas, the witch hunts, the reshaping of patriarchy by gendered wages, etc. It was this process that lead to the creation of a class of waged and unwaged labourers and capitalists. Uh . . . I was going to keep going, but I'm tired. Whatever. You get my point. Go read a good history book.

Lowtech

7th March 2013, 10:51

capitalism is both a mathematical system that transfers or extorts economic value from a working class to a non-working elite few and the ideology which indoctrinates acceptance of said system.

a capitalist can be anyone that either benefits from the system and/or someone that believes in and perpetuates indoctrination.

mathematically, the distinction between the working class and the capitalist elite is that the worker produces more economic value than he consumes. the capitalist consumes more economic value than he produces (if he produces any at all).

as resources are finite, there is always a level of real scarcity. capitalists reduce the amount of scarcity they experience by increasing scarcity for everyone else. they accomplish this via the profit mechanism.

the profit mechanism is essentially selling commodities above production cost or reducing pay of workers or both.

Thirsty Crow

7th March 2013, 11:01

Lowtech

7th March 2013, 11:08

^Workers don't recieve a percentage of the value they produce, they recieve a wage. Wages are set and independent of what you produce, for example I could make 10 cheeseburgers in an hour or I could make 100, but I'm still only going to get paid $7.25 for that hour. Employers pay wages out of pocket, it isn't a share of the profit. In fact some workers get paid before they even perform their work and most before the product they make is even sold.

semantics don't help anyone.

profits cannot be had until production cost is met, therefore mathematically profit is unnecessary, selfish and economically invalid. capitalism is mathematically no different than an unregulated welfare system that is only provided to less than 20% of the population who have a god-complex.

Blake's Baby

7th March 2013, 12:06

Sure workers receive a part of the value they produce. How else would you quantify the rate of exploitation?

I think the argument is about the use of the term 'percentage', rather than how you phrase it, 'part'. I suspect Red Banana is trying to counteract the impression that workers are given a fixed percentage of the value they create - 'you will receive 20% of your created value in wages, the more value you create, the more wages you wil receive' - because in most cases that isn't true, as in the example of fast food staff who are paid $7.25 for an hour's work, whether they cook and sell 10 or 100 burgers in that time. Their wages for an hour don't vary between $4 (20% of the $20 they take for 10 burgers) and $40 (20% of the $200 they take for 100 burgers).

Fourth Internationalist

7th March 2013, 12:09

"Good" isn't empirically discernible.
Okay...

I always defined capitalism as an economic system with private ownership of the means of production for personal profit, and socialism as an economic system with public ownership of the means of production for the material needs and wants of people in society. A capitalist is someone who privately owns some sort of means of productions for his or her own personal profit.

Lowtech

7th March 2013, 22:18

I think the argument is about the use of the term 'percentage', rather than how you phrase it, 'part'. I suspect Red Banana is trying to counteract the impression that workers are given a fixed percentage of the value they create - 'you will receive 20% of your created value in wages, the more value you create, the more wages you wil receive' - because in most cases that isn't true, as in the example of fast food staff who are paid $7.25 for an hour's work, whether they cook and sell 10 or 100 burgers in that time. Their wages for an hour don't vary between $4 (20% of the $20 they take for 10 burgers) and $40 (20% of the $200 they take for 100 burgers).

why bother with deciphering capitalists' semantic garbage?

you must be paid less than the value of your labor for it to be profitable, regardless of endless debates over what a wage is and how wages are calculated or if its paid out of pocket or out of profits etc. etc.

workers are exploited, period. it doesn't matter what the rules of monopoly are.

Blake's Baby

8th March 2013, 13:36

If people disagree about what capitalism is because their terminology is different rather than because they have any fundamental disagreement of fact, that's a barrier to easy communication. Do you have a problem with people trying to be clear?

Red Banana

8th March 2013, 20:06

why bother with deciphering capitalists' semantic garbage?

you must be paid less than the value of your labor for it to be profitable, regardless of endless debates over what a wage is and how wages are calculated or if its paid out of pocket or out of profits etc. etc.

workers are exploited, period. it doesn't matter what the rules of monopoly are.

Silly Marx, he wrote a whole book about the intricacies of Capital when he could've just summed it up in these three sentences!

Edit: Seriously though, it's good to know the details of the mode of production we aim to abolish if we want to do it effectively and, as Blake's Baby said, to communicate effectively as well.

Lowtech

9th March 2013, 01:35

Silly Marx, he wrote a whole book about the intricacies of Capital when he could've just summed it up in these three sentences!

Edit: Seriously though, it's good to know the details of the mode of production we aim to abolish if we want to do it effectively and, as Blake's Baby said, to communicate effectively as well.

i'm not against communicating effectively, i just wonder how arguing over a term helps anyone?

what was your point about wages coming out of pocket and not out of profits? are you saying that workers are not exploited?

Red Banana

9th March 2013, 03:15

i'm not against communicating effectively, i just wonder how arguing over a term helps anyone?

what was your point about wages coming out of pocket and not out of profits? are you saying that workers are not exploited?

No, workers are certainly exploited, that's not what I'm saying.

Labor power is a commodity like any other to be bought and sold. The capitalist buys labor power, just as they buy (to keep with the fast food analogy) the grill and spatula with which their worker uses to flip burgers, as a cost of production. The burgers the worker then produces become property of the capitalist; the worker has no share in their value. The burger could sell for $1, $100, or not at all, and the worker will see no fluctuation in their income because the burgers are not theirs to sell, workers are in the business of selling their own labor power.

These are two separate transactions, one where the capitalist buys a commodity (labor power) from a worker, and the other where the capitalist sells a commodity (burgers) to a consumer. The case is not that the capitalist and the worker agree to put their resources together (tools/MoP and labor power respectively) to create a product (burgers), then sell them and split the money, in which case the worker actually would be receiving a percentage, a share of the profit.

To sum it up, wages are a cost of production used to make commodities or services which are then sold by a capitalist for a profit and while wages must be smaller than the value they produce in order to make a profit, they are not an actual cut in the profit itself.

Lowtech

10th March 2013, 01:26

No, workers are certainly exploited, that's not what I'm saying.alright, i figured that wasn't what you meant, i was just a bit confused. didn't mean to bark at you, wasn't having the best of days.
Labor power is a commodity like any other to be bought and sold.good point. I would just add, capitalists are oriented to produce profitable commodities, regardless of the commoditie's actual usefulness and/or detrimental nature.
The capitalist buys labor power, just as they buy (to keep with the fast food analogy) the grill and spatula with which their worker uses to flip burgers, as a cost of production. The burgers the worker then produces become property of the capitalist;property however, as i'm sure you'd agree, is a capitalist invention in this sense, an asset. understanding that this a fiction central to capitalism is important.
the worker has no share in their value. The burger could sell for $1, $100, or not at all, and the worker will see no fluctuation in their income because the burgers are not theirs to sell, workers are in the business of selling their own labor power.this point here has the tendency to put capitalists in a generous light, however such a notion would be disingenuous.
These are two separate transactions, one where the capitalist buys a commodity (labor power) from a worker, and the other where the capitalist sells a commodity (burgers) to a consumer. The case is not that the capitalist and the worker agree to put their resources together (tools/MoP and labor power respectively) to create a product (burgers), then sell them and split the money, in which case the worker actually would be receiving a percentage, a share of the profit.right. profit can only be had once production cost is met, i completely agree.

however there is one misstep, when the capitalist doesn't pay workers sufficiently and exploits them, he has not satisfied production cost. he makes the workers bare some of the production cost at their own expense, without proper compensation.

i appreciate the in depth analysis, although it can still be explained in simpler terms, which would be better communication. "if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"

my reasoning is just that once something is better understood, it can be better defended in debate, and the simpler it can be expressed the less room there is for semantics and other tactics opponents may use.

Blake's Baby

10th March 2013, 13:38

alright, i figured that wasn't what you meant, i was just a bit confused. didn't mean to bark at you, wasn't having the best of days...

Surely this is why it's important to try to be clear? It's easy to misinterpret people (especially on the net) and then too easy to take a contrary position against something that wasn't meant in the first place. This often leads to accusations of dishonesty and strawmanning, which then just get people's backs up further.

...however there is one misstep, when the capitalist doesn't pay workers sufficiently and exploits them, he has not satisfied production cost. he makes the workers bare some of the production cost at their own expense, without proper compensation...

I'm not sure what you think 'proper compensation is, Lowtech. Can you explain that?

Lowtech

11th March 2013, 10:01

I'm not sure what you think 'proper compensation is, Lowtech. Can you explain that?

one that's not subject to artificial scarcity. in the case of the worker, that means never being paid less than the value of his labor, and the market cannot determine this value because the market cannot tell us the value of anything.

this also includes paying a living wage.

one might argue that a worker can't be paid that under the constraints of what the entrepreneur is able to pay him. the entrepreneur himself is subject to artificial scarcity, therefore his budget constraints falsely appears to validate the arrangement. essentially; being subject to artificial scarcity does not validate a system that creates the same artificial scarcity to begin with, that would be circular reasoning.

once you have a system excluding artificial scarcity, skill sets will also change as a consequence. communistic skill sets have to be more productive by nature than it's capitalist counterpart because in communism, economic value has precedence, not profit.

Blake's Baby

11th March 2013, 14:17

So, if the worker was paid 'enough' (whatever that is) then you'd be OK with that? Because I'm fairly sure someone one said that the unions should replace the slogan 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay' with the slogan 'abolish wage slavery now'. Or am I misunderstanding you?

Lowtech

11th March 2013, 16:27

Blake's Baby

11th March 2013, 18:39

Reread my post or have someone help you

Or you could get better at explaining yourself.

... never being paid less than the value of his labor...

...this also includes paying a living wage...

Well, this certainly looks like 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay'.

...
one might argue that a worker can't be paid that under the constraints of what the entrepreneur is able to pay him. the entrepreneur himself is subject to artificial scarcity, therefore his budget constraints falsely appears to validate the arrangement. essentially; being subject to artificial scarcity does not validate a system that creates the same artificial scarcity to begin with, that would be circular reasoning.

once you have a system excluding artificial scarcity, skill sets will also change as a consequence. communistic skill sets have to be more productive by nature than it's capitalist counterpart because in communism, economic value has precedence, not profit.

This doesn't mean very much as far as I can tell, if there's anything important in it, then I can't really grasp what it is. Someone once said that if you can't explain something simply, then you don't realy understand it. Can you explain this simply?

Lowtech

11th March 2013, 20:56

This doesn't mean very much as far as I can tell, if there's anything important in it, then I can't really grasp what it is. Someone once said that if you can't explain something simply, then you don't realy understand it. Can you explain this simply?now I see what this is about. If I have offended you I appologize. Now if you have any geniune questions, what part of what I said is a point of confusion?

Blake's Baby

12th March 2013, 00:38

No really, you haven't offended me. I was a bit surprised when you said that trying to understand wasn't worth it, I happen to think that clarity is very important and I strive for it (often unsuccessfully, but if someone tells me they don't understand, I tend to think it's my fault for not being clear, not theirs for being lazy/stupid/obtuse etc) but not offended.

However, I find a lot of what you're saying quite unclear and I'm asking you to clarify what you're saying. There's no hidden motive or snidey insinuation intended. Honest question. What does this:

"...one might argue that a worker can't be paid that under the constraints of what the entrepreneur is able to pay him. the entrepreneur himself is subject to artificial scarcity, therefore his budget constraints falsely appears to validate the arrangement. essentially; being subject to artificial scarcity does not validate a system that creates the same artificial scarcity to begin with, that would be circular reasoning.

once you have a system excluding artificial scarcity, skill sets will also change as a consequence. communistic skill sets have to be more productive by nature than it's capitalist counterpart because in communism, economic value has precedence, not profit..."

have to do with the question about what you think 'proper compensation' is? As someone who rejects the notion that there can ever be 'proper compensation' I'd like to explain why you think there can, because I want to understand your reasoning. I don't have to agree, obviously, but I would at least like to understand what I disagree with.

Lowtech

12th March 2013, 03:02

However, I find a lot of what you're saying quite unclear and I'm asking you to clarify what you're saying. There's no hidden motive or snidey insinuation intended. Honest question. What does this:

"...one might argue that a worker can't be paid that under the constraints of what the entrepreneur is able to pay him. the entrepreneur himself is subject to artificial scarcity, therefore his budget constraints falsely appears to validate the arrangement. essentially; being subject to artificial scarcity does not validate a system that creates the same artificial scarcity to begin with, that would be circular reasoning.

once you have a system excluding artificial scarcity, skill sets will also change as a consequence. communistic skill sets have to be more productive by nature than it's capitalist counterpart because in communism, economic value has precedence, not profit..."

have to do with the question about what you think 'proper compensation' is? As someone who rejects the notion that there can ever be 'proper compensation' I'd like to explain why you think there can, because I want to understand your reasoning. I don't have to agree, obviously, but I would at least like to understand what I disagree with.fair enough.

i agree capitalists can never provide proper compensation. profit could not exist without exploitation. and i am in no way advocating wage based economics.

one might argue that a workermeaning capitalists would argue, which is the opposite of my position.

that a worker can't be paid that under the constraints of what the entrepreneur is able to pay him. the entrepreneur himself is subject to artificial scarcity, therefore his budget constraints falsely appears to validate the arrangement.i am observing capitalists' chosen arrangement with workers, one that they may attempt to validate by saying wages are within their "budget" to pay. and then so i go on to explain the capitalist contention is false being that..

essentially; being subject to artificial scarcity does not validate a system that creates the same artificial scarcity to begin with, that would be circular reasoning.system i am referring to being capitalism.

the circular reasoning in this case being that a capitalist may say the limited pay of workers is partly due to a capitalist's budget constraints because of utilities he pays or cost of materials etc, whereas these constrains are the product of artificial scarcity which is created by capitalism. essentially, a capitalist trying to use capitalism to validate itself; circular reasoning.

once you have a system excluding artificial scarcity,a system excluding artificial scarcity is communism
skill sets will also change as a consequence.current skill sets (jobs) are designed for profitability and therefore menial in nature, and so a systemic change to communism would also mean redesign of all skill sets as a consequence.
communistic skill sets have to be more productive by nature than it's capitalist counterpart because in communism, economic value has precedence, not profitwhich is good, when skill sets are designed with economic value having precedence, they are vastly more productive and less menial than skill sets designed for profitability (exploitation).

Baseball

12th March 2013, 22:55

the circular reasoning in this case being that a capitalist may say the limited pay of workers is partly due to a capitalist's budget constraints because of utilities he pays or cost of materials etc, whereas these constrains are the product of artificial scarcity which is created by capitalism. essentially, a capitalist trying to use capitalism to validate itself; circular reasoning.
).

And how are such restraints artificial? Even in the socialist community, industry will have to deal with limitation on resources,.

LifeIs2Short

19th March 2013, 15:37

So what is an economic system that has a common ownership of the means of production, but retains markets and commodity production? Market socialism?

Lowtech

24th March 2013, 03:44

And how are such restraints artificial? Even in the socialist community, industry will have to deal with limitation on resources,.

selling at a profit produces artificial scarcity.

If the total of an existing resource is 100 units, real scarcity is 100 working people having 1 unit. Artificial scarcity is having a social construct (profit) making it so 20 people have 4 units each, while 80 people only have 0.25 units each. (Concentration of "wealth" )

There is no valid economic basis to this, which is why capitalists use subjugation to enforce their plutocratic rule.

Lowtech

26th March 2013, 22:00

So what is an economic system that has a common ownership of the means of production, but retains markets and commodity production? Market socialism?

This would be communism trying to emulate a market, which is not only unecissary, but extremely problematic and inefficient.

"commodity production" as we see it now is oriented to producing for exchange value, not meeting a need. Therefore most if not all commodites we have today will be fundimentally redesigned or discarded all together.

Mass production will be limited to need meeting commodities. beyond that, specific asthetically pleasing commodities that don't meet basic needs will be produced locally, perhaps by your own 3d printer using a personal allotment of raw materials.

Nothing will be exchanged for any sort of profit making. All technology needed to maintain a high standard of living will be freely shared.

Ocean Seal

27th March 2013, 19:14

Baseball

31st March 2013, 01:50

selling at a profit produces artificial scarcity.

If the total of an existing resource is 100 units, real scarcity is 100 working people having 1 unit. Artificial scarcity is having a social construct (profit) making it so 20 people have 4 units each, while 80 people only have 0.25 units each. (Concentration of "wealth" )

There is no valid economic basis to this, which is why capitalists use subjugation to enforce their plutocratic rule.

Socialists around here often decry as myth that socialism is about total equality.

Perhaps 20 people having 4 units each while 80 only 0.25 units is because those 20 folks want 4 units and those 80 only 0.25. That would seem to be a fairly valid economic basis for such a state of affairs.
Even in a socialist community, people will have different interests and desires, and will value things differently.

Deity

31st March 2013, 03:35

Capitalism is a system that adheres by C.R.E.A.M. -Cash Rules Everything Around Me (dolla dolla bill y'all)

Blake's Baby

31st March 2013, 13:09

Lowtech

3rd April 2013, 06:12

Socialists around here often decry as myth that socialism is about total equality.

Perhaps 20 people having 4 units each while 80 only 0.25 units is because those 20 folks want 4 units and those 80 only 0.25. That would seem to be a fairly valid economic basis for such a state of affairs.
Even in a socialist community, people will have different interests and desires, and will value things differently.

Why do you respond with absolute nonsense?

All commodities are an embodiment of economic value.

100% economic value would be the value necissary to sustain the whole of civilization. 80% of such an amount can never be produced by only 20% of the population, this means there can never be any economically legitimate reason 20% of the population would keep 80% of economic value to themselves.

This mathematically proves that the only arrangement that produces economic inequality is one that utilizes exploitation.

Ideology can never refute mathematical fact.

Blake's Baby

3rd April 2013, 10:55

Lowtech

3rd April 2013, 13:57

I don't think baseball means all economic value. If you look at wheelchairs, for example, even under socialism we won't get one each, the people who need them might get one or two, but the people who don't won't. Distribution on the basis of need doesn't mean 'equality' in that gross accounting sense of one for you, one for me...' because it's pointless for people to have things they don't need just because they can.

Do you missunderstand what is being discussed or are you intentionally being comical?

Baseball is an idiot who's nonsense response was made toward my description of artificial scarcity (which is currently how capitalism produces poverty).

Distribution on the basis of need doesn't mean 'equality' in that gross accounting sense of one for you, one for me...' because it's pointless for people to have things they don't need just because they can. you've just explained the irrationality of the rich. There's no economically legitimate reason they should have "things they don't need just because they can" especially at the direct expense of the working majority.

