Eliminating Scarcity for Luxury Items?

[Skyhilist]

This is always something that's confused be, to be honest. I hear communism referred to as a state of "post-scarcity" (i.e. everyone has free access to resources) for items that are made artificially scarce now. This makes sense for a lot of things. But for certain things, I'm having difficulty comprehending how this would actually be possible. For example, lets say you tell everyone in the world they have free access to airline tickets any time they want. Many people love traveling, so many would take up this offer... so many, in fact, that it seems as though there wouldn't even be enough airplanes for everyone who wanted to fly to ride in. A similar issue arises it would seem with items such as hard to find jewelry, that many people tend to find attractive, and other generally hard to produce/procure items. It seems like even under communism there would be at least some things where more people wanted something than the amount of that something that there actually was in the world. So how would this be avoided, and how would items like this actually reach a state of "post-scarcity"?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Fuck luxury items. Why would anyone ever actually need a diamond. Why would someone need caviar.

[Theophys]

You can never do away with luxury items just like you can never claim that communism is "post-scarcity". A lot of people seem to take this false assumption that communism is automatically and guaranteed to be "post-scarcity" or "superabundant" and proceed to put all their various "theories" on that false basis. Only a handful of products are artificially scarce. The thing these "post-scarcity" individuals seem to forget is that we have FINITE resources and we can never meet the needs of every single individual. You commonly find such nonsense in the case of Anarcho-Communism or the more Utopian Communists.

Once you get that and stop being that Utopian, you will understand that luxury items will necessitate a restriction that not everyone can surpass be it money, extra work, or whatnot. That's why I focus on socialism rather than communism. I suggest you do the same unless you know of any magical ways to create abundance.

We can try to resort to spacemining to fulfill the demands and needs of people, but until that effectively takes place on a large scale then and only then can we speak of post-abundance.

Just remember this:
Since we cannot ensure post-abundance and since Earth has only a finite amount of resources, we need to ration certain types of goods.

Oh and ignore the guy above, he's still stuck in the Anarcho-Punk phase.

[Crabbensmasher]

Here's kind of the thought process that post scarcity advocates go through

1. Resources in the earth are scarce, so we require a price mechanism to distribute goods.

2. If a price mechanism is not used to distribute goods, and instead, everything is given out free based on need, then that means there is no longer scarcity.

So, as you can see, it's a bit different from what it sounds like.

At least that's what I think. Correct me if I'm wrong

[Theophys]

Here's kind of the thought process that post scarcity advocates go through

1. Resources in the earth are scarce, so we require a price mechanism to distribute goods.

2. If a price mechanism is not used to distribute goods, and instead, everything is given out free based on need, then that means there is no longer scarcity.

So, as you can see, it's a bit different from what it sounds like.

At least that's what I think. Correct me if I'm wrong
That's ridiculous, although you said you do not advocate it. You do not eliminate scarcity by giving out everything until there's nothing left. The price mechanism exists for a very good reason and that is to ration these finite goods.

And "where" will they get "everything" to give out "free based on need"? Thin air? No, they will need to extract them from somewhere. That somewhere has a finite number of resources that can be extracted. That extraction process can also only extract a finite number of resources per day.

They can't just hand out everything for free based on need and thus claim that they eliminated scarcity as by doing that they will create another scarcity, a more severe and disastrous scarcity, a scarcity of resources. You know the environmental problems we have today? Those would be nothing compared to what these Utopians aspire to achieve.

Think of it this way. You have a shop with a finite amount of goods. There's a scarcity of those goods outside your shop. You open your shop and give out "everything free based on need". You will run out of products in your shop. Replace the shop with Earth. What then? Mass chaos, unemployment, starvation, poverty, wars over what little resources you have left, and even extinction.

Socialism's "From each according to his ability; to each according to his contribution" is much more logical, rational, effective, and "fair".

[Skyhilist]

Fuck luxury items. Why would anyone ever actually need a diamond. Why would someone need caviar.

Alright forget diamonds and caviar (though idk how they'd be eliminated). What about the airplane situation I brought up?