Blake's Baby

3rd April 2013, 14:38

Man, you need to calm down.

Baseball's right that even in socialist society people will have different desires and needs. Baseball is also right that 'equality' doesn't mean people have to have something they don't need kust because someone else has one (because they do need it).

Whether or not baseball is also an idiot, is a question that is a lot older than this thread.

Lowtech

3rd April 2013, 17:57

Man, you need to calm down.

Baseball's right that even in socialist society people will have different desires and needs. agreeing with him doesn't make him right, it makes you both wrong. firstly, money is subjective, economic value is not. Varying needs and wants can never validate poverty and wage slavery while the few live extravegant lives.
Baseball is also right that 'equality' doesn't mean people have to have something they don't need kust because someone else has one (because they do need it).

Whether or not baseball is also an idiot, is a question that is a lot older than this thread.

We're debating economics, not ideology.

Narodnik

3rd April 2013, 18:10

Economy is ideological.

Lowtech

4th April 2013, 03:17

Economy is ideological.

an economy: a public utility whose intended purpose is to sustain a civilization is hardly an ideology, but rather the logistical infrastructure necessary to support a civilized society without war, poverty and economic subjugation.

Narodnik

4th April 2013, 08:26

Economics, sorry, my bad. Economics, as in talking about economy, is ideological.

one10

4th April 2013, 13:50

cap·i·tal·ism (kap-i-tl-iz-uhhttp://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnghttp://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngm) noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capitalism?s=t&path=/

That's accurate.

Narodnik

4th April 2013, 16:12

It's not. State-owned "means of wealth" are not constrasted with capitalism, in almost all the cases in history where state-ownership was instituted - it was capitalistic (exception being sparta where state-ownership of slaves was not capitalistic but a part of the slave society).

LuÃs Henrique

4th April 2013, 17:06

Especially for Marxist-Leninists, anarcho-communists, and other communists/anti-capitalists:

How would you define 'capitalism' as a system? What is a 'capitalist'?

I ask merely to be sure that if I speak for or against capitalism I am talking about the same thing that you are.

Capitalism is a system where capital has taken hold of production. What is capital? Capital is self-reproducing money, money that generates more money. In other words, capitalism is a system where the aim of production is to transform money into more money.

That's only possible through markets, competition (and consequently private property) and wage labour; but those things do not constitute capitalism by themselves.

Luís Henrique

Narodnik

4th April 2013, 17:14

but those things do not constitute capitalism by themselves.Wage labor, that is- a class economy, does. Capitalism is a system where the workers are exploited by the class who owns the means of production (due to the similarity of the definition with feudalism, Dewey called it "industrial feudalism"). If you take out capitalist markets/ competition, and go full nationalization with complete central planning, you still have capitalism, only the exploitatory class is concentrated in the state apparatus. Worker emancipation (which is the most basic definition of socialism) means no rulers over the workers.

Lowtech

4th April 2013, 17:32

Economics, sorry, my bad. Economics, as in talking about economy, is ideological.

That false belief is exactly the problem. If the design of a combustion engine were left to ideologies, it would never function as well as it does now or at all, it took science, study to do it. (Although, in the particular case of a combustion engine, it is an engine using an obsolete fuel, only still used for its profitability.)

as long as economics is left in the hands of the ruling elite and not scrutinized by science, it will always subjugate humanity.

Narodnik

4th April 2013, 17:52

If the design of a combustion engine were left to ideologies
Combustion engine is not constituted by human action.

as long as economics is left in the hands of the ruling elite and not scrutinized by science, it will always subjugate humanity.
There is no such thing as the science, knowing about the "official" and the Marxist one, you should know that. Check out Thomas Kuhn and Fayerabend if you haven't read them.

Lowtech

5th April 2013, 02:52

Combustion engine is not constituted by human action.

what this comment has to do with anything is beyond me.

the combustion engine has everything to do with economics. an engine converts resources into usable energy. the same is true of an economy. the economy is an infrastructure allowing humans to convert raw resources into usable items. markets, money and assets allow this basic infrastructure to be abused and manipulated, making it horribly incapable of meeting the needs of humanity as a whole.

an engine shows that resources are best utilized with direct transfer of energy. in economic terms; transferring economic value without profit making. profit is not only archaic and selfish, it is economically unnecessary, invalid and unsustainable mathematically and produces poverty.

Comrade Alex

5th April 2013, 03:43

Narodnik

5th April 2013, 12:45

what this comment has to do with anything is beyond me.
Human action, as opposed to an engine, is not a matter of science, but of ideology.

LuÃs Henrique

5th April 2013, 12:52

Capitalism:
A system of oppression and exploitation of the working class
A system were the wealth and means of production are in the hands of a select few
A system that encouraged racism classism/class struggle, and hatred in general
A system that must and will be destroyed

One could say:

Feudalism:

A system of oppression and exploitation of the working class
A system were the wealth and means of production are in the hands of a select few
A system that encouraged racism classism/class struggle, and hatred in general
A system that must and has been destroyed

And it would be no less true.

Luís Henrique

Narodnik

5th April 2013, 12:57

Capitalism is a type of feudalism.

LuÃs Henrique

5th April 2013, 13:01

That false belief is exactly the problem. If the design of a combustion engine were left to ideologies, it would never function as well as it does now or at all, it took science, study to do it.

So let's understand a very important difference here. According to you, the functioning of an engine must rely on a correct appreciation of the nature of the things involved in its construction. If we try to feed it with an incombustible fuel, it won't work; if the material is poorly chosen, it will break or malfunction; if the project is not sound, it won't function.

Now, as opposed to that, let's look at how a capitalist society functions.

Here it seems that a "false belief" on how such society "functions" is absolutely necessary to its functioning. It seems that ideology is as necessary to it as fuel, or (perhaps a better analogy) lubricants are to the functioning of a machine. To keep a capitalist society functioning, consequently, one must rely in an incorrect appreciation of things involved in its historic making.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

5th April 2013, 13:05

Capitalism is a type of feudalism.

If we pick a correct definition of "capitalism", we will see it is not:

Capitalism is a system where capital has taken hold of production. What is capital? Capital is self-reproducing money, money that generates more money. In other words, capitalism is a system where the aim of production is to transform money into more money.

If we try to change the words here, we will see that nothing of this applies:

Feudalism is a system where capital has taken hold of production. What is capital? Capital is self-reproducing money, money that generates more money. In other words, feudalism is a system where the aim of production is to transform money into more money.

The above is utterly bogus, of course.

Luís Henrique

Blake's Baby

5th April 2013, 18:24

One could say:

Feudalism:

A system of oppression and exploitation of the working class
A system were the wealth and means of production are in the hands of a select few
A system that encouraged racism classism/class struggle, and hatred in general
A system that must and has been destroyed

And it would be no less true.

Luís Henrique

The first emboldened bit is only true if by 'the working class' one means, instead, 'a' working class or more exactly the peasant class (which is not and never has been the same as 'the working class', which is another term for the proletariat).

The second emboldened part is not true at all. The means of production under feualism were in the hands of the peasants. The products weren't but production was.

Like you I immediately thought of doing what you did, but it's not so simple as you've made out. It is a terrible 'definition' of capitalism though.

LuÃs Henrique

5th April 2013, 18:49

The first emboldened bit is only true if by 'the working class' one means, instead, 'a' working class or more exactly the peasant class (which is not and never has been the same as 'the working class', which is another term for the proletariat).

True, but at the level of generality the criticised post stays, I doubt very much there is any notion of the specificity of "working class" beyond merely "the class of people who routinely work for a living".

The second emboldened part is not true at all. The means of production under feualism were in the hands of the peasants. The products weren't but production was.

This is more complex, indeed. Land is a mean of production, and was in the hands of the feudal class, who where a select few. Other means of production were, as you say, in the hands of peasants (or artisans). The products (and consequently wealth) were at the hands of those who owned land, not at the hands of those who owned other means of production.

Like you I immediately thought of doing what you did, but it's not so simple as you've made out. It is a terrible 'definition' of capitalism though.

Yup, you are right, it is not so simple as I made it; but the complexity involved requires abandoning the "terrible definition" first place, so it is an effective response.

Luís Henrique

Lowtech

6th April 2013, 06:01

So let's understand a very important difference here. According to you, the functioning of an engine must rely on a correct appreciation of the nature of the things involved in its construction. If we try to feed it with an incombustible fuel, it won't work; if the material is poorly chosen, it will break or malfunction; if the project is not sound, it won't function.

Now, as opposed to that, let's look at how a capitalist society functions.

Here it seems that a "false belief" on how such society "functions" is absolutely necessary to its functioning. It seems that ideology is as necessary to it as fuel, or (perhaps a better analogy) lubricants are to the functioning of a machine. To keep a capitalist society functioning, consequently, one must rely in an incorrect appreciation of things involved in its historic making.

Luís Henrique

Right, exactly, I didn't fully understand your post before I responded. That's exactly what's necissary for capitalism to sustain itself, an indoctrinated ideology that teaches elitism and tolerance and ignorance of the horrors that capitalism produces.

If people are provided the truth about capitalism, they will ask themselves, shall I toil away to support the gluttonous life styles of the rich, or will I work to support a more civilized society free of poverty, war and starvation, where the necessities of life are not profitized by an elite few?

Baseball

6th April 2013, 23:44

That's fine if that's what they want to happen. Socialism doesn't force people to have things they don't need. Unlike capitalism, however, it doesn't deny them things they do need.

Since people will still value things differently in the socialist community, there remains the problem that people who only have 0.25 of a unit- and wants more- could simply not value tjat item to the extent as.other they want and need. Unless the argument is that socialism promises to all things to all people upon request.

Baseball

6th April 2013, 23:50

Why do you respond with absolute nonsense?

All commodities are an embodiment of economic value.

100% economic value would be the value necissary to sustain the whole of civilization. 80% of such an amount can never be produced by only 20% of the population, this means there can never be any economically legitimate reason 20% of the population would keep 80% of economic value to themselves.

This mathematically proves that the only arrangement that produces economic inequality is one that utilizes exploitation.

Ideology can never refute mathematical fact.

Well, globally the USA produces what... 20, 25% of output with 5% of the population? Something like that.

Other than that, I am not sure of the point of either of our posts here.

Baseball

7th April 2013, 00:01

agreeing with him doesn't make him right, it makes you both wrong. firstly, money is subjective, economic value is not. Varying needs and wants can never validate poverty and wage slavery while the few live extravegant lives.

We're debating economics, not ideology.

You seem to think that total equality is required, else there is povetyy and wage slavery. Granted, your view on the subject is quite logical- differing degrees of wealth in a socialist community will cause problems for that community. But that seems more an indictment of socialism, than a critique of capitalism.

Lowtech

7th April 2013, 01:49

Since people will still value things differently in the socialist community, there remains the problem that people who only have 0.25 of a unit- and wants more- could simply not value that item to the extent as.other they want and need. Unless the argument is that socialism promises to all things to all people upon request."things" as they currently are, are designed for exchange value, not use value. therefore, most things that we want are extremely impractical. an economy based on economic value, not profit, will consequently cause the re-design of everything humans use. therefore, it is not that we have varying wants, but rather the economic value inherent in capitalist produced items is inconsistent. need, on large scales follows very uniform and predicable patterns as we know what people need to for long, healthy and happy lives. what they don't need are mansions, large swimming pools and "wealth" at the direct expense of a working class.
Well, globally the USA produces what... 20, 25% of output with 5% of the population? Something like that.

Other than that, I am not sure of the point of either of our posts here.we all partake in a global economy. this is why one cannot say that the price of clothing and electronics are cheaper because of capitalism, rather items in wealthy western countries have become cheaper due to cheap labor in poorer countries. things become cheaper for people in the US because of increased exploitation overseas.
You seem to think that total equality is required, else there is poverty and wage slavery. Granted, your view on the subject is quite logical- differing degrees of wealth in a socialist community will cause problems for that community. But that seems more an indictment of socialism, than a critique of capitalism.proper analysis of capitalism reveals everything.

instead of one layer of direct economics, capitalism produces two general tiers.

-plutocratic class; the consumers,
who enjoy the majority of economic value, produce none themselves, derive economic value from the bottom tier via the profit mechanism. maintain their rule via the concepts of ownership, money and assets and a plethora of other social constructs. they reduce the scarcity they experience by increasing scarcity artificially for those of the lower tier. this upper tier follows no rational economic process.

-working class; the producers
the working class produces all economic value and is subjugated to build and maintain all infrastructure. being alienated from the organization of economics, workers are limited to over burdened work for a meager living. especially meager compared to the actual value of their labor. with the burden of producing economic value, the working class is first tasked with producing enough to meet the consumption of both the upper tier and lower. due to exploitation however, the consumption of the lower tier is inhumanely limited to a minimum, and often pressured to the point of starvation and poverty in many parts of the world, so that the upper tier may enjoy unimaginable delights.

communists seeks to eliminate the upper tier as it serves only to subjugate and brutalize the rest of humanity.

Blake's Baby

7th April 2013, 12:32

LuÃs Henrique

7th April 2013, 15:49

Right, exactly, I didn't fully understand your post before I responded. That's exactly what's necissary for capitalism to sustain itself, an indoctrinated ideology that teaches elitism and tolerance and ignorance of the horrors that capitalism produces.

I don't think it is an "indoctrinated ideology". It seems to me to be an ideology that "naturally" follows from the way things are organised in capitalism - a "secreted" or "exsuded" ideology, one that "oozes" from the social practices of capitalism.

If people are provided the truth about capitalism, they will ask themselves, shall I toil away to support the gluttonous life styles of the rich, or will I work to support a more civilized society free of poverty, war and starvation, where the necessities of life are not profitized by an elite few?

Well.

We also know that a combustion engine is based upon an imperfect theory of how the universe works - classical physics.

But the engine works nonetheless.

So what is the "truth" about combustion engines?

At the risk of derailing this into a philosophical discussion...

...how do we know the "truth" about anything?

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

7th April 2013, 15:58

That doesn't make sense. If they value it they value it. They don't both value it, and not-value it, at the same time, as you seem to be suggeting.

Hm, no; he is being quite coherent from a capitalist point of view. The secret is here:

I don't need a Ferrari (it won't be useful to me as a means of transportation in the midst of a city where the average speed of traffic is 20 km/h). But I want a Ferrari (just to show people that I can buy a Ferrari). And so I simultaneously value and do not value a Ferrari.

Of course, this is only due to the complete irrationality of capitalism. But Baseball has yet to read up to that chapter.

Luís Henrique

Baseball

7th April 2013, 19:11

That doesn't make sense. If they value it they value it. They don't both value it, and not-value it, at the same time, as you seem to be suggeting.

If the community wants 50 wigets (50 members of the community want one widget each) then the community puts in a request for 50 widgets. If 50 widgets are available the community gets 50 widgets. Everyone who wants one gets a wiget. If 50 widgets aren't available, the community gets the 10 widgets that are avilable straight away and works out who needs those widgets most urgently, and distributes them, while the 40 people who need wigets slightly less urgently wait a week or two until 40 more widgets are available.

Haven't we done all this with tomatoes already?

Those 50 widgets are produced at the cost of NOT producing 50 sprockets. Perhaps members of the widget wanting world will accept that tradeoff. Or perhaps they would prefer a sprocket to a widget. Or perhaps someone wants multiple widgits and no sprockets. Or one widget and one sprocket. Perhaps the reason why there were only ten widgets available is because people valued sprockets ahead of widgits.

The point is that the problem is greater than simply solving it by issuing an order to the widgit workers to produce 50 widgits and expecting it to be obeyed. The community had to have a sense of the value of widgits against other items members of that community want and need. The Ferrari example offered elsewhere is not an example of irrationality- but of how everyone makes choices in consuming goods. The only way socialism can change this is by dictating to people what they can, and cannot, have (Lowtech basically says this, and he or she is absolutely correct and logical- at least as per socialist logic).

Baseball

7th April 2013, 19:36

we all partake in a global economy. this is why one cannot say that the price of clothing and electronics are cheaper due because of capitalism, rather items in wealthy
western countries have become cheaper due to cheap labor in poorer countries. things become cheaper for people in the US because of exploitation .

Back in January, on that "Hobo" thread, you had mentioned that production has to exceed consumption for an economy to flourish.

I agree.

So this means that, say, that the production of electronics require the consumption of fewer resources than the value of that electronic.

Labor is a resource consumed- it cannot produce farm equipment while producing electronics. So labor also ought be deployed to consume as little as possible. You may have a moral objection to it, and thats fine. But keeping those resources down will have to come from somewhere, probably on quanity but most likely quality.

Blake's Baby

7th April 2013, 21:12

Those 50 widgets are produced at the cost of NOT producing 50 sprockets. Perhaps members of the widget wanting world will accept that tradeoff. Or perhaps they would prefer a sprocket to a widget. Or perhaps someone wants multiple widgits and no sprockets. Or one widget and one sprocket. Perhaps the reason why there were only ten widgets available is because people valued sprockets ahead of widgits...

NOW I understand, it's all very clear. I chose not to be the Queen, the Duke of Westminster, or James Murdoch, so it's my fault I'm poor, right? That is what you're saying, yes?

Lowtech

7th April 2013, 23:10

Back in January, on that "Hobo" thread, you had mentioned that production has to exceed consumption for an economy to flourish.

I agree.it doesn't appear that you understand what it is you're agreeing to. the fact that production must meet or exceed consumption for an economy to function confirms the reason the working class vastly out numbers the ruling plutocratic class; which is that the working class produces economic value while the rich produce none and serve only to consume value (which is grossly disproportional to the meager amounts the working class are allowed to consume). this demonstrates how fundamental economic principle confirms that the vast majority of humanity are exploited.

also, profit is not the same as "over production" or exceeding consumption or whatever you're trying to imply. it in fact, works in reverse to what you assume. if you sell 1 unit at 1.5 times the production cost, then the buyer has purchased the item at a transmuted production cost of 1.5 units while only receiving 1 unit. scarcity of this item has increased artificially for the buyer. the seller has reduced the scarcity he experiences by increasing scarcity for the buyer. capitalism has the burden of proving this to be necessary which it fails to do because the only outcome of such a profit mechanism is economic subjugation and inequality. communism seeks economics without artificial scarcity. essentially a flat economy with direct transfer of economic value among individuals.

So this means that, say, that the production of electronics require the consumption of fewer resources than the value of that electronic.capitalism has no clue what the value of electronics is because it has no idea what the value is of anything; capitalism is concerned only with exchange value, which has no rational relation to use value at all; and therefore capitalism only has a passing concern with economic value, only ensuring enough is produced to keep a sufficient, minimal workforce going who produce the economic value needed to substandardly support itself while simultaneously meeting the wants of the few (rich).

Labor is a resource consumed- it cannot produce farm equipment while producing electronics. So labor also ought be deployed to consume as little as possible. You may have a moral objection to it, and thats fine. But keeping those resources down will have to come from somewhere, probably on quantity but most likely quality. moral objection is inevitable because exploitation is inhumane. but i am not just objecting morally, i have and continue to mathematically demonstrate capitalism and exploitation to be economically invalid. no economically vital system has ever shown to require subjugation or a ruling class. it still stands that capitalism fails to validate itself.

TheRedAnarchist23

7th April 2013, 23:26

System based on private ownership of the means of production, and the accumulation of capital.

Lowtech

9th April 2013, 01:01

I don't think it is an "indoctrinated ideology". It seems to me to be an ideology that "naturally" follows from the way things are organised in capitalism - a "secreted" or "exsuded" ideology, one that "oozes" from the social practices of capitalism.to call capitalism a kind of organization is not an accurate description. capitalism has never resembled what it's ideology defines as being capitalism. there is no individualism, only the illusion of free choice and competition has never been economically beneficial let alone socially.
Well.

We also know that a combustion engine is based upon an imperfect theory of how the universe works - classical physics.imperfect perhaps, but still not defined ideologically, but rather defined by science and engineering
But the engine works nonetheless.

So what is the "truth" about combustion engines?

At the risk of derailing this into a philosophical discussion...

...how do we know the "truth" about anything?

Luís Henrique

the combustion engine is one of the best examples of a proficient and unimpeded economic system.

the engine and the economy of our civilization have the same purpose; to convert raw resources into human-usable energy.

the difference however is that the engine employs direct transfer of energy whereas our current capitalistic economy lacks this most efficient principle. the profit mechanism is a kind of "energy retention" or in the context of economics, retention of economic value. this is the equivalent of points in a combustion engine transferring energy below maximum mechanical throughput. therefore due to the social construct of profit, our economy does not function at maximum throughput; essentially functioning far below it's potential.

capitalism takes this base economic mode of converting raw resources into human usable energy and introduces "breakage" in the form of various social constructs that interfere with direct transfer of economic value among individuals allowing capitalists to retain value, effectively deriving and transferring economic value from the working class to the plutocratic class.

this is how the rich force humanity into a class system mirroring the food-chain arrangement between plants and animals. humans are an advanced social super colony of individuals, therefore such an arrangement is cruel and unnatural, reducing the majority to cattle.

Baseball

14th April 2013, 21:59

NOW I understand, it's all very clear. I chose not to be the Queen, the Duke of Westminster, or James Murdoch, so it's my fault I'm poor, right? That is what you're saying, yes?

Nope. Its a recognition that even a socialist community cannot produce all things to all people upon demand.

Baseball

14th April 2013, 22:16

also, profit is not the same as "over production" or exceeding consumption or whatever you're trying to imply. it in fact, works in reverse to what you assume. if you sell 1 unit at 1.5 times the production cost, then the buyer has purchased the item at a transmuted production cost of 1.5 units while only receiving 1 unit. scarcity of this item has increased artificially for the buyer. the seller has reduced the scarcity he experiences by increasing scarcity for the buyer. capitalism has the burden of proving this to be necessary which it fails to do because the only outcome of such a [B]profit mechanism.

Scarcity has perhaps occurred to other possible buyers of that unit, not to the actual purchaser. However, this is true whether the item costs 1 unit or 1.5 units. Only so many items can be available at any given time.

True, the buyer had .5 fewer units, but that cost is worth it to him to have the item. It might not be worth it to somebody else.

Doflamingo

16th April 2013, 08:04

Already posted earlier in this thread, but I feel like you'd all like this one.

You bake someone a cake, and they give you a slice, and then they get angry that you want more than a slice of it, and say that it was their idea to bake the cake.

Blake's Baby

16th April 2013, 10:33

Nope. Its a recognition that even a socialist community cannot produce all things to all people upon demand.

Of course it can. Even capitalism could do that, but it is incapable of delivering. Technologically what can do massively exceeds what we need to do.

Sure, if everybody demanded an aeroplane and somewhere to park it that would be a problem. But not everybody wants an aeroplane, so that's not a problem.

Individual wants are one thing, but socially-determined need is another. If our community, in discussions with each other, decides it needs a swimming pool, then there is no problem at all about building a swimming pool. If it decides it wants a hollowed-out volcano with rockets attached to make a flying missile platform, that is a problem. But really, people aren't idiots.

Baseball

18th April 2013, 23:28

Individual wants are one thing, but socially-determined need is another. If our community, in discussions with each other, decides it needs a swimming pool, then there is no problem at all about building a swimming pool. If it decides it wants a hollowed-out volcano with rockets attached to make a flying missile platform, that is a problem. But really, people aren't idiots.

And when the Widow Johnson says she needs and wants the 50 inch HDT TV, the community also has no problem in resolving the issue?

Blake's Baby

19th April 2013, 11:34

Lowtech

20th April 2013, 23:03

Scarcity has perhaps occurred to other possible buyers of that unit, not to the actual purchaser. However, this is true whether the item costs 1 unit or 1.5 units. Only so many items can be available at any given time.you are confusing artificial scarcity with real scarcity. there cannot be profit without artificial scarcity.
True, the buyer had .5 fewer units, but that cost is worth it to him to have the item. It might not be worth it to somebody else.withholding the actual production cost of an item (alienation) so the buyer can be fooled into paying more than the production cost does not constitute "being worth it."

subjectivity cannot validate artificial scarcity. subjective value is a social fiction designed to hide exploitation.

Baseball

5th May 2013, 02:58

Baseball

5th May 2013, 03:00

you are confusing artificial scarcity with real scarcity. there cannot be profit without artificial scarcity.withholding the actual production cost of an item (alienation) so the buyer can be fooled into paying more than the production cost does not constitute "being worth it."

Who is being fooled? The consumer wishes that product ahead of other products he or she may want and need. It is worth it to the consumer. And meeting the needs of consumers is the entire point of production.

Blake's Baby

5th May 2013, 12:18

It is not clear why the temperment of the Widow Johnson ought have a bearing she has her wants and needs met...

Why should the other members of her community support her wishes if she doesn't take part in her community?

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" isn't aa difficult cconcept to grasp.

...Its not just an issue of deciding to producing 50'' TV's. Its at what cost of what is NOT produced.

Funny, you were asking about whether Widow Johnson could have a new TV. Now you are claiming you're actually asking about something else.

TheRedAnarchist23

5th May 2013, 13:31

Capitalistm is the system where one has to pay in order to survive.

Brutus

5th May 2013, 13:41

Where the ones that make everything get nothing.

liberlict

12th May 2013, 06:10

You didn't ask for my opinion, but of course I've never let that stop my from giving it.

I think it's important to distinguish foundational elements of capitalism (like private property), and things that follow from it (like wage labor).

The only thing required for capitalism is private property. All the other things are just consequences of people being allowed to buy private property and control the means of production etc. Something like wage labor could arise in a communist society, assuming everybody is free. For example, say a communist society rations cigarettes at 3 cartons a week p/person. Perhaps I don't smoke, but my friend Kathy smokes 8 cartons a week. She doesn't get enough to satiate her nicotine addiction, so I make an agreement with her to lick my balls for 3 hours a week in return for my cigarettes. Kathy is now a wage slave in communist society.

So imho, capitalism == private property.

#FF0000

12th May 2013, 07:29

Things wouldn't be "rationed" in a communist society and trade =/= wages.

evermilion

12th May 2013, 07:56

Capitalism: the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, profit from purchasing the labor of the proletariat, a class with no ownership of capital.

liberlict

12th May 2013, 07:59

Why not? If Widow Johson speaks at the community meeting and says that new TVs are needed, and her neighbours agree that a certain amount of 50 inch (I bet communism will be metric) HDT TVs are a good idea, then it can put the order in. If Widow Johnson is all 'I want a 50" HD TV and if any of you bastards come onto my porch and wanna watch I'll blow your goddam commie heads off' then I think the majority of people in Widow Johnson's community are going to go 'fuck you, you crazy old polecat' and she won't get her 125cm HD TV.

Fair enough point. But would why Widow accept the outcome just because he/she has lost the vote at the community meeting, say 1082 votes to 1081? If I was Widow, and the tyranny of the majority was getting in the way of me having a TV I wanted, I would just start ordering things that the committee would approve, and then when I'd horded enough shit that I didn't really want I'd find someone with a nice TV and swap them for my secret loot.

Also, do you really propose that we take it to a committee every time someone wants a TV?

The rad bit about things as they stand, is I don't have to be bothered to attend a meeting every time someone 10 streets away wants a new TV or iPhone---They just go buy it if they have the means and I go on drinking red and watching the football.

BTW, are these meetings compulsory? Because I don't know about you, but I can't be assed giving proper consideration to all the pros and cons of Jill Smith from 10 streets away getting a new Porsche 911. Do you expect me to study the community accounts so I can give an informed answer? I'd be staying at home if I had the choice. If not you can be damn sure I'd be voting with spiteful apathy and leaving as early as I could so I could get back to doing said.

I can so imagine this community meeting: It goes for 12 hours because every week there's a cannonade of unfeasible orders by people wanting new TV's, new cars, house extensions, vacation vouchers, pet snakes,drugs, tools, watches they plan to sell secretly after the meeting, etc. As a consequence of this waste of time, people stop coming. The people that do continue to come then decide among themselves that they and their connections should get all the luxury shit. They form a bureaucratic class. Bureaucratic classes are much worse than economic classes, because they are less accountable.

Yeah not a fan.

liberlict

12th May 2013, 08:21

Things wouldn't be "rationed" in a communist society

So what everybody gets as many cigarettes as they want in a commmunist society?

trade =/= wages.

Why, because there is no surplus value robbery at the production level? Or because only paper currency amounts to wages? Or something else?

evermilion

12th May 2013, 08:30

So what everybody gets as many cigarettes as they want in a commmunist society?

Having reached the epoch of communism, productive capacity would be such that things could be distributed and consumed based on need. It's up to the workers to decide how to determine need for something like cigarettes.

#FF0000

12th May 2013, 09:37

Why, because there is no surplus value robbery at the production level? Or because only paper currency amounts to wages? Or something else?

Both are true (replace "paper currency" with any kind of currency, though). "Wage" is generally taken to mean monetary compensation.

evermilion

12th May 2013, 09:55

Both are true (replace "paper currency" with any kind of currency, though). "Wage" is generally taken to mean monetary compensation.

I thought "wage" in the Marxist sense meant what the prole receives from the capitalist for his labor, as distinct from the actual value he generates through his labor.

liberlict

12th May 2013, 10:38

Both are true (replace "paper currency" with any kind of currency, though). "Wage" is generally taken to mean monetary compensation.

If it's monetary compensation that's required for a wage, then ok. But it doesn't change Kathy's predicament does it? Real money is just a way of simplifying exchange so we don't have to directly waste time by negotiating x amount of goods/services for Y amount of goods/services. The market still exists, and if I''m taking more than I need from the production pool, presumably I'm getting more value out of them then it costed to produce them.

liberlict

12th May 2013, 10:50

Having reached the epoch of communism, productive capacity would be such that things could be distributed and consumed based on need. It's up to the workers to decide how to determine need for something like cigarettes.

We're always told this. But we're never told how this Garden of Eden is going to come about. In fact, we're presented with a sit of shifting goal posts: First it was that the workers who were going to become enlightened on their own accord (Marx/Engels). Then it was the workers are too myopic to understand what they really want, so they have to be spoken for by enlightened individuals (Lenin). Now communism version 3.0 requires 1 & 2, as well as a fundamental transformation off human perception. Some of you, such as this Noxon individual, even seem to be flirting with leaving the human vessel to achieve the last requirement.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

12th May 2013, 12:01

We're always told this. But we're never told how this Garden of Eden is going to come about. In fact, we're presented with a sit of shifting goal posts: First it was that the workers who were going to become enlightened on their own accord (Marx/Engels). Then it was the workers are too myopic to understand what they really want, so they have to be spoken for by enlightened individuals (Lenin). Now communism version 3.0 requires 1 & 2, as well as a fundamental transformation off human perception. Some of you, such as this Noxon individual, even seem to be flirting with leaving the human vessel to achieve the last requirement.

None of those are actually contradictory, and far from being shifting goalposts, they actually represent different answers to different questions, even if rather distorted by the lenses of your preconceptions. Some workers gain class consciousness because that's what conclusions their personal experiences and material conditions have lead them to. Others gain their understandings through involvement in political organisation, of which Lenin knew the importance of even if he got a lot of other shit wrong. Tectonic shifts in how the world is viewed have happened before, and will happen again. As for "leaving the human vessel", I'd rather that we try in diverse ways to improve on it first before abandoning it totally, because I'm sentimental about humanity, or at least the nicer parts of it.

Blake's Baby

12th May 2013, 12:38

Fair enough point. But would why Widow accept the outcome just because he/she has lost the vote at the community meeting, say 1082 votes to 1081? If I was Widow, and the tyranny of the majority was getting in the way of me having a TV I wanted, I would just start ordering things that the committee would approve, and then when I'd horded enough shit that I didn't really want I'd find someone with a nice TV and swap them for my secret loot...

Why not try being less of a crazy bastard instead?

There are basically, as far as I can tell, two necessary rules for being human.

1 - recognise that we are social beings;

2 - don't be a dick.

That's about it really.

It's not about whether the Widow wants a new TV (though she may want a new TV). Fred Bloggs might want a Vulcan bomber, Jolene Pillock might want a gold-plated replica of the Statue of Liberty, it doesn't matter. What is wanted or needed isn't the issue; what we're talking about is the process of fulfilling those wants or needs.

The fulfillment of 'needs' and 'wants' is decided at a communal not individual level. If 50 people in the community want new TVs, then there's a good chance the Widow will get her TV. If it's just her, then there's much less chance. If she wants a new TV but the rest of the community doesn't care about new TVs, I suspect that whether or not she get it will depend to an extent on how much of a 'team player' she is. If she helps the rest of the community then it's likely the rest of the community will help her. If she is a crazy bastard who threatens to kill members of the community then it's unlikely that they'll help her much.

VinnieUK

12th May 2013, 12:39

Capitalism. A system of society based on the class monopoly of the means of life, it has the following six essential characteristics:

Generalised commodity production, nearly all wealth being produced for sale on a market.

The investment of capital in production with a view to obtaining a monetary profit.

The exploitation of wage labour, the source of profit being the unpaid labour of the producers.

The regulation of production by the market via a competitive struggle for profits.

The accumulation of capital out of profits, leading to the expansion and development of the forces of production.

A single world economy.:)

Sarkar B. & Buick A., Marxian Economics and Globalization, 2009

Blake's Baby

12th May 2013, 12:48

Capitalism predates the world economy, by several hundred years.

LuÃs Henrique

12th May 2013, 13:29

So what everybody gets as many cigarettes as they want in a commmunist society?

Yes.

But evidently if someone claims he needs 500 cigarettes a day, he isn't likely to be believed.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

12th May 2013, 13:43

Capitalism predates the world economy, by several hundred years.

I would say the opposite. We have a world economy since about 1500, we only have capitalism since about 1700.

But what is a world economy?

Luís Henrique

evermilion

12th May 2013, 19:22

We're always told this. But we're never told how this Garden of Eden is going to come about. In fact, we're presented with a sit of shifting goal posts: First it was that the workers who were going to become enlightened on their own accord (Marx/Engels). Then it was the workers are too myopic to understand what they really want, so they have to be spoken for by enlightened individuals (Lenin). Now communism version 3.0 requires 1 & 2, as well as a fundamental transformation off human perception. Some of you, such as this Noxon individual, even seem to be flirting with leaving the human vessel to achieve the last requirement.

Marx, Engels, and Lenin represent a consistent line of thought with regards to proletarian socialist revolution. Marx and Engels described elements of vanguard cadres, and that Lenin should formulate ideas about the aggravation of class struggle doesn't contradict the prediction that the proletariat achieves revolutionary class consciousness. It has nothing to do with enlightenment or prophecy. Where consciousness of class struggle is achieved, it represents the potential for the emancipation of the proletariat.

liberlict

13th May 2013, 08:48

Why not try being less of a crazy bastard instead?

There are basically, as far as I can tell, two necessary rules for being human.

1 - recognise that we are social beings;

2 - don't be a dick.

That's about it really.

It's not about whether the Widow wants a new TV (though she may want a new TV). Fred Bloggs might want a Vulcan bomber, Jolene Pillock might want a gold-plated replica of the Statue of Liberty, it doesn't matter. What is wanted or needed isn't the issue; what we're talking about is the process of fulfilling those wants or needs.

The fulfillment of 'needs' and 'wants' is decided at a communal not individual level. If 50 people in the community want new TVs, then there's a good chance the Widow will get her TV. If it's just her, then there's much less chance. If she wants a new TV but the rest of the community doesn't care about new TVs, I suspect that whether or not she get it will depend to an extent on how much of a 'team player' she is. If she helps the rest of the community then it's likely the rest of the community will help her. If she is a crazy bastard who threatens to kill members of the community then it's unlikely that they'll help her much.

It is not "crazy" to want to improve your lot in life, even if it subtracts from the sum total of human well-being. In fact this is how humans act instinctively.

evermilion

13th May 2013, 09:44

It is not "crazy" to want to improve your lot in life, even if it subtracts from the sum total of human well-being. In fact this is how humans act instinctively.

That assumes a biological essentialism of human instinct. You're saying that man has always found it more moral to subtract from the sum total of human well-being as far as he understands it in the pursuit of his personal accumulation of stuff. This idea suggests that man will instinctively damage human happiness for the sake of his own, even when cooperation with that happiness would have been a more effective way of achieving happiness. And what that implies is that you're saying the systems in place that cause untold damage to human happiness are the most effective means of achieving happiness for humanity collectively.

Blake's Baby

13th May 2013, 09:46

It is not "crazy" to want to improve your lot in life, even if it subtracts from the sum total of human well-being. In fact this is how humans act instinctively.

Way to make an unsupported accusation about human nature. I disagree obviously, and chllenge your 'fact'. I contend that it quite literally is 'crazy' (as in, a sign of mental illness) to think that your happiness depends on the unhappiness of others. I also think that it is 'crazy' (as in, a sign of mental illness) to threaten with death other members of your community, which is what we were talking about.