[Slavic]

Alright forget diamonds and caviar (though idk how they'd be eliminated). What about the airplane situation I brought up?

Everyone can only fly an "x" amount of miles per year. This amount of miles can be based on the current supply of fuel, trained operating personnel, accepted degree of environmental impact, etc.

As efficiency of airplane production, operational efficiency, and personnel education improves, supply of flights will increase.

Services such as airplane flights operate in a complex material demanding space, and rationing of flights is expected and frankly should be encouraged. As technology improves, and supply improves, scarcity can be reduced.

Airplane flight has only been in existence for around 100 years, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Socialism's "From each according to his ability; to each according to his contribution" is much more logical, rational, effective, and "fair".

I think it's "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need" in most English versions. I only point this out because I think in a "post-scarcity" situation (which may not mean full abundance of everything, but at least not having to worry about the basics) there will be less of a sense of needing to account for "fairness". This is different than ensuring that necissary tasks are done and that people arn't just "passing the buck" when they could be playing a helpful community role. Most people today wouldn't really care if their friend came over and got a glass of water from the tap but then dumped it after a sip or two - we would mind if we poured them a glass of champaign or a fancy beer and they dumped it after a sip. So, assuming a basic level of stability and lack of crisis, I think that people probably wouldn't be looking over eachother's shoulders in the food co-op to make sure that everyone there has already put in an amount of work to justify eating dinner. But it also dosn't mean that people will totally overlook someone who contributes absolutely nothing, and moreso someone who doesn't pull their weight in a collective effort.

This also doesn't mean everyone can get what they want whenever they want it and I think especially early on, people will have to figure out fair ways to deal with structural inequalities that remain temporarily from capitalism. This might mean rotating or rationing some scarse things or holding a lottery or something for, say, desired locations for hosuing.

But pretty quickly scarsity could become a thing of the past for food, then housing, education and eventually services like medical facilities and better transportation systems, communities designed for our convinience and health and enjoyment.

For other needs where it might not be immediately or physically possible to allow everyone to have what they want, a society where production is for use and collectivly guided, new methods for fufilling wants could be organized. Maybe better public transportation isn't enough and there are many people who want to be able to dive where they want or travel to remote areas. It may not make sense to produce enough single cars to allow everyone to have one all the time, so instead maybe each community would have a fleet of cars so that it would be possible to reserve one when you needed, but then it isn't just sitting on the side of the road unused aside for a couple hours a day like cars are in modern cities. Maybe luxury beach or mountain homes that are very desireable are turned into vaccation homes also available for people to reserve.

For air travel specifically, I personally think that people would want to invest more in high-speed rail for most travel from region to region, but I think air-travel will still be a big thing. However, we could increase passenger travel by a lot while just maintaining current levels of flights (if we wanted) through the elimination of business and military flights. In addition, the reorganization of production might also reduce the amount that we have to ship commodities since only things that can only be produced in certain regions will HAVE to be shipped, a lot more local production could happen if production wasn't based on finding what's most convinient for capital (low-cost labor, centralized production that only serves the purpose of increasing profits).

[Lord Hargreaves]

Yeh I can recognise that there could be various problems with the inevitable scarcity of some luxury goods. Ultimately the distribution would have to be hammered out through democratic discussion.

But my main argument would be that scarcity is the central, foundational concept of neoclassical economics - and it is this that has to be rejected. Doesn't the idea of "post-scarcity" already concede too much to capitalism? The point is that we need to deconstruct the concept Scarcity and the role it plays in legitimating power within contemporary economic discourse, rather than abolishing "scarcity" (in its absolute, most value-neutral sense) which is an obviously impossible task.

When there is a mass army of unemployed, many millions of tonnes of food thrown away every year while millions starve, sprawling factories just mothballed and left empty, thousands of homeless people sleeping rough outside thousands of empty houses, etc. what is "scarcity"?

Even the Keynesians get this, since they start their economic theorising with trying to understand how governments deal with economic recession and stagnation, rather than starting with some innocent, Robinson Crusoe, state-of-nature period which never existed (and so, by definition, will never be overcome).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeh I can recognise that there could be various problems with the inevitable scarcity of some luxury goods. Ultimately the distribution would have to be hammered out through democratic discussion.