So, yeah, I don't consider your point to be valid. We're social beings. One human being is not a valid unit of survival. So the point is not 'should we get along with others?' but 'how should we get along with others?'. And I'd suggest that isn't on the basis of 'take what you can, give nothing back'.

VinnieUK

13th May 2013, 09:53

But what is a world economy?

Luís Henrique

Capitalism dominates the world. Capital, wages, money, markets, capitalists, workers etc. It is a world economy and no one can escape it without replacing it with another world economy; communism/socialism.

It is the recognition that capitalism is a world economy that makes world socialism the only alternative.

liberlict

14th May 2013, 13:16

Way to make an unsupported accusation about human nature. I disagree obviously, and chllenge your 'fact'. I contend that it quite literally is 'crazy' (as in, a sign of mental illness) to think that your happiness depends on the unhappiness of others. I also think that it is 'crazy' (as in, a sign of mental illness) to threaten with death other members of your community, which is what we were talking about.

So, yeah, I don't consider your point to be valid. We're social beings. One human being is not a valid unit of survival. So the point is not 'should we get along with others?' but 'how should we get along with others?'. And I'd suggest that isn't on the basis of 'take what you can, give nothing back'.

Who's talking about enjoying other people being unhappy? That is sadism. I'm talking about prioritizing your happiness over others. You can call Kathy 'crazy' (or whatever that hypothetical girls name was), but at the end of the day she got a TV didn't she.

People hoarding shit in that manner was one of the main menaces during "war communism" in Russia. Trotsky had them shot, and not even that was a deterrent. So yeah, it's not an abstract example. It's empirically what happens under communism. It's a problem in the Jewish Kibbutz too---and this is a society with total religious and ethnic solidarity.

Blake's Baby

15th May 2013, 02:06

Who's talking about enjoying other people being unhappy? That is sadism. I'm talking about prioritizing your happiness over others. You can call Kathy 'crazy' (or whatever that hypothetical girls name was), but at the end of the day she got a TV didn't she...

Do you mean Widow Johnson? No, she didn't get her TV, because no-one in her community was prepared to stand up for her, because she threatened them all and called them commie bastards.

People need to live in groups: do you agree, or do you disagree?

...People hoarding shit in that manner was one of the main menaces during "war communism" in Russia. Trotsky had them shot, and not even that was a deterrent. So yeah, it's not an abstract example. It's empirically what happens under communism. It's a problem in the Jewish Kibbutz too---and this is a society with total religious and ethnic solidarity.

What are you talking about? Why do you think that what happened in Russia in 1919 or whatever, has anything to do with 'communism'?

evermilion

15th May 2013, 02:47

What are you talking about? Why do you think that what happened in Russia in 1919 or whatever, has anything to do with 'communism'?

Let's not confuse the gentleman with sectarian pedantry. He identifies communism with the Russian Revolution for reasons that should be obvious. Whether or not you believe Lenin represented "true" communism, keep in mind that the Bolsheviks used Marxist language and identified themselves as communist, as did those regimes that are supposed to have modeled themselves on the Bolsheviks. Whether communist in name alone, they will always be "communist" in the public consciousness, and that isn't so unreasonable, no matter what you believe.

Blake's Baby

15th May 2013, 02:51

Let's not be patronising fuckwits. If you - or 'the gentleman' - think that the Soviet Republic was an example of 'actual communism' then you need to be disabused of the notion immediately.

'In the early period of the European Enlightenment, at the dawn of capitalism, many women were burned for witchcraft. This undoubtedly means that every capitalist will burn women, it's empirically what happens under capitalism.' Valid argument?

evermilion

15th May 2013, 02:54

Let's not be patronising fuckwits. If you - or 'the gentleman' - think that the Soviet Republic was an example of 'actual communism' then you need to be disabused of the notion immediately.

This makes me regret, terribly, my decision to invest so much of time into participating on a board where people can't set aside their masturbatory sectarianism for one goddamn post.

Enjoy internet-debating a libertarian, I guess.

Blake's Baby

15th May 2013, 04:24

Meh. Don't throw the charge of 'sectarianism' around then.

Was what happened in Russia 'communism'? No. Can we use what happened in Russia to predict what 'communism' will be like? No. Is there any reason to pretend that we can? No.

So, what's the problem?

liberlict

15th May 2013, 08:56

Do you mean Widow Johnson? No, she didn't get her TV, because no-one in her community was prepared to stand up for her, because she threatened them all and called them commie bastards.

People need to live in groups: do you agree, or do you disagree?

I agree.

What are you talking about? Why do you think that what happened in Russia in 1919 or whatever, has anything to do with 'communism'?

I don't necessarily think it was communism. Defining "communism" in action is a smoke and mirrors game communists play. I don't participate. But it was a moneyless society for a little while with no private property. It was just an actual example of what I described.

evermilion

15th May 2013, 10:13

Defining "communism" in action is a smoke and mirrors game communists play. I don't participate.

Well now I know why you don't know what you're talking about, at least.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

15th May 2013, 10:25

I don't necessarily think it was communism. Defining "communism" in action is a smoke and mirrors game communists play. I don't participate. But it was a moneyless society for a little while with no private property.

First I've heard of it. Got any evidence?

liberlict

15th May 2013, 11:18

First I've heard of it. Got any evidence?

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/war_communism.htm

"In one fell swoop the market was declared illegal. Private trade, the
hiring of labor, leasing of land, and all private enterprise and ownership
were abolished, at least in theory, and subject to punishment by the state.
Property was confiscated from the upper classes. Businesses and factories
were nationalized. Surplus crops produced by the peasants were taken by
the government to support the Bolshevik civil-war forces and workers in the
towns. Labor was conscripted and organized militarily. Consumer goods
were rationed at artificially low prices and later at no price at all.
Unsurprisingly, special treatment was accorded those with power and
influence."

This is a really thorough article, worth reading.
http://mises.org/journals/jls/5_1/5_1_5.pdf

The Trotsky quote is good:

"The Soviet government hoped and strove to develop these methods of
regimentation directly into; system of planned economy in distribution
as well as production. In other words. from "war communism" it hoped
gradually,- but without destroying the system, to arrive at a genuine
communism.. ..Reality however came into increasing conflict with the
program of war communism"

Obviously there would have been rubles in circulation, but the Bolsheviks were trying to stamp it out. By 1920 money was so inflated it was essentially useless.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

15th May 2013, 14:35

All that shows is that you can't abolish capitalism by decree. Duh. We knew that already.

liberlict

15th May 2013, 14:53

I'm just not sure how you can distinguish between "abolishing capitalism by decree" and Leninism. You don't say youre a Leninist so it might not apply to you. Just food for thought: It's all good and well to say that the working class need to be led. But what do you do when theyre not responding to leadership?

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

15th May 2013, 15:04

I'm just not sure how you can distinguish between "abolishing capitalism by decree" and Leninism. You don't say youre a Leninist so it might not apply to you.

I'm not sure how Leninists would actually respond, but I imagine that they would say something along the lines that War Communism was a specific set of measures undertaken in a certain place to deal with specific circumstances in a certain period of history, and thus one can't generalise from that.

Any actual Leninists are welcome to correct me.

Just food for thought: It's all good and well to say that the working class need to be led. But what do you do when theyre not responding to leadership?

I wouldn't know, since I'm of the notion that the working class should lead itself.

Blake's Baby

15th May 2013, 19:30

I agree...

OK; so if you agree humans need to live in groups then I'd suggest what we're talking about is what are the methods that make that easiest.

...
I don't necessarily think it was communism. Defining "communism" in action is a smoke and mirrors game communists play. I don't participate...

'Communism' is classless, moneyless, stateless and global, and it works on the principle 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need'. I don't think any communist (Marxist or Anarchist-Communist) on this site would disagree with that.

The Soviet Republic - still had a working class and a peasant class, even if one believes that the bourgeoisie was entirely eliminated for a few years. So, not classless.

- you say yourself that roubles still circulated. So not moneyless.

- had an increasingly centralised and militarised state. So not stateless.

- was confined to about 1/6 of the world. So not global.

Did not function on the basis of 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'.

So on no point of the definition of 'communism' did the Soviet Republic qualify. You know why? It wasn't communism.

...
But it was a moneyless society for a little while with no private property. It was just an actual example of what I described.

It was still capitalism. The Soviet Republic was producing commodities for the world market, it was a state involved in diplomacy with its neighbours, there was a class system and there was a powerful state. Nothing about it can be considered an example of 'communism'.

evermilion

15th May 2013, 20:01

Nothing about it can be considered an example of 'communism'.

Comrade, the only historical precedent for a global classless, stateless, moneyless epoch of human civilization is pre-class humanity, and I think we need to be clear that we expect some of the elements of life as it has developed throughout history to come with us into communism. By which I mean we don't expect to regress to hunter-gather societies or agrarianism; our needs have developed.

As for the Soviet Union, no, it was not communism, but it was politically Communist, and that's the distinction. Whether you consider the U.S.S.R. at any point in its history to have deviated from Marxism as it ought to be applied, states led by ideologies associated with Marxism are, to the world, examples of political Communism in action. And this view isn't wholly invalid. Whether you call them "revisionist" or "Stalinist," the U.S.S.R., Albania, China, Cuba, etc. were and, in some cases, still are led by people who are clearly familiar with Marxism. If they deviate, we need to explain deviations in a way that is materialist, not one that assigns blame to the personalities of individuals. We need to understand how the anti-capitalist endeavor tends to manifest itself and why before we can successfully achieve communism.

Blake's Baby

15th May 2013, 20:36

...
As for the Soviet Union, no, it was not communism, but it was politically Communist, and that's the distinction. Whether you consider the U.S.S.R. at any point in its history to have deviated from Marxism as it ought to be applied, states led by ideologies associated with Marxism are, to the world, examples of political Communism in action...

that's pretty meaningless. Historical conditions can't be overleaped just becuse someone has a red star on their hat or has read Das Kapital.

Barak Obama is politically 'Democratic'. Does that mean that 'the people rule' in the USA? Of course not. A name of a thing is not the thing itself.

...
... And this view isn't wholly invalid. Whether you call them "revisionist" or "Stalinist," ...

Quite often I call them 'capitalist'.

...the U.S.S.R., Albania, China, Cuba, etc. were and, in some cases, still are led by people who are clearly familiar with Marxism. If they deviate, we need to explain deviations in a way that is materialist, not one that assigns blame to the personalities of individuals...

Oh, right, because anywhere in my post I actually attempted to 'blame the personalities of individuals' did I? I didn't even 'blame' Trotsky, who was mentioned earlier. I only attempted to show that using the Soviet Republic as an example of 'communism' is invalid. You've invented the rest yourself. I wasn't actually criticising Stalin or Mao; the fact that you need to jump in to defend "...the personalities of individuals..." who have not been attacked rather suggests to me that have an uneasy feeling that they need to be defended.

evermilion

15th May 2013, 20:47

Gee whiz, Mr. Defensive. I was just bringing up some talking points that we could discuss for the benefit of liberlict. He clearly doesn't know what materialism is; I thought if I prompted a discussion with you, we could educate this fellow with some class, you jackass. I'm sorry if I came off like I was strawmanning you, but fuck.

Historical conditions can't be overleaped just becuse someone has a red star on their hat or has read Das Kapital.

Not the point: when most people think of political Communism, they have a limited number of significant examples of Marxist understanding in action. If you think that's bogus, it's much more difficult to convince a lolbertarian that the material conditions need to be just so than to actually make people in general aware of alternative and preferable examples of applied Marxism.

Quite often I call them 'capitalist'.

And here I am without my laugh track. Rest assured, comrade, if this were filmed in front of a live studio audience, they'd be going insane.

Atehequa

15th May 2013, 22:08

A sickness

liberlict

18th May 2013, 04:01

Gee whiz, Mr. Defensive. I was just bringing up some talking points that we could discuss for the benefit of liberlict. He clearly doesn't know what materialism is fuck.

Please note I said "communism in action" instead of "communism". I said this because I think it's better to focus on the specific requirements for communism rather than communism in the abstract. I think this because communists have a habit of redefining their terms. To take an example from Blake's Baby:

The Soviet Republic - still had a peasant class

Peasant class? This is not typically how class is understood in Marxian terms. "Class" is a relationship to the means of production. If we are going to start introducing professional classes we are already complicating things. What other professional classes have to not exist before we have communism? Industrial class? Fisherman class? Carpentry class? Eventually what this kind of classlessness implies is no division of labor. If that's a requirement for communism, fine, but it's better to talk about it specifically because we can actually investigate the effects.

What you find when you do start looking at the various requirements for communism, is that they all make "material conditions" worse, not better. So the problems in getting a world fit for communism are the very requirements themselves. It's completely circular. For example "classlessness", in the sense that Blake's Baby is now using it, implies no division of labor. No division of labor leads to reduced resources, tools and productive efforts.

There are similar problems with each of the requirements.

moneyless

Money is just a means of simplifying exchange. If there is no money, it means we have to exchange in kind; i.e., you take 6 barrels of oil and i'll take 12 kegs of wine. These kind of calculations are extremely hard to do without money, because you have no obvious way of knowing what anything is really worth. Even assuming that we could expect workers to be unbiased in evaluating their productive efforts, they simply wouldn't have enough information at any given time to arrive at a correct valuation. That is why people stopped bartering and invented monetary calculation. So communism has to solve the problem of how to make an insanely complex world economy work by barter or state planning (see beelow).

stateless

Workers cannot possibly price their labors themselves, and since money is out of question, you need a central planning apparatus with powers to regulate production and distribution. This is a "state".

evermilion

18th May 2013, 04:43

Please note I said "communism in action" instead of "communism". I said this because I think it's better to focus on the specific requirements for communism rather than communism in the abstract.

That's what materialism is: the method by which one determines the requirements for communism. I think you mean to say political communism, that is, those movements that sought communism as a phase of civilization.

I think this because communists have a habit of redefining their terms. To take an example from Blake's Baby:

Blake's Baby mentions the persistence of the peasant class in the U.S.S.R.

Peasant class? This not typically how class is understood in Marxian terms. "Class" is a relationship to the means of production. If we are going to start introducing professional classes we are already complicating things. What other professional classes have to not exist before we have communism? Industrial class? Fisherman class? Carpentry class? Eventually what this kind of classlessness implies is no division of labor. If that's a requirement for communism, fine, but it's better to talk about it specifically because we can actually investigate the effects.

You have got to be shitting me.

Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and their mode of acquiring it.

It is best to distinguish the rich, the middle and the poor peasants.

One of the main features of the rich peasants is that they hire farmhands and day labourers. Like the landlords, the rich peasants also live by the labour of others.... They try to squeeze as much work as they can out of their farmhands, and pay them as little as possible.

Only in good years and under particularly favourable conditions is the independent husbandry of this type of peasant [the "petty bourgeois" peasantry] sufficient to maintain him and for that reason his position is a very unstable one. In the majority of cases the middle peasant cannot make ends meet without resorting to loans to be repaid by labour, etc., without seeking subsidiary' earnings on the side.

[The poor peasant lives] not by the land, not by his farm, but by working for wages.... He... has ceased to be an independent farmer and has become a hireling, a proletarian.

Do you understand now what the peasantry is?

What you find when you do start looking at the various requirements for communism, is that they all make "material conditions" worse, not better. So the problems in getting a world fit for communism are the very requirements themselves. It's completely circular. For example "classlessness", in the sense that Blake's Baby is now using it, implies no division of labor. No division of labor leads to reduced resources, tools and productive efforts.

What are you even talking about here?

Money is just a means of simplifying exchange. If there is no money, it means we have to exchange in kind; i.e., you take 6 barrels of oil and i'll take 12 kegs of wine. These kind of calculations are extremely hard to do without money, because you have no obvious way of knowing what anything is really worth. That is why people stopped doing it and invented monetary calculation.

Socialist distribution doesn't work on exchange. You've been here a while; you should know this.

Workers cannot possibly value their labors themselves, so you you need a central planning apparatus with powers to regulate production and distribution. This is a "state".

A state enforces property through coercion. A democratically controlled apparatus, centralized or not, that governs distribution and production is not a state in that it does not violently enforce property; it makes accessible resources and products.

liberlict

18th May 2013, 05:06

Just because Lenin said it, doesn't mean it's "communism". Communists themselves are very divided on it. There is nothing much about peasant class in Marx. But yes, I understand Lenin's problems with a peasant class.

If socialist distribution doesn't work by exchange, it has to work by planning.

A state enforces property through coercion. A democratically controlled apparatus, centralized or not, that governs distribution and production is not a state in that it does not violently enforce property; it makes accessible resources and products.

This kind of "stateless" existed, theoretically, in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks abolished nationalized the whole country. It just didn't work that way in reality because as Noxion said, "you can't abolish capitalism by decree".

evermilion

18th May 2013, 05:11

Just because Lenin said it, doesn't mean it's "communism".

It actually kind of does.

Communists themselves are very divided on it. There is nothing much about peasant class in Marx.

Marx doesn't mention much about the peasantry because the peasantry isn't the revolutionary class that achieves consciousness and creates socialism.

If socialist distribution doesn't work by exchange, it has to work by planning.

Exactly.

This kind of "stateless" existed, theoretically, in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks abolished nationalized the whole country. It just didn't work that way in reality because as Noxion said, "you can't abolish capitalism by decree".

So the Soviet Union had neither a military nor a police force.

Explain to me again why you're even here?

liberlict

18th May 2013, 05:35

Um, because I feel like it? Not sure what I've done to offend you :D. All I was getting at earlier is that I don't like to define 'communism" either theoretically or otherwise, because communists aren't even consistent with it themselves---which is fine, there's no reason to be, but the debate would be better served if we can have more exact definitions. You seem like an ardent Leninist, but I see many communist that don't accept your definitions. Honestly I find debating of terms boring. You are free to define things however you like. It's just good if other people know. I couldn't care less if the Soviet Union is called communist, state capitalist, or anything else. It's more interesting to me to discuss specifically what policies you are advocating.

evermilion

18th May 2013, 05:38

It's more interesting to me to discuss specifically what policies you are advocating.

Which makes that this entire thread has been dedicated to you exclusively addressing communism in the abstract rather odd.

liberlict

18th May 2013, 05:56

Um, I didn't even post till page 5 buddy. Post #93. And it was about defining capitalism---the thread topic.

evermilion

18th May 2013, 05:57

Um, I didn't even post till page 5 buddy. Post #93. And it was about defining capitalism---the thread topic.

Correction: this entire thread since page five.

LuÃs Henrique

18th May 2013, 10:35

Capitalism dominates the world. Capital, wages, money, markets, capitalists, workers etc. It is a world economy and no one can escape it without replacing it with another world economy; communism/socialism.

It is the recognition that capitalism is a world economy that makes world socialism the only alternative.

I know all that. But that's not the question.

Was the economy in 1550 a world economy? In 1650? In 1750? In 1850? In 1950?

Luís Henrique

Blake's Baby

18th May 2013, 10:44

Please note I said "communism in action" instead of "communism". I said this because I think it's better to focus on the specific requirements for communism rather than communism in the abstract. I think this because communists have a habit of redefining their terms. To take an example from Blake's Baby:

Peasant class? This is not typically how class is understood in Marxian terms. "Class" is a relationship to the means of production. If we are going to start introducing professional classes we are already complicating things. What other professional classes have to not exist before we have communism? Industrial class? Fisherman class? Carpentry class? Eventually what this kind of classlessness implies is no division of labor. If that's a requirement for communism, fine, but it's better to talk about it specifically because we can actually investigate the effects...

'Peasant' is not a 'professional' category. It expresses a relationship to the means of production.

...What you find when you do start looking at the various requirements for communism, is that they all make "material conditions" worse, not better. So the problems in getting a world fit for communism are the very requirements themselves. It's completely circular. For example "classlessness", in the sense that Blake's Baby is now using it, implies no division of labor. No division of labor leads to reduced resources, tools and productive efforts....

Well, as you've misunderstood what I'm saying, then I reject the conclusions you draw from what you think I said.

...There are similar problems with each of the requirements.

Money is just a means of simplifying exchange. If there is no money, it means we have to exchange in kind; i.e., you take 6 barrels of oil and i'll take 12 kegs of wine. These kind of calculations are extremely hard to do without money, because you have no obvious way of knowing what anything is really worth. Even assuming that we could expect workers to be unbiased in evaluating their productive efforts, they simply wouldn't have enough information at any given time to arrive at a correct valuation. That is why people stopped bartering and invented monetary calculation. So communism has to solve the problem of how to make an insanely complex world economy work by barter or state planning (see beelow)...

There is no 'exchange' in socialist society, as you yourself claim on a different thread I read about 6 minutes ago. So why you think there is here I don't understand.

...
Workers cannot possibly price their labors themselves, and since money is out of question, you need a central planning apparatus with powers to regulate production and distribution. This is a "state".

No, you don't. 'Decentralised planning' is quite sufficient.

As, for Marxists, a state is an organisation of class domination, and there are no classes in communist society, then there is no state either.

Baseball

19th May 2013, 13:34

[QUOTE=Blake's Baby;2616959

It's not about whether the Widow wants a new TV (though she may want a new TV). Fred Bloggs might want a Vulcan bomber, Jolene Pillock might want a gold-plated replica of the Statue of Liberty, it doesn't matter. What is wanted or needed isn't the issue; what we're talking about is the process of fulfilling those wants or needs.

The fulfillment of 'needs' and 'wants' is decided at a communal not individual level. If 50 people in the community want new TVs, then there's a good chance the Widow will get her TV. If it's just her, then there's much less chance. If she wants a new TV but the rest of the community doesn't care about new TVs, I suspect that whether or not she get it will depend to an extent on how much of a 'team player' she is. If she helps the rest of the community then it's likely the rest of the community will help her. If she is a crazy bastard who threatens to kill members of the community then it's unlikely that they'll help her much.[/QUOTE]

Ok- so "to each according to his needs" is qualified by:

1. The extent of "his" conformity to the rest of society (what might the anarchists say about that?).

2. The extent to which other people desire the same product (but why, in the socialist community, should that matter?).
1.

Blake's Baby

19th May 2013, 17:44

Ok- so "to each according to his needs" is qualified by:

1. The extent of "his" conformity to the rest of society (what might the anarchists say about that?).

2. The extent to which other people desire the same product (but why, in the socialist community, should that matter?).
1.

'The extent of "his" (you do know, that the original expression of this 160 years ago used "his", and that I was quoting, and that English doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun suitable for application to a person, don't you?) conformity to the rest of society'...

I'm not sure it's an issue of 'conformity' but it's certainly an issue of involvement. 'From each according to "their" (if you like) ability' would mean that Widow Johnson needs to involve herself with the community, not just sit on her porch threatening to shoot 'goddam commies'. Sitting on your porch threatening to shoot goddam commies is not contributing to society 'according to your ability'. So, no, if you don't contribute to society, why should the rest of us give a shit if you don't have a new TV?

'The extent to which other people desire the same product (but why, in the socialist community, should that matter?)'...

I don't think you've understood this either.

If Widow Johnson wants a new TV (or, even better, needs a new TV) but no-one else in the community does, is there any reason why the rest of the community would try to prevent her getting one on the basis of 'to each according to "their" need'? Not at all. The commune can order '1x 125cm TV' just as easily as it can order '50x 125cm TVs'. It's two extra characters to write on a form or one extra character to type in a box on a screen. Who would care? It's only on the basis of whether she's a contributing member of society that anyone can really object to having her 'needs' met.

liberlict

20th May 2013, 11:48

'Peasant' is not a 'professional' category. It expresses a relationship to the means of production.

Well, as you've misunderstood what I'm saying, then I reject the conclusions you draw from what you think I said.

There is no 'exchange' in socialist society, as you yourself claim on a different thread I read about 6 minutes ago. So why you think there is here I don't understand.

No, you don't. 'Decentralised planning' is quite sufficient.

What is decentralized planning?

liberlict

20th May 2013, 11:53

ity to the rest of society (what might the anarchists say about that?).

2. The extent to which other people desire the same product (but why, in the socialist community, should that matter?).
1.

It's a society of abundance! Don't you get it? Nobody ever wants any more than what they have.

Blake's Baby

20th May 2013, 12:14

What is decentralized planning?

Stock control.

There doesn't have to by a chap with a moustache in a swanky office saying 'bring me the 5-year plan for tomato production'. There can be feedback from the communes which require tomatoes, to the communes that produce tomatoes.

liberlict

20th May 2013, 12:21

Stock control.

There doesn't have to by a chap with a moustache in a swanky office saying 'bring me the 5-year plan for tomato production'. There can be feedback from the communes which require tomatoes, to the communes that produce tomatoes.

This is a whole lot less efficient than monetary pricing. Do you disagree?

Blake's Baby

20th May 2013, 12:45

I don't understand what you think you mean by 'efficiency' there. So I certainly don't 'agree'.

liberlict

20th May 2013, 13:08

i mean like if every time you want to make an economic decision, you have to go through a democratic process involving the workers before you make it.

LuÃs Henrique

20th May 2013, 13:16

Ok- so "to each according to his needs" is qualified by:

1. The extent of "his" conformity to the rest of society (what might the anarchists say about that?).

2. The extent to which other people desire the same product (but why, in the socialist community, should that matter?).
1.

First thing, it is qualified by whether something is a means of production, or just an object of consumption. There is no need to limit your provision of toothbrushes; it isn't likely that you will demand more than you need, nor it is likely that you will reintroduce social inequality by accumulating toothbrushes. But you can't demand a toothbrush factory for yourself, as this would certainly reintroduce accumulation and inequality.

Second, it is qualified by the mode of its consumption. If you need a bicycle, you should get one; it is an individual means of transportation. If you need to travel from city A to city B, you don't get a private plane for it; planes are made for collective use, and so there should be enough planes to transport all the people who need or merely want to fly from city A to city B, but no reason anyone would get an individual plane to park in his or her backyard.

So, conformity shouldn't be an issue. Dissidents should get as many necessaries and luxuries as anyone else (that, of course, would probably lessen people's desire to dissent, but this is a completely different issue). Conversely, dissidents must contribute as much as anyone else; they won't be exempt from "working" except if they are unable to.

Is it limited by what other people desire? To a certain extent, yes. If everybody needs or wants a certain object, it is more likely that such thing will be produced than if only a small minority demands it. If the demand is very small, it might make it very inefficient to produce. So, if a few people want weekends in Mars, it is possible that they will get frustrated, because it would mean placing too many resources at the disposal of the wishes of too few individuals.

Luís Henrique

liberlict

20th May 2013, 13:26

Who decides on "need" in regards to the private plane?

LuÃs Henrique

20th May 2013, 13:33

Who decides on "need" in regards to the private plane?

If you are one person, why on earth would you need a plane with 20 seats all for yourself?

Luís Henrique

Blake's Baby

21st May 2013, 09:42

i mean like if every time you want to make an economic decision, you have to go through a democratic process involving the workers before you make it.

As opposed to just telling them they should, you mean?

Dictatorship of the individual may be more 'efficient' but I'd rather have something less efficient. Unless you're the dictator, you're a slave, and I don't want to be a slave.

Nor do I want to be a dictator, but I'm happy to live in a society where decisions are made collectively.

liberlict

24th June 2013, 11:52

As opposed to just telling them they should, you mean?

False dilemma. Price mechanism makes this calculation and requires no intervention.

liberlict

24th June 2013, 11:54

If you are one person, why on earth would you need a plane with 20 seats all for yourself?

Luís Henrique

And who appointed you the arbiter of what other people desire/need? Off to the reeducation camp I go, I guess!!

Blake's Baby

24th June 2013, 13:31

Yeah, probably.

There are essentially two rules that I think are basically necessary for living as a human being:

1 - realise we all have to live together, and

2 - don't be a dick.

Society, as a whole, gets to decide. If you think you should have a plane, you have to make an argument for it. If others in your community agree that you should have a plane, then you're likely to get your plane.

Why should you have to abide by the decisions of the community? Because humans can't survive as individuals. We need society, so we have to work on the principle that what we need to do is determine how we live together not whether we live together. See the 'two rules' above.

liberlict

25th June 2013, 06:56

I'm sorry, but I just think it's hilarious that you think that every economic action should have to go through some kind of democratic process. How many people should be involved in this democracy in your view? It couldn't be the whole world, every time individual X wanted a new commodity, so it wouldn't be any kind of plausible 'democracy' (which is just a meaningless sacred cow ) So how many? Just people at the local level? Even in imaging the most efficient possible circumstances, imposing a debate on every economic decision would paralyze the world economy (I'm assuming 'world economy' here because global democracy is your fantasy). The amount of time spent on democratically deciding whether A should be consumed in every arisen instance would be saturating to the point of stasis. This is not even taking into account the decisions of what should be produced, which cannot be calculated, democratically or otherwise, without price signals --- this is the "economic calculation problem", it was understood by Mises, Brutzkus and Weber, and eternally ignored by Communists.

Blake's Baby

25th June 2013, 09:44

You obviously haven't realised yet that the point of the communist movement is not to perfect 'economy' but to destroy it.

liberlict

25th June 2013, 15:05

Huh? Production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services must happen in any society. That is an economy. I think it might be you that doesn't understand some basic here, matey.

ThatGuy

26th June 2013, 22:26

Blake's Baby

27th June 2013, 09:26

The words 'liberal' and 'libertarian' only really have the primary definitions you suggest in the US though.

But capitalism meaning 'private property and free exchange of goods'... I don't think capitalism has ever meant that anywhere.

ThatGuy

27th June 2013, 14:23

Blake's Baby

27th June 2013, 14:25

I don't think that's actually true. Trade has always been regulated by the state (or some state-like entity, like religious cults). I don't know how you can claim otherwise.

ThatGuy

27th June 2013, 17:37

States tend to regulate trade, I agree, but during laissez-faire for example, the state did very little regulating, and generally left entrepreneurs alone. There were laws, of course, and you could argue that regulated the economy, because you couldn't legally kill people for profit etc, but I still think that it's fair to say trade was relatively free in those times.

Blake's Baby

27th June 2013, 23:24

So, 'free' trade, or 'relatively free' trade? It's beginning to sound like the golden age of capitalism that you're hankering after was only marginally more 'free' than this one.

ThatGuy

28th June 2013, 11:27

There still were states, you couldn't decide if you would pay taxes, just like today, true, but all in all, there were significally fewer interventions into the market than there are now. It wasn't perfect, but there were no central banks, at least not in the way we know them now, taxes were much lower, business wasn't regulated the way it is now.. I think it's fair to say laissez-faire was the closest that western civilizations ever came to pure capitalism.

BTW, relatively pure capitalism can be found even today in Somalia. I usually dislike bringing Somalia up, because it gives people an excuse to show how capitalism doesn't work, because Somalia is basically a hell hole and a place where nobody would really want to live in. But that's pretty superficial if you ask me, since it was a poorly run state, that drove Somalia's economy into the ground and it has actually been recovering since the government fell and it became an anarcho-capitalistic region. It's still not really a perfect example, because there use to be a lot of foreign meddling with the region before the collapse of the state and there still is now, but it's the closest example currently available.

The Feral Underclass

28th June 2013, 18:38

It's a society of abundance! Don't you get it? Nobody ever wants any more than what they have.

But what they have is what they need, so why would they want more than what they need?

liberlict

29th June 2013, 00:55

But what they have is what they need, so why would they want more than what they need?

Brilliant. Nobody ever covets more than what they need. How did I never think of that.

The Feral Underclass

29th June 2013, 01:09

Brilliant. Nobody ever covets more than what they need. How did I never think of that.

Yes, you've said that already. My question was why they would do this.

liberlict

29th June 2013, 02:27

Yes, you've said that already. My question was why they would do this.

I don't know. Why do I want a Galaxy S4? My Galaxy 2 works just fine.

#FF0000

29th June 2013, 02:30

Marketing, dogg.

That's pretty simple.

liberlict

29th June 2013, 02:47

Oh, I'm a zombie product of marketing. Thanks for clarifying my life for me.

MarxArchist

29th June 2013, 02:55

Well, existing capitalism has always been distorted by the state, but laissez-faire was pretty much that. The state didn't intervene in the trade between people and private property was widely accepted. Also, private property and free trade is what people who describe themselves as ideological capitalists are talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation_%28book%29

http://libcom.org/files/The%20Invention%20of%20Capitalism.pdf

This is the only thing (link below) Ludwig Von Mises could come up with to "debunk" the (links above) reality that capitalism can't exist without a state and that the laissez-faire ideology of the early capitalists had to be thrown out in order for an industrial property based market system to arise and function. Mises response below is pure garbage. A desperate attempt to deny reality which is essentially what the entire scope of "anarcho" capitalism is. A desperate attempt to deny reality.

http://mises.org/daily/1607

liberlict

29th June 2013, 03:26

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation_%28book%29

http://libcom.org/files/The%20Invention%20of%20Capitalism.pdf

This is the only thing (link below) Ludwig Von Mises could come up with to "debunk" the (links above) reality that capitalism can't exist without a state and that the laissez-faire ideology of the early capitalists had to be thrown out in order for an industrial property based market system to arise and function. Mises response below is pure garbage. A desperate attempt to deny reality which is essentially what the entire scope of "anarcho" capitalism is. A desperate attempt to deny reality.

http://mises.org/daily/1607

You are obsessed with defining a 'state'. A communist society cannot prosperously exist at all, with or without a state. Never mind the semantic games about how capitalism requires a state. Show us how a communist society can prosper in any fashion whatsoever.

The Feral Underclass

29th June 2013, 09:46

I don't know. Why do I want a Galaxy S4? My Galaxy 2 works just fine.

I don't know why, that's why I keep asking you and you keep not answering me. My question is why would people want more than they needed? Are you going to answer me or not?

You are obsessed with defining a 'state'. A communist society cannot prosperously exist at all, with or without a state. Never mind the semantic games about how capitalism requires a state. Show us how a communist society can prosper in any fashion whatsoever.

What does it mean "to prosper"?

MarxArchist

29th June 2013, 10:53

You are obsessed with defining a 'state'. A communist society cannot prosperously exist at all, with or without a state. Never mind the semantic games about how capitalism requires a state. Show us how a communist society can prosper in any fashion whatsoever.

This is a thread concerning capitalism. If you want to debate "why communism can't work" start a thread with that title. Until then lets focus on why my post made you react like this.

ThatGuy

29th June 2013, 10:58

But what they have is what they need, so why would they want more than what they need?

Well, because sooner or later you'll have to have new things. Unless your food source is ever lasting, your home doesn't deteriorate, your car never breaks down, your clothes never tear or your health never gets worse etc there will always be things you'll feel you need. Also, when all of the above is covered, people will want to have some luxuries, like culture, entertainment, travel and nice things in general. We may not need this things, but they sure make life more worth living. Deciding what people need instead of them is simply wrong.

The Feral Underclass

29th June 2013, 11:10

Well, because sooner or later you'll have to have new things. Unless your food source is ever lasting, your home doesn't deteriorate, your car never breaks down, your clothes never tear or your health never gets worse etc there will always be things you'll feel you need.

But that's not wanting more than you need, that's just wanting what you need.

The person I was quoting was implying that people would want more than they need, for some reason, and therefore this was a deficiency in communism.

Also, when all of the above is covered, people will want to have some luxuries, like culture, entertainment, travel and nice things in general.

But these are things that people need.

We may not need this things

Really? I would contend very seriously that culture, entertainment, travel etc are definitely things society needs.

but they sure make life more worth living. Deciding what people need instead of them is simply wrong.

There is no "external" force that determines what people need, other than the obvious natural necessities for survival. Society determines what is necessary and then organises its production and distribution on that basis.

The difference between communism and capitalism, however, is that a communist society organises production and distribution for the benefit of the community, and capitalism organises production and distribution for the benefit of profit.

ThatGuy

29th June 2013, 11:14

MarxArchist

29th June 2013, 11:24

@MarxArchist

Whoa, that's a LOT of reading :)

Could you just sum it all up quickly? I have a lot of books I want to finish reading and adding new ones to the pile will only result in me never reading any of them. Also this conversation might get heavily bogged down by it.
http://uncharted.org/frownland/books/Polanyi/POLANYI%20KARL%20-%20The%20Great%20Transformation%20-%20v.1.0.html#page_201

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/16/a-short-history-of-primitive-accumulation/

ThatGuy

29th June 2013, 11:29

There is no "external" force that determines what people need, other than the obvious natural necessities for survival. Society determines what is necessary and then organises its production and distribution on that basis.

Actually in a planned economy that is exactly what must happen. An external committee, that is part of society, but can never represent everybody in a society decides what people need. And not just things like "culture" or "travel", but even precisely what kind of culture and where people can travel etc. In a market economy people decide what they need(or want, the two words mean more or less the same) and entrepreneurs find ways to satisfy their needs. That's why there has always been greater variety of goods in a market economy.

The difference between communism and capitalism, however, is that a communist society organises production and distribution for the benefit of the community, and capitalism organises production and distribution for the benefit of profit.

I agree, but production for profit is actually also inherently beneficial to the community if it follows the principle of non-agression, and it usually does in civilized societies. When an entrepreneur finds a way to make a huge profit what that means is that he sold a huge amount of something that the consumers needed to them. He made a profit, sure, but that would never have happened if the consumers didn't see buying what he sold more profitable to their own interests than not buying it, or buying something else instead. Potential for profit is also the way the market signals to entrepreneurs what consumers want and in what way they can benefit themselves and society the most.

The Feral Underclass

29th June 2013, 12:10

Actually in a planned economy that is exactly what must happen. An external committee, that is part of society, but can never represent everybody in a society decides what people need. And not just things like "culture" or "travel", but even precisely what kind of culture and where people can travel etc. In a market economy people decide what they need(or want, the two words mean more or less the same) and entrepreneurs find ways to satisfy their needs. That's why there has always been greater variety of goods in a market economy.

I don't know what kind of planned economy you're referring to, but in a communist society it is planned from the core outwards. Communities determine what they need in a decentralised way and it is organised at a central level. There is no central authority that determines what is needed.

So, for example, a city has five boroughs. Each of these boroughs have different bread needs. The people in the borough organise how much bread they need in the borough in which they live. Each borough then relays their respective information to the appropriate local bread factory and the bread factories produce the bread in accordance with the quantities that have been requested by each borough. They are then distributed accordingly.

I agree, but production for profit is actually also inherently beneficial to the community if it follows the principle of non-agression, and it usually does in civilized societies. When an entrepreneur finds a way to make a huge profit what that means is that he sold a huge amount of something that the consumers needed to them. He made a profit, sure, but that would never have happened if the consumers didn't see buying what he sold more profitable to their own interests than not buying it, or buying something else instead. Potential for profit is also the way the market signals to entrepreneurs what consumers want and in what way they can benefit themselves and society the most.

In a way you are right, profit can benefit communities in so far as it can create employment and push competition, but even if we accept that is a useful, justifiable system (which I don't), it is still predicated on a process of exploitation.

Profit is created by extracting surplus value from the labour of others. An individual is employed by their boss (the person who ultimately benefits from the profit) by paying their worker less than the value of the products they create. You pay me £7.05 an hour to make TVs. I assemble 5 TVs in 8 hours. At the end of the day you pay me £56.40. You then sell those TVs each for £400. After you pay for the material and the tools at £75 per TV, plus my labour of £11.28 for each TV, my labour helps you pocket £1568.60. That's 28 times more than you paid me to produce the TVs that you have sold for yourself to make profit.

Now you could argue that you pay for the tools and the materials, or at the very least you paid for the initial materials and the tools to begin your TV business. But as we can see, the worker who you employ to produce the products that you sell to make profit, repay that over and over and over again each time they come into work, to the point where by in actual fact you are paying someone £56.40, not only to produce your products that you sell for a profit, but also the materials and tools in which they produce them for you.

That, fundamentally, is unjustifiable. Especially when you consider that this worker then has to pay 10% tax, buy food, pay for electricity, gas, mortgage, car payments, school bills, child care, water bill, credit card debt, over draft debt. What they are they left with is very little -- perhaps they can buy a ticket to see the football, probably not though, because they want to save money, so why not watch in on the TV that they produced, that they had to buy back from you for 8 times the amount you paid them to produce it. Then of course they have to pay their TV licence.

As a system of economics, the only people who really benefit are the people who are making all the profit from all these things -- things that other people produce. That is not a fair system, it's not a logical system and it's not a system that benefits the community -- not in any real sense.

Hit The North

29th June 2013, 15:14

^Workers don't recieve a percentage of the value they produce, they recieve a wage. Wages are set and independent of what you produce, for example I could make 10 cheeseburgers in an hour or I could make 100, but I'm still only going to get paid $7.25 for that hour.

But, of course, workers do not have control over the production process and, therefore, never have the choice to slack-off, making only ten cheeseburgers per hour when the expected target is 100, or whatever. This alerts us to the fact that capitalism is also an authoritarian power relation.

Employers pay wages out of pocket, it isn't a share of the profit. In fact some workers get paid before they even perform their work and most before the product they make is even sold. No, they pay wages out of the capital from previous accumulation. Meanwhile, whilst some workers may get renumerated before expending their labour, for the overwhelming majority of workers, the reverse is true. You have to work a month before you receive a month's salary.

#FF0000

29th June 2013, 17:31

Oh, I'm a zombie product of marketing. Thanks for clarifying my life for me.

You're pretty stupid if you think pointing out that marketing doesn't sometimes set out to create demand for something people might not otherwise wants = "WE R ZOMBIES FO ADVETRISMEN"

liberlict

30th June 2013, 03:10

I don't know why, that's why I keep asking you and you keep not answering me. My question is why would people want more than they needed? Are you going to answer me or not?

Well I can only answer for myself of course. But the S4 is quite a bit better than the S2. Is is 441 ppi compared to 218 ppi with the S2. 64gb card storage compared to 32. 2 * the RAM, 8 cpu cores, wireless charging. It's a pretty kick-ass phone.

Does that answer your question?

Red Banana

30th June 2013, 04:02

But, of course, workers do not have control over the production process and, therefore, never have the choice to slack-off, making only ten cheeseburgers per hour when the expected target is 100, or whatever. This alerts us to the fact that capitalism is also an authoritarian power relation.

I wasn't trying to suggest workers have control over the production process nor deny the authoritarian power relations of capitalism. I was just trying to demonstrate that workers don't have a share in the the value they produce, but rather are paid a wage determined by the capitalist.

No, they pay wages out of the capital from previous accumulation. Meanwhile, whilst some workers may get renumerated before expending their labour, for the overwhelming majority of workers, the reverse is true. You have to work a month before you receive a month's salary.

Yes, capital from previous accumulation. Who does that capital belong to? The capitalist of course, it's in their pocket you might say. So paying wages out of this capital might be phrased 'out of pocket'.

And yes, while I'm well aware that the vast majority of laborers aren't paid before they perform their labor, including myself, some are and by pointing this out I was trying to show the poster above how workers have no share in the value they produce.

The Feral Underclass

30th June 2013, 04:16

Well I can only answer for myself of course. But the S4 is quite a bit better than the S4. Is is 441 ppi compared to 218 ppi with the S2. 64gb card storage compared to 32. 2 * the RAM, 8 cpu cores, wireless charging. It's a pretty kick-ass phone.

Does that answer your question?

Not really.

Are you saying you want more than you need because technology has invented something better than what you have?

liberlict

30th June 2013, 05:16

Are you saying you want more than you need because technology has invented something better than what you have?

Yeah. That's a decent enough way of putting it.

The Feral Underclass

30th June 2013, 15:06

Yeah. That's a decent enough way of putting it.

Then I am confused about what your original sarcastic comment was in relation to? Or what point you were making. I don't really see that as "wanting more than you need," it seems perfectly normal to want what technology, especially if it is better than what you have.

I fail to see why that would be a problem in a communist society?

ThatGuy

30th June 2013, 20:40

I don't know what kind of planned economy you're referring to, but in a communist society it is planned from the core outwards. Communities determine what they need in a decentralised way and it is organised at a central level. There is no central authority that determines what is needed.

So, for example, a city has five boroughs. Each of these boroughs have different bread needs. The people in the borough organise how much bread they need in the borough in which they live. Each borough then relays their respective information to the appropriate local bread factory and the bread factories produce the bread in accordance with the quantities that have been requested by each borough. They are then distributed accordingly.

Even if the state collects information on how much of what people need in the way you described, it must still decide what wished or need to satisfy and which not, because it will probably be impossible to grant them all at once, since we live in a world of scarcity. Unless people wished for less, but i think expecting people to change to fit a system is wrong.

In a way you are right, profit can benefit communities in so far as it can create employment and push competition, but even if we accept that is a useful, justifiable system (which I don't), it is still predicated on a process of exploitation.

Profit is created by extracting surplus value from the labour of others. An individual is employed by their boss (the person who ultimately benefits from the profit) by paying their worker less than the value of the products they create. You pay me £7.05 an hour to make TVs. I assemble 5 TVs in 8 hours. At the end of the day you pay me £56.40. You then sell those TVs each for £400. After you pay for the material and the tools at £75 per TV, plus my labour of £11.28 for each TV, my labour helps you pocket £1568.60. That's 28 times more than you paid me to produce the TVs that you have sold for yourself to make profit.

Now you could argue that you pay for the tools and the materials, or at the very least you paid for the initial materials and the tools to begin your TV business. But as we can see, the worker who you employ to produce the products that you sell to make profit, repay that over and over and over again each time they come into work, to the point where by in actual fact you are paying someone £56.40, not only to produce your products that you sell for a profit, but also the materials and tools in which they produce them for you.

That, fundamentally, is unjustifiable. Especially when you consider that this worker then has to pay 10% tax, buy food, pay for electricity, gas, mortgage, car payments, school bills, child care, water bill, credit card debt, over draft debt. What they are they left with is very little -- perhaps they can buy a ticket to see the football, probably not though, because they want to save money, so why not watch in on the TV that they produced, that they had to buy back from you for 8 times the amount you paid them to produce it. Then of course they have to pay their TV licence.

As a system of economics, the only people who really benefit are the people who are making all the profit from all these things -- things that other people produce. That is not a fair system, it's not a logical system and it's not a system that benefits the community -- not in any real sense.

The relation between worker and employer you described might be theoretically possible, but I seriously doubt it could happen in practice. If your employer is paying you much much less than what he is getting from you, in a free market you could save up some money, and start you own business, or a competitor of your boss will notice you and offer you a higher pay for the same work, because he'll be able to steal some of the profit away from your boss in that way. Workers to are scarce, you can't just magic them up and expect them to work for whatever you deem is enough, they can leave and find a better job. This means that in a free market wages usually come close to the profit a worker generates(once you account for expenses), but usually don't reach them, because just as workers, employers don't like working for free.

When big companies such as Apple outsource their jobs overseas, where work is cheaper this mechanic doesn't go away. China used to be really cheap for work hours, which meant that businesses moved a lot of their manufacturing there, but once this process started, their wages started to slowly rise, since employers were bidding for workers and this is what led to the rise in the standard of living in China.

This may be unrelated, but do you agree that China is much better off now that it has a somewhat free market economy as it was under the communistic planned economy? I don't know what the sentiment towards past existing communist states is on this board.

Fourth Internationalist

1st July 2013, 01:07

liberlict

1st July 2013, 08:12

Then I am confused about what your original sarcastic comment was in relation to? Or what point you were making. I don't really see that as "wanting more than you need," it seems perfectly normal to want what technology, especially if it is better than what you have.

I fail to see why that would be a problem in a communist society?

Perhaps we are confusing 'needs' and 'wants'? There are many things that I want that I don't 'need'? A Samsung Galaxy 4 being one of them.

The Feral Underclass

1st July 2013, 11:48

Perhaps we are confusing 'needs' and 'wants'? There are many things that I want that I don't 'need'? A Samsung Galaxy 4 being one of them.

But wanting things doesn't conflict with communism...

The Feral Underclass

1st July 2013, 11:56

Even if the state collects information on how much of what people need in the way you described, it must still decide what wished or need to satisfy and which not, because it will probably be impossible to grant them all at once, since we live in a world of scarcity. Unless people wished for less, but i think expecting people to change to fit a system is wrong.

Well first of all the state wouldn't exist. Secondly, change comes through people recognising the illogicality of capitalism and creating a communist society. If you want people to stay the same forever, that's fine, but I don't accept that people would want to do that when they realise they can create an alternative that frees them from exploitation.

The relation between worker and employer you described might be theoretically possible, but I seriously doubt it could happen in practice.

It's not theoretically possible, it is a fact.

If your employer is paying you much much less than what he is getting from you, in a free market you could save up some money, and start you own business, or a competitor of your boss will notice you and offer you a higher pay for the same work, because he'll be able to steal some of the profit away from your boss in that way.

But the exploitative relationship still exists.

Workers to are scarce, you can't just magic them up and expect them to work for whatever you deem is enough, they can leave and find a better job. This means that in a free market wages usually come close to the profit a worker generates(once you account for expenses), but usually don't reach them, because just as workers, employers don't like working for free.

What is the point you are making?

When big companies such as Apple outsource their jobs overseas, where work is cheaper this mechanic doesn't go away. China used to be really cheap for work hours, which meant that businesses moved a lot of their manufacturing there, but once this process started, their wages started to slowly rise, since employers were bidding for workers and this is what led to the rise in the standard of living in China.

This is not a healthy system. This system is predicated on workers being exploited, having to work to create products for other people. That's not a fair or equitable system and it's not a life that someone should have to lead.

This may be unrelated, but do you agree that China is much better off now that it has a somewhat free market economy as it was under the communistic planned economy? I don't know what the sentiment towards past existing communist states is on this board.

China's economy has never been communistic. But yes, China probably has more wealth, but that doesn't mean that the working class are better off.

Tim Cornelis

1st July 2013, 12:44

The state doesn't collect it. He's an anarchist and a communist. Both of those want the state abolished. And, he said to the factories, which is not the state. Also, there is plenty of resources on this planet for everyone. Either they are not being distributed effectively because of this system or they are just not being grown/created effectively if at all. No one has to change, and no one has to starve to death, either.

Plenty of resources on this planet for everyone how? Plenty of resources for food, yes, clothes, yes, housing, yes, education, yes, yachts? No, ten TVs per person? I doubt it. So how do we prioritise production of products? That's the problem being posed here.

Even if the state collects information on how much of what people need in the way you described, it must still decide what wished or need to satisfy and which not, because it will probably be impossible to grant them all at once, since we live in a world of scarcity. Unless people wished for less, but i think expecting people to change to fit a system is wrong.

If we want a system based on distribution according to needs we need to apply the reule of "to each according to his needs, if there's enough for everyone's needs." For instance, if each person in a given community wants X amount of breads and the aggregate total can be produced using the available resources, then bread can be distribution according to needs. If the consumers want too much bread, then it needs to be rationed. Now, the problem is we need some mechanism by which to determine how much resources are allocated to the production of bread and not other goods (that is, determine when there's enough for everyone).

The alternative is that needs will be ascertained through rationing of goods by means of work points or labour credits.

liberlict

1st July 2013, 13:06

Just mucking around with some math, thinking about how land might be distributed: There is apparently 15,641,597,556 acres of habitable land on the earth. http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/index.html .There is 7 billion people. So my rough math says that to share it, we would get about 2.4 acres each (mathematicians correct me? ). You must then take into account that at least 1/4 of that land would need to be used for farming, and probably about the same for industry, then you've got all the infrastructure. My best estimate, maybe, we could get about a 1/4 acre parcel of land each? That's not completely horrible. Deciding who gets what land would be the interesting part. My feeling is that all the houses on the French Rivera would go to those who do the administrative jobs.

LuÃs Henrique

1st July 2013, 13:21

Brilliant. Nobody ever covets more than what they need. How did I never think of that.

Of course we "covet" more than what we "need", even in a socialist society. If so, we have to restructure production, so that what was now (as opposed to previously) needed is produced. The only difference is that we first realise what we need, or covet, and then set ourselves to produce it - as opposed to capitalism, where we first produce things and then set ourselves to convince people that they need it.

Luís Henrique

liberlict

1st July 2013, 13:26

capitalism, where we first produce things and then set ourselves to convince people that they need it.

There is no point in making things people don't need. Capitalism is the only system that rewards you for giving people what they need. That's the wonderful invisible hand.

LuÃs Henrique

1st July 2013, 13:26

I have always interpreted capitalism as a system with private property and free exchange of goods.

In my view capitalism doesn't need wage labor to exist, but of course there have been different definitions of the word capitalism through history, just as "liberal" once meant pro free market and has turned into pro state intervention and just as "libertarian" once meant socialist and now means pro free market.

But if there is no wage labour, that means that workers are not free to exchange their labour power, and consequently the system doesn't match your definition of "private property and free exchange of goods".

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

1st July 2013, 13:28

There is no point in making things people don't need. Capitalism is the only system that rewards you for giving people what they need. That's the wonderful invisible hand.

So in a feudal society the productive system didn't make things that people needed? How that?

Luís Henrique

liberlict

1st July 2013, 13:32

Well, yes feudalism is productive in the sense that it sustains life. But there is no reward mechanism for meeting demand. Sans intangible things like social climbing and what not.

ThatGuy

1st July 2013, 15:10

But if there is no wage labour, that means that workers are not free to exchange their labour power, and consequently the system doesn't match your definition of "private property and free exchange of goods".

Luís Henrique

I meant a situation, where people don't decide to engage in wage labor, not one where it's prohibited.

ThatGuy

1st July 2013, 15:44

Well first of all the state wouldn't exist. Secondly, change comes through people recognising the illogicality of capitalism and creating a communist society. If you want people to stay the same forever, that's fine, but I don't accept that people would want to do that when they realise they can create an alternative that frees them from exploitation.

I'm highly sceptical of the idea, that a communist society of any size can exist without a form of central rule. However, if people realize, that capitalism isn't working for them, they can still form a communist society within a capitalist one. There's nothing forcing you not to collectivize everything in a capitalist society, unless you force someone, who doesn't like the idea into it. Actually unless communism is universal, this is exactly what you're going to get, since autonomous countries have capitalistic relations between each other by default.

It's not theoretically possible, it is a fact.

We'll have to disagree on this one it would seem.

But the exploitative relationship still exists.

See, I just don't view wage labor as exploitative. In the same way as I don't see paying for services as exploitative. If I go to a barber to get my hair cut, I'm paying him for something, and while he gets all the profit he made from what I paid him, I get all the extra profit for the haircut. If I didn't believe that the haircut was worth what I paid him, or more usually, since competition between barbers brings their prices down, I would never have gotten it, or would have cut my hair myself.

What is the point you are making?

That getting workers requires bidding for them on the market, which means you must offer them a pay they will accept, and that you can't just decide what you'll pay them and they'll be automatically ok with it.

This is not a healthy system. This system is predicated on workers being exploited, having to work to create products for other people. That's not a fair or equitable system and it's not a life that someone should have to lead.

Well, in communism people will still create products for other people, right? In capitalism profit motivates the worker and in communism, an understanding, that this is the right thing to do motivates people, nobody is coerced into doing it in a free market, although I wonder what would happen to someone that wouldn't agree with this system of production in communism? Would he be allowed to own a piece of land and enjoy what he produces? Would trade between him and others like him be permitted? If yes, then we might want the same thing, and just disagree on what people would prefer once we don't have a state anymore.

China's economy has never been communistic. But yes, China probably has more wealth, but that doesn't mean that the working class are better off.

I would argue, that the Chinese working class is much better off now, actually. But what's really interesting to me is what are China's shortcomings in being communist?

Tim Cornelis

1st July 2013, 16:19

There is no point in making things people don't need. Capitalism is the only system that rewards you for giving people what they need. That's the wonderful invisible hand.

This is misleading. Capitalism is a system that rewards you for giving people the needs they can financially back. With millions dying of hunger and starvation, while we produce sufficient amounts of food to feed 10 billion people shows this all too well.

LuÃs Henrique

1st July 2013, 16:24

I meant a situation, where people don't decide to engage in wage labor, not one where it's prohibited.

But if my labour power is the only commodity I have to sell, if I don't do it I starve. So, a society where there is no labour wage, and yet there is private property and free exchange of goods must be a society in which every adult owns other commodities besides labour power. It should not be difficult to see that such a society would be extremely unstable - unless it has some kind of regulatory instance that in practice negates the free exchange of goods.

Luís Henrique

ThatGuy

1st July 2013, 17:10

But if my labour power is the only commodity I have to sell, if I don't do it I starve. So, a society where there is no labour wage, and yet there is private property and free exchange of goods must be a society in which every adult owns other commodities besides labour power. It should not be difficult to see that such a society would be extremely unstable - unless it has some kind of regulatory instance that in practice negates the free exchange of goods.

Luís Henrique

No, such a society can exist even if there are people with nothing else to sell than labour power. They would have to rely on charity or starve, but if people really didn't want to buy/sell their labour for some strange reason, this could work. The thing is, there's no good reason not to want wage labour and that's why we have it. It's not even about not having any other options, there is plenty of land that could be worked, but people are better off working in a factory or an office, than on a field. I really think that any able bodied person, could decide not to engage in wage labor, and start a self-run business of some sort, where they would make enough to live on, but working for others is simply an easier way to make a living.

But do you really think that a network of autonomous single-person businesses working together is in any way different than wage labour? In the end the engineer, the teacher and the farmer all sell their labour power. What's the difference between selling your time to an employer and selling your products to customers?

Fourth Internationalist

1st July 2013, 18:56

I would argue, that the Chinese working class is much better off now, actually. But what's really interesting to me is what are China's shortcomings in being communist?

Communism is a stateless, classless, global, moneyless, socialist society. How China was not that is pretty clear.

I'd recommend reading this.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/communism-tactics/ch01.htm

liberlict

2nd July 2013, 05:46

This is misleading. Capitalism is a system that rewards you for giving people the needs they can financially back. With millions dying of hunger and starvation, while we produce sufficient amounts of food to feed 10 billion people shows this all too well.

Apologies, what do you mean by 'financially back'? Capitalists invest in the production of what they think people will want---vital necessities are at the top of the list, which is why bread and circuses are saturated with money from big companies producing them, and why they are so cheap in the developed world. In the 2nd and 3rd world, there are major problems getting essentials produced, but this is a different problem. Even if the 1st world wanted to put the developing world on welfare, there is no way to deliver aid, because Africa and the middle east and other areas have corrupt governments. The first world has been working on viable ways of aid delivery for the last 50 years. It's not an economic issue, it's a problem of 'social capital'. 120 Trillion dollars won't solve the problems in Bolivia until they develop the requisite institutions to share wealth among themselves.

liberlict

2nd July 2013, 05:51

But wanting things doesn't conflict with communism...

Unless you can think of a way that everybody can have everything they want, it definitely does conflict with communism.

The Feral Underclass

2nd July 2013, 11:35

I'm highly sceptical of the idea...

Shocking.

that a communist society of any size can exist without a form of central rule.

It wouldn't be communism if there was "central rule."

However, if people realize, that capitalism isn't working for them, they can still form a communist society within a capitalist one. There's nothing forcing you not to collectivize everything in a capitalist society, unless you force someone, who doesn't like the idea into it. Actually unless communism is universal, this is exactly what you're going to get, since autonomous countries have capitalistic relations between each other by default.

The aim of communism is to abolish capitalism. We reject the idea that our economy should be predicated on profit, full stop. There is no equivocation or compromise on that issue.

We'll have to disagree on this one it would seem.

Disagree with what? There's nothing to disagree with. What I am telling you is not a theory, it is an observable fact. How else do you think profit is created? Even if you think profit is created in other ways, people's labour does create surplus value that the employer pockets.

The worker who makes a TV doesn't get paid £400 for making it, do they? They get a basic wage for making it and then the TV gets sold and the employer keeps the difference. That's not up for discussion -- it's a fact.

See, I just don't view wage labor as exploitative.

Of course you don't. How would you be able to justify it otherwise.

In the same way as I don't see paying for services as exploitative. If I go to a barber to get my hair cut, I'm paying him for something, and while he gets all the profit he made from what I paid him, I get all the extra profit for the haircut.

That's not exploitation. Exploitation occurs when an individual is forced to sell their labour (by needing money to stay alive) to someone who uses that labour to create products that they sell for more than what they paid the person to make them, pocketing the surplus.

That getting workers requires bidding for them on the market, which means you must offer them a pay they will accept, and that you can't just decide what you'll pay them and they'll be automatically ok with it.

But human beings aren't objects that you can barter for. This world that you are describing is not a world that is healthy or productive to the vast majority of humans -- it is not in our interests to participate in this system.

We don't want or need to be in a market where profiteers bargain for us. We can create a world where our economy is socialised for the benefit of everyone.

Well, in communism people will still create products for other people, right?

But in so doing create products for themselves. The economy is socialised and therefore people create things for themselves and for their community. You are no longer alienated from the products you create because they belong to you and not someone else.

In capitalism profit motivates the worker

That's simply just not true! The "worker" doesn't see any profit! The worker has no relation to profit other than they create it for other people. When I go to work for my boss to make profit for him, I don't feel motivated by that fact. I find it outrageous that he sits in his office and goes and plays golf at lunch while I spend 10 hours a day making him money in a job that is not interesting or fulfilling and that turns me, literally, into a machine.

The only thing that motivates me is the fact I need the wage-cheque at the end of the month so I can pay my rent.

and in communism, an understanding, that this is the right thing to do motivates people, nobody is coerced into doing it in a free market, although I wonder what would happen to someone that wouldn't agree with this system of production in communism?

What motivates people in a communist society is the idea that the products they create benefit them and their community, and that by producing them it means that they can receive the products they need.

The establishment of communism requires consent from the majority of workers. If there is no consent to the idea, then there can't be any communism. Those in the minority can have their say, but ultimately, if society is being changed, that is what is happening. You can either try and stop it or you can participate in it.

Would he be allowed to own a piece of land and enjoy what he produces? Would trade between him and others like him be permitted? If yes, then we might want the same thing, and just disagree on what people would prefer once we don't have a state anymore.

Providing that the community had land to give away to an individual and agreed for the person to use the land exclusively for themselves, that they weren't profiteering and that they weren't using other people's labour then I don't see why it would be a problem.

I would argue, that the Chinese working class is much better off now, actually.

Because they can buy an Iphone and a McDonalds? You have to be a pretty vacuous, cynical person to believe that this is "better off," especially if you consider the day-to-day lives of Chinese workers.

But what's really interesting to me is what are China's shortcomings in being communist?

China isn't and has never been a communist country.

The Feral Underclass

2nd July 2013, 11:42

Unless you can think of a way that everybody can have everything they want, it definitely does conflict with communism.

But capitalism can't do that, yet you seem perfectly content with this system.

If you want something, you organise its production. If you're too stupid or too lazy to organise the production of the things you want, then why should you expect other people to do it for you? If you don't want to do it, then you can't want it that.

In any case, if the only thing you can think about is your phone in a period of dramatic social change that liberates the majority of people from exploitation, then there is something seriously wrong with your priorities.

ThatGuy

2nd July 2013, 15:58

It wouldn't be communism if there was "central rule."

I understand that, I just don't think it's possible. When 1000 people want a car, but society can only produce 500, you'll need a way to decide who gets to use the car when. Unless you think that 1000 people will instantly decide on a solution that is completely fair for everyone, this is going to take up a LOT of time and sometimes the decision will be deadlocked, and you'll need someone to arbitrarily settle disputes. You could say that there will be democratic votes on every single plan, but this plans will be infinitely convoluted and connected between themselves, which means, that they will be impossible to arrange in a votable system, unless you will vote for plans spanning over a longer period of time like say 4 years and we have just invented democracy all over again. Where do you see the faults in my logic?

The aim of communism is to abolish capitalism. We reject the idea that our economy should be predicated on profit, full stop. There is no equivocation or compromise on that issue.

I understand that, but what's wrong with your economy not being predicated on profit and ours being predicated on it, if we like it that way?

Disagree with what? There's nothing to disagree with. What I am telling you is not a theory, it is an observable fact. How else do you think profit is created? Even if you think profit is created in other ways, people's labour does create surplus value that the employer pockets.

The worker who makes a TV doesn't get paid £400 for making it, do they? They get a basic wage for making it and then the TV gets sold and the employer keeps the difference. That's not up for discussion -- it's a fact.

I was never disagreeing with people charging more for a TV than what it costs for a worker to make it, merely that the numbers you used were unrealistic, because the drive for profit would lead to workers opening their own businesses and other entrepreneurs stealing workers from the one that's making such an incredible profit.

Of course you don't. How would you be able to justify it otherwise.

True.

That's not exploitation. Exploitation occurs when an individual is forced to sell their labour (by needing money to stay alive) to someone who uses that labour to create products that they sell for more than what they paid the person to make them, pocketing the surplus.

What about a factory that sells trucks and a trucker that buys a truck and uses it to generate more wealth than what he paid for the truck then? Is the trucker(working class) exploiting the owner of the factory(capitalist class), since he's making profit off of his work? The factory owner may be rich now, but unless he keeps on selling trucks, he'll be forced to sell the factory and find a wage-paying job like everyone else. Or don't you consider management labor?

But human beings aren't objects that you can barter for. This world that you are describing is not a world that is healthy or productive to the vast majority of humans -- it is not in our interests to participate in this system.

We don't want or need to be in a market where profiteers bargain for us. We can create a world where our economy is socialised for the benefit of everyone.

No, but work time is a resource that can be bartered for. Still, I'm not saying you should agree with me that this system of production is the best for you, but if I and some other people think it's the best for us, can we keep it after the revolution?

But in so doing create products for themselves. The economy is socialised and therefore people create things for themselves and for their community. You are no longer alienated from the products you create because they belong to you and not someone else.

Right now you also produce stuff for yourself and your community, the only difference is the allocation system, really. In communism you would get part of what you would make and part of others make for free, and you work for free. In capitalism you have to pay for the things you want, but people are willing to pay you for the things you make. A farmer can still eat what he produces and a factory worker can still buy a car he helped assemble in both systems.

That's simply just not true! The "worker" doesn't see any profit! The worker has no relation to profit other than they create it for other people. When I go to work for my boss to make profit for him, I don't feel motivated by that fact. I find it outrageous that he sits in his office and goes and plays golf at lunch while I spend 10 hours a day making him money in a job that is not interesting or fulfilling and that turns me, literally, into a machine.

The only thing that motivates me is the fact I need the wage-cheque at the end of the month so I can pay my rent.

In communism you'd still need to eat, clothe yourself etc. Capitalism didn't create scarcity, scarcity is the normal state of the world. If you think that your boss is a lazy bastard, who is offering you nothing and just taking your precious time, just start your own business. If your boss is really doing nothing, there's no reason for it to thrive without him. Or even better, start a communist society and trade with the outside world for the things you can't produce yourselves, until you're large enough to become self sufficient.

What motivates people in a communist society is the idea that the products they create benefit them and their community, and that by producing them it means that they can receive the products they need.

The establishment of communism requires consent from the majority of workers. If there is no consent to the idea, then there can't be any communism. Those in the minority can have their say, but ultimately, if society is being changed, that is what is happening. You can either try and stop it or you can participate in it.

So people don't really get a say in what happens to them, because the majority gas decided it for them. I think we already have that.

Providing that the community had land to give away to an individual and agreed for the person to use the land exclusively for themselves, that they weren't profiteering and that they weren't using other people's labour then I don't see why it would be a problem.

What about if other people agree with their labour being used? What if they want to work for a wage?

Because they can buy an Iphone and a McDonalds? You have to be a pretty vacuous, cynical person to believe that this is "better off," especially if you consider the day-to-day lives of Chinese workers.

No, primarily because they stopped dying from starvation and their life expectancy got way higher.

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2013, 15:51

But do you really think that a network of autonomous single-person businesses working together is in any way different than wage labour? In the end the engineer, the teacher and the farmer all sell their labour power. What's the difference between selling your time to an employer and selling your products to customers?

Yes, I think that a network of autonomous single-person business working together is very different from wage labour.

If there is no difference between selling your time and selling the products of your time, how is it possible to obtain profits?

If it is the same thing to sell 1 ton of wheat or to sell the time that it takes to produce 1 ton of wheat, then evidently the wages of the workers producing 1 ton of wheat must have the same price as a ton of wheat. But if so, their employer pays x in wages for their time, and then sells the wheat for... x. Where is the profit?

**************

The difference is that "a network of autonomous single-person businesses working together" is not a capitalist society. Or, in your terminology, it is "capitalism", but not "corporativism". And a society based on wage-labour is a capitalist society - or, again in your terminology, it is "corporativist" but not "capitalist". In any way, we are talking about two different kinds of society - capitalism vs simple commodity production, in my terms, or "corporativism" vs "capitalism" in yours.

And terminology cannot avoid the logical conclusion, based in historic data: capitalism (or "corporativism") won over simple commodity production (or "capitalism"), and, in practice, all but exterminated it. So, in your terms, "capitalism" is a historic loser, and "corporativism" is the winner.

The problem, of course, comes when someone calls "it" "capitalism" when it is time to talk about the grand scheme of things ("capitalism" won over all other modes of production, and became in practice the only really existing mode of production, because it is the most "rational" mode of production), but "corporativism" when it is time to address the very real and material problems of our lives (the problem is not "capitalism", which is something that in practice does not exist any more, but "corporativism", which is something else, and "evil", and "irrational"). That is anti-capitalist reasoning under pro-capitalist dressings, or pro-corporatist reasoning parading as anti-corporatist demagoguery. And it implies a complete dissociation between "rationality" and "historical fitness".

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2013, 17:44

Perhaps this is more clear:

Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only. In Western Europe, the home of Political Economy, the process of primitive accumulation is more of less accomplished. Here the capitalist regime has either directly conquered the whole domain of national production, or, where economic conditions are less developed, it, at least, indirectly controls those strata of society which, though belonging to the antiquated mode of production, continue to exist side by side with it in gradual decay. To this ready-made world of capital, the political economist applies the notions of law and of property inherited from a pre-capitalistic world with all the more anxious zeal and all the greater unction, the more loudly the facts cry out in the face of his ideology. It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them. Where the capitalist has at his back the power of the mother-country, he tries to clear out of his way by force the modes of production and appropriation based on the independent labour of the producer. The same interest, which compels the sycophant of capital, the political economist, in the mother-country, to proclaim the theoretical identity of the capitalist mode of production with its contrary, that same interest compels him in the colonies to make a clean breast of it, and to proclaim aloud the antagonism of the two modes of production.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2013, 17:47

Well, yes feudalism is productive in the sense that it sustains life. But there is no reward mechanism for meeting demand. Sans intangible things like social climbing and what not.

Hm, so they met the demand for food or clothing? Without a reward mechanism?

Luís Henrique

ThatGuy

3rd July 2013, 18:25

Yes, I think that a network of autonomous single-person business working together is very different from wage labour.

If there is no difference between selling your time and selling the products of your time, how is it possible to obtain profits?

If it is the same thing to sell 1 ton of wheat or to sell the time that it takes to produce 1 ton of wheat, then evidently the wages of the workers producing 1 ton of wheat must have the same price as a ton of wheat. But if so, their employer pays x in wages for their time, and then sells the wheat for... x. Where is the profit?

I'm asking this, because I believe that every business we have today could be perfectly replicated with a network of autonomous single-person businesses.

In your example you forgot to count the employer and the time and capital goods, that he invested in the process of producing and selling that ton of wheat. Without seed, arable land and a business model(even a primitive one), the workers wouldn't be selling any wheat.

I didn't say that workers would be paid exactly as much as the employer would be paid for selling the end product, that would mean, that the employer is giving away his time and necessary capital goods for free. I'm saying that in the end people produce things to make a profit. If they get paid by the end consumer they're making a profit and if they get paid by an employer, they are making a profit.

I think I'm having the exact same conversation in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/anarcho-capitalismi-t181640/index.html?p=2635697#post2635697

The difference is that "a network of autonomous single-person businesses working together" is not a capitalist society. Or, in your terminology, it is "capitalism", but not "corporativism". And a society based on wage-labour is a capitalist society - or, again in your terminology, it is "corporativist" but not "capitalist". In any way, we are talking about two different kinds of society - capitalism vs simple commodity production, in my terms, or "corporativism" vs "capitalism" in yours.

And terminology cannot avoid the logical conclusion, based in historic data: capitalism (or "corporativism") won over simple commodity production (or "capitalism"), and, in practice, all but exterminated it. So, in your terms, "capitalism" is a historic loser, and "corporativism" is the winner.

The problem, of course, comes when someone calls "it" "capitalism" when it is time to talk about the grand scheme of things ("capitalism" won over all other modes of production, and became in practice the only really existing mode of production, because it is the most "rational" mode of production), but "corporativism" when it is time to address the very real and material problems of our lives (the problem is not "capitalism", which is something that in practice does not exist any more, but "corporativism", which is something else, and "evil", and "irrational"). That is anti-capitalist reasoning under pro-capitalist dressings, or pro-corporatist reasoning parading as anti-corporatist demagoguery. And it implies a complete dissociation between "rationality" and "historical fitness".

Luís Henrique

Actually I disagree. I don't see companies that pay wages to their employees as non-capitalist at all. We don't have capitalism today, not in it's real sense, but that's not because of wage labor. Anybody who owns themselves has the right to sell their time if they so wish. Our society isn't truly capitalist, because we don't really recognize private property, if we did, secession from the state should be completely legal, and because the exchange of goods and services is restricted.

The Feral Underclass

3rd July 2013, 20:19

I understand that, I just don't think it's possible.

Well that's neither here nor there.

When 1000 people want a car, but society can only produce 500, you'll need a way to decide who gets to use the car when. Unless you think that 1000 people will instantly decide on a solution that is completely fair for everyone, this is going to take up a LOT of time and sometimes the decision will be deadlocked, and you'll need someone to arbitrarily settle disputes. You could say that there will be democratic votes on every single plan, but this plans will be infinitely convoluted and connected between themselves, which means, that they will be impossible to arrange in a votable system, unless you will vote for plans spanning over a longer period of time like say 4 years and we have just invented democracy all over again. Where do you see the faults in my logic?

This is just an example of neurosis. If, for some reason, a community can't have 1000 cars, the community finds a solution. In fact, to be honest, I can't really see cars being such a priority for people.

I understand that, but what's wrong with your economy not being predicated on profit and ours being predicated on it, if we like it that way?

It's exploitative and doesn't serve the interests of my class.

I was never disagreeing with people charging more for a TV than what it costs for a worker to make it, merely that the numbers you used were unrealistic, because the drive for profit would lead to workers opening their own businesses and other entrepreneurs stealing workers from the one that's making such an incredible profit.

This demonstrates to me just how out of touch you are with the issues facing the working class. The idea that workers can just "start their own businesses" is, frankly, absurd.

For a start capitalism cannot function if everyone is starting a business. For those very few people that manage to secure the capital to start a business, the actual efforts of keeping it profitable are insanely difficult.

The UK is a service and financial industry economy anyway, and with a recession, small businesses are just impossible to start up and keep going, unless you're in construction, fisheries, forestry or agriculture -- which really helps urban workers.

Profit is accumulated through the work of others, if you don't have a work force, you can't accumulate profit. Capitalism needs workers in order to generate profits, so even if the economy could take workers starting their own businesses, who would work in other people's in order to make the profit?

What about a factory that sells trucks and a trucker that buys a truck and uses it to generate more wealth than what he paid for the truck then? Is the trucker(working class) exploiting the owner of the factory(capitalist class), since he's making profit off of his work?

The person who sold the truck didn't make the truck, so how could he be exploited? Small business owners are not workers -- they don't usually produce things, they employ other people to do so.

The factory owner may be rich now, but unless he keeps on selling trucks, he'll be forced to sell the factory and find a wage-paying job like everyone else. Or don't you consider management labor?

The interests of the capitalist class isn't my concern.

No, but work time is a resource that can be bartered for.

Yes, obviously it can be, but that doesn't mean it's in my interest. It's not in my interest to have to sell my labour in an alienating job being paid less money than the products I am producing.

Still, I'm not saying you should agree with me that this system of production is the best for you, but if I and some other people think it's the best for us, can we keep it after the revolution?

No.

Right now you also produce stuff for yourself and your community

No I don't. What is produced by workers isn't theirs or their communities, they are commodities that belong to other people that you can have only if you can afford them -- at prices that are more than what was earned making them.

The production of food, services and other goods are not for the benefit of the community, they are for the benefit of the boss.

In communism you would get part of what you would make and part of others make for free, and you work for free. In capitalism you have to pay for the things you want, but people are willing to pay you for the things you make.

It's not a question of "willing to," it's a question of being compelled to. I don't have any choice but to pay for things, that's precisely why I have to sell my labour.

A farmer can still eat what he produces and a factory worker can still buy a car he helped assemble in both systems.

Why doesn't everyone have a car then?

In communism you'd still need to eat, clothe yourself etc.

And we would do so through socialised labour, rather than alienated labour. This is the fundamental difference. Clothing and feeding yourself is an activity you do together for the benefit of everyone, rather than operating individually for the benefit of someone else, usually a stranger you've never met.

Capitalism didn't create scarcity, scarcity is the normal state of the world. If you think that your boss is a lazy bastard, who is offering you nothing and just taking your precious time, just start your own business. If your boss is really doing nothing, there's no reason for it to thrive without him. Or even better, start a communist society and trade with the outside world for the things you can't produce yourselves, until you're large enough to become self sufficient.

The interests of my class is to abolish wage-slavery and establish a communist society. There is no possibility that capitalism could be maintained within such a society as capitalism maintains a system of wage-slavery.

So people don't really get a say in what happens to them, because the majority gas decided it for them. I think we already have that.

No, we don't.

What about if other people agree with their labour being used? What if they want to work for a wage?

The wage system wouldn't exist any more and it would be completely redundant, since everything is provided without the need of money.

No, primarily because they stopped dying from starvation and their life expectancy got way higher.

Life expectancy increases as technological and medicinal understandings increase. The life expectancy in the UK is higher now than it was in the 1960's -- it's not an argument for anything.

Also, the famine in China is not indication of the failures of communism, since the state planned economy of China has nothing to do with communism. Communism is a social relationship, it's not a set of government policies.

In any case, the famine lasted between 1958-1962, so unfortunately I don't really see any correlation between the advent of capitalism and workers being better off now.

Not that even care, since China was never a communist country, so there is no need for me to defend it.

ThatGuy

3rd July 2013, 22:12

This is just an example of neurosis. If, for some reason, a community can't have 1000 cars, the community finds a solution. In fact, to be honest, I can't really see cars being such a priority for people.

Well, let's say that they do want cars, because they're useful, and the rest is provided for. How do you think the community will find a solution to who gets to drive?

This demonstrates to me just how out of touch you are with the issues facing the working class. The idea that workers can just "start their own businesses" is, frankly, absurd.

Well, it's note completely impossible, because some people do start businesses, and some of them take off. But it is hard to start a business, that's why what capitalists do by providing the starting capital and a business model is so important to the success of a company.

The person who sold the truck didn't make the truck, so how could he be exploited? Small business owners are not workers -- they don't usually produce things, they employ other people to do so.

Ok, let's say the truck breaks down, and the trucker pays an independent mechanic to fix it. The labour of the mechanic created surplus value for the trucker, since he'll be able to create more profit with the truck for himself. Does this mean, that the working class can exploit itself, or did the trucker become a capitalist by having his truck repaired?

The Feral Underclass

3rd July 2013, 22:35

Well, let's say that they do want cars, because they're useful, and the rest is provided for. How do you think the community will find a solution to who gets to drive?

I cannot predict the future.

Well, it's note completely impossible...

No, it's not impossible. Workers could start their own businesses, but they won't, because it's incredibly difficult to do so, people also don't want to have to start their own businesses and even those who want to and are able to probably won't be successful.

The solution to inequality is not everyone going and starting a business.

because some people do start businesses, and some of them take off.

There is a work force of about 35 million+ people in the UK. So a small portion of them start businesses, then what? The rest still have to sell their labour.

And let's not forget that businesses run because the owners buy the labour of others at a low price, kept low by the large work force. Capitalism relies on their being a big labour force, so that they can keep wages down. If everyone had a business there would be no work force...

Ok, let's say the truck breaks down, and the trucker pays an independent mechanic to fix it. The labour of the mechanic created surplus value for the trucker, since he'll be able to create more profit with the truck for himself. Does this mean, that the working class can exploit itself, or did the trucker become a capitalist by having his truck repaired?

Who pockets the profits?

ThatGuy

3rd July 2013, 23:28

I cannot predict the future.

Nobody can, but if you can't see a way for a community to handle a problem that is likely to arise(maybe it won't be cars, but surely people will stumble upon a good, for which there's a greater demand than supply), how can you be sure, that your system is viable?

The solution to inequality is not everyone going and starting a business.

I don't consider inequality something that can or even should be solved.

There is a work force of about 35 million+ people in the UK. So a small portion of them start businesses, then what? The rest still have to sell their labour.

But now there are more employers, so they have a better chance at getting a good wage. After states are gone, people can claim arable land, that is still pretty plentiful at the moment, so they can take up farming and live off of that instead of getting a job. They would be better off working for someone than by taking up farming probably, but how does that translate into him exploiting them?

And let's not forget that businesses run because the owners buy the labour of others at a low price, kept low by the large work force. Capitalism relies on their being a big labour force, so that they can keep wages down. If everyone had a business there would be no work force...

If the cost of labor rose, so would prices. This in no way hurts the economy in capitalism. If everyone had a business they'd still be in the workforce. You can own a business and work in it at the same time.

Who pockets the profits?

The profits from trucking are pocketed by the trucker, naturally. The mechanic only gets what he and the trucker agreed on before the truck got fixed.

The Feral Underclass

3rd July 2013, 23:41

Nobody can, but if you can't see a way for a community to handle a problem that is likely to arise(maybe it won't be cars, but surely people will stumble upon a good, for which there's a greater demand than supply), how can you be sure, that your system is viable?

Because the viability of a communist society does not depend on how a community resolves it's short fall of 500 cars.

It's not up to me to determine how communities resolve their issues. There are an infinite amount of issues that will occur over the course of human existence, I cannot provide you with details on how to resolve them all. Neither can you. I can, however, and have, provided a framework in which to resolve them.

I don't consider inequality something that can or even should be solved.

No shit.

But now there are more employers, so they have a better chance at getting a good wage.

But it is the wage that is the fundamental problem here.

After states are gone, people can claim arable land, that is still pretty plentiful at the moment, so they can take up farming and live off of that instead of getting a job.

No, people can't just "claim" land.

The problem you have is that you cannot understand the nature of my views in the framework in which I am stating them. You constantly re-frame my views within the framework of capitalist understandings of "work" and "employment."

People don't "get" jobs in a communist society in the way that they do in a capitalist one. Work is socialised. You are allocated work by the community (though I'm sure negotiation would happen) and you spend a fraction of your time completing those necessary tasks. In return, you are given everything you need, as the sum of everyone's work produces the total of things that everyone needs.

They would be better off working for someone than by taking up farming probably, but how does that translate into him exploiting them?

I cannot explain the nature of exploitation any clearer than I already have.

If the cost of labor rose, so would prices. This in no way hurts the economy in capitalism. If everyone had a business they'd still be in the workforce. You can own a business and work in it at the same time.

I have neither the patience or inclination to continue discussing this with you.

The profits from trucking are pocketed by the trucker, naturally. The mechanic only gets what he and the trucker agreed on before the truck got fixed.

Then no one has been exploited.

#FF0000

4th July 2013, 06:34

After states are gone, people can claim arable land

How can one do this without initiating aggression.

ThatGuy

4th July 2013, 09:54

Because the viability of a communist society does not depend on how a community resolves it's short fall of 500 cars.

It's not up to me to determine how communities resolve their issues. There are an infinite amount of issues that will occur over the course of human existence, I cannot provide you with details on how to resolve them all. Neither can you. I can, however, and have, provided a framework in which to resolve them.

The point is, that it's practically impossible to resolve all of the necessary planning democratically, because in a complex economy(one where there's a lot of people that would like to have a lot of different things) you'd have to vote on practically anything and the plans voted for would have to be compatible with each other. The only way I see to have a democratically planned economy is to have an elected body of central planners. And it's not just me, most people that I talked with about this issue IRL and described themselves as communists agreed.

No, people can't just "claim" land.

The problem you have is that you cannot understand the nature of my views in the framework in which I am stating them. You constantly re-frame my views within the framework of capitalist understandings of "work" and "employment."

I understand your views actually, but when talking about people being forced to sell their labour in a capitalist system, I have to show that they aren't really forced and that there are alternatives in that system. And in a stateless capitalist system people could claim land. Today they can, but that's because of states, not capitalism.

Then no one has been exploited.

The trucker sure hasn't, but since the mechanic was paid a wage for his service, and the labour he invested in repairing the truck is now being used by the trucker to generate profit from himself, doesn't that alienate the end results of the labour for the mechanic?

The Feral Underclass

4th July 2013, 10:49

The point is, that it's practically impossible to resolve all of the necessary planning democratically, because in a complex economy(one where there's a lot of people that would like to have a lot of different things) you'd have to vote on practically anything and the plans voted for would have to be compatible with each other. The only way I see to have a democratically planned economy is to have an elected body of central planners. And it's not just me, most people that I talked with about this issue IRL and described themselves as communists agreed.

I haven't advocated every planning decision is made democratically. All I said was that there would be no "central rule."

I understand your views actually

No you don't.

but when talking about people being forced to sell their labour in a capitalist system, I have to show that they aren't really forced and that there are alternatives in that system.

Your so called "alternative system" is that every one go and start a business. That's not an alternative, for the reasons I have given you. Even if it were an alternative it doesn't alter the fact that people are compelled to sell their labour because if they didn't they would ultimately die.

The trucker sure hasn't, but since the mechanic was paid a wage for his service, and the labour he invested in repairing the truck is now being used by the trucker to generate profit from himself, doesn't that alienate the end results of the labour for the mechanic?

What is the point you're trying to make here? I'm getting bored of this equivocation.

Baseball

5th July 2013, 02:29

[QUOTE=The Anarchist Tension;2635867]Because the viability of a communist society does not depend on how a community resolves it's short fall of 500 cars.

It's not up to me to determine how communities resolve their issues. There are an infinite amount of issues that will occur over the course of human existence, I cannot provide you with details on how to resolve them all. Neither can you. I can, however, and have, provided a framework in which to resolve them.

Of course it does. It has to resolve that car shortfall within the framework of communism.

People don't "get" jobs in a communist society in the way that they do in a capitalist one. Work is socialised. You are allocated work by the community (though I'm sure negotiation would happen) and you spend a fraction of your time completing those necessary tasks. In return, you are given everything you need, as the sum of everyone's work produces the total of things that everyone needs.

But see-- such a framework requires further explanation.
So, for example, you would need to explain your concept of "negotiation" within the framework of communism-- who negotiates with who, how do they negotiate and over what?-- as well as perhaps distinguish between that and "bartering" which you decried as an unsavory aspect of capitalism a few notes back.

Baseball

5th July 2013, 02:42

Skyhilist

5th July 2013, 02:47

The production of bread itself requires grain, energy, labor, ect. Its not enough for a particular borough to request 100lbs of bread. It has to be able to determine whether that 100lbs of bread is worth the cost of its production. Is the grain more important for the bread, or is it more important to be fed to cows for milk production? Those types of decisions can never be made from the "core outwards".

For most or at least many resources, supply exceeds demand, so it wouldn't really be an issue of whether or not it could be made.

For resources where demand exceeded supply, resources would be prioritized towards raising the supply (when possible and sustainable). If that wasn't enough then there are plenty of other solutions that ensure that things can still be distributed based on need and importance to people although it's not a one size fits all solution.

Baseball

5th July 2013, 03:06

For most or at least many resources, supply exceeds demand, so it wouldn't really be an issue of whether or not it could be made.

Two issues (again):

1. That those types of decisions cannot be made from the "core outward" as AT requires

2. Yes, can produce bread and feed cows. Just like electricity can be produced to power the bread making machines and power the waste water treatment center.
But if the solution is that it doesn't really matter how the supply of a resource is used, because there is more of it than needed, well then, this sounds rather wasteful and not particularly sustainable.

For resources where demand exceeded supply, resources would be prioritized towards raising the supply (when possible and sustainable).

Well, yes. Those resources become more valuable. The community devotes itself to prioritize that production.
It does so because the value of that product to the community exceeds its cost to the community.
Its usually called 'production for profit' and socialists generally take a dim view of it.

liberlict

5th July 2013, 07:13

Hm, so they met the demand for food or clothing? Without a reward mechanism?

Luís Henrique

Who feudal lords? No not really.

LuÃs Henrique

5th July 2013, 14:25

Who feudal lords? No not really.

Under feudalism, people were fed and sheltered - feudal lords with veal in their castles, and peasants with porridge in their huts. You claim that feudalism didn't have any "reward mechanism" to show to producers what should be produced in order to satisfy the demand.

So, how were producers in a feudal society led to producing food and shelter?

Luís Henrique

The Feral Underclass

5th July 2013, 22:02

Of course it does. It has to resolve that car shortfall within the framework of communism.

No it doesn't on both counts.

But see-- such a framework requires further explanation.

Why does it?

So, for example, you would need to explain your concept of "negotiation" within the framework of communism-- who negotiates with who, how do they negotiate and over what?-- as well as perhaps distinguish between that and "bartering" which you decried as an unsavory aspect of capitalism a few notes back.

It is not up to me to decide how a community organises the resolution of its problems. The framework I provide is all I can provide. The intricacies of how to resolve a short fall of cars is not something for which I care to think about, not until the problem presents itself to me, at which point we will be in a communist society and I will be able to co-ordinate with my community.

If this answer is unsatisfactory for you, that is just tough fucking luck.

The Feral Underclass

5th July 2013, 22:04

Baseball

6th July 2013, 02:22

No it doesn't on both counts.

Sure it does-- the ability, or lack thereof, to provide needed and wanted goods and services, within the framework of communism, bears directly upon the viability of same.

The Feral Underclass

6th July 2013, 07:53

Sure it does-- the ability, or lack thereof, to provide needed and wanted goods and services, within the framework of communism, bears directly upon the viability of same.

Then you don't understand communism.

This isn't a question of inability, it's a question of not presuming to have a solution. I take Bakunin's view that, "anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary."

I know it's difficult for you to conceptualise the idea of communities (whether they are social or economic) democratically working together and making collective decisions, but try harder to understand that solutions like these aren't the work of individuals -- certainly not individuals that don't even live in a post-revolutionary society.

I could come up with some hypothetical solution as an individual but it would a) be pointless, since I am not presented with an actual situation that requires a solution and b) it wouldn't be up to me to decide.

If you want to ask me directly what I, personally, individually, think of the situation, my answer would be thus: There are 1000 people and only 500 cars? Well, share them then, ration them, build some more. I don't give a flying fuck.

Baseball

6th July 2013, 14:55

Then you don't understand communism.

This isn't a question of inability, it's a question of not presuming to have a solution. I take Bakunin's view that, "anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary."

I know it's difficult for you to conceptualise the idea of communities (whether they are social or economic) democratically working together and making collective decisions, but try harder to understand that solutions like these aren't the work of individuals -- certainly not individuals that don't even live in a post-revolutionary society.

I could come up with some hypothetical solution as an individual but it would a) be pointless, since I am not presented with an actual situation that requires a solution and b) it wouldn't be up to me to decide.

If you want to ask me directly what I, personally, individually, think of the situation, my answer would be thus: There are 1000 people and only 500 cars? Well, share them then, ration them, build some more. I don't give a flying fuck.

Stating that "communities (whether they are social or economic) democratically working together and making collective decisions" sort of requires an explanation of how they work together collectively and how their understandings of things impact in making those decisions.

After all, socialism is more than simply workers owning the means of production (there is nothing "uncapitalist" about that state of affairs). Its about how they structure, and don't structure, their industries and communities.