But my main argument would be that scarcity is the central, foundational concept of neoclassical economics - and it is this that has to be rejected. Doesn't the idea of "post-scarcity" already concede too much to capitalism? The point is that we need to deconstruct the concept Scarcity and the role it plays in legitimating power within contemporary economic discourse, rather than abolishing "scarcity" (in its absolute, most value-neutral sense) which is an obviously impossible task.

When there is a mass army of unemployed, many millions of tonnes of food thrown away every year while millions starve, sprawling factories just mothballed and left empty, thousands of homeless people sleeping rough outside thousands of empty houses, etc. what is "scarcity"?

Even the Keynesians get this, since they start their economic theorising with trying to understand how governments deal with economic recession and stagnation, rather than starting with some innocent, Robinson Crusoe, state-of-nature period which never existed (and so, by definition, will never be overcome).Good point. In the abstract, isn't capitalism already "post-scarcisty" - isn't that why communism is potentially realizable?

[cyu]

For those of us who live in a capitalist society, the things we believe are desirable and the things we consider to be "luxury goods" will be affected by the capitalist culture we live in. Even post-revolution, this effect will not completely disappear from those who grew up under capitalist-owned advertising-funded mass media.

It would be an interesting sociological study to see what people would want in a generation that grows up without being subjected to consumer advertising in all their media.

[Theophys]

I have to disagree with you.


I think it's "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need" in most English versions.
There are two versions of it with different meanings, one is under Socialism which is "to each according to their contribution" and the other is under Communism "to each according to his need".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_accord ing_to_his_need

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_according_to_his_contribution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat


I only point this out because I think in a "post-scarcity" situation (which may not mean full abundance of everything, but at least not having to worry about the basics) there will be less of a sense of needing to account for "fairness". This is different than ensuring that necissary tasks are done and that people arn't just "passing the buck" when they could be playing a helpful community role. Most people today wouldn't really care if their friend came over and got a glass of water from the tap but then dumped it after a sip or two - we would mind if we poured them a glass of champaign or a fancy beer and they dumped it after a sip. So, assuming a basic level of stability and lack of crisis, I think that people probably wouldn't be looking over eachother's shoulders in the food co-op to make sure that everyone there has already put in an amount of work to justify eating dinner. But it also dosn't mean that people will totally overlook someone who contributes absolutely nothing, and moreso someone who doesn't pull their weight in a collective effort.

You're speaking of the post-scarcity of basic goods and foodstuffs. Post-scarcity does not merely refer to the post-scarcity of basic goods, but a general post-scarcity of goods. In relation to the topic at hand, the OP, and the title, this post-scarcity is not a post-scarcity of food or basic goods but the elimination of scarcity for luxury goods. Nevertheless, the fairness of which I spoke of is concerning contribution and remuneration. It would prove to be extremely inefficient, irrational, illogical, and counter-productive to remunerate every individual the same as every other individual. Wage discrepancies and differing income levels according to contribution rather than need are much preferable and sustainable. You disregard, for some reason, the necessity of "looking over each other's shoulders in the food co-op" to check for an inefficiencies in the labor force, any laziness, and to ensure that people "put in an amount of work to justify dinner". Such actions of personal accountability are necessary, even Kropotkin the Anarcho-Communist himself spoke of the necessity of such actions to address laziness. If we do not take into account contributions and remunerate individuals properly according to their contribution then we create a system where it is rational for individuals to waste, slack off, and yet at the end of the day receive the same or better than others who may have worked twice or more as hard. Overachievement must by every means be rewarded just as underachievement and slacking must be punished. This can be solved through the introduction of a credits system, labor notes, wages (yes), and material bonuses/incentives to make it rational, logical, and rewarding to contribute.


This also doesn't mean everyone can get what they want whenever they want it and I think especially early on, people will have to figure out fair ways to deal with structural inequalities that remain temporarily from capitalism. This might mean rotating or rationing some scarse things or holding a lottery or something for, say, desired locations for hosuing.

Structural inequalities are not an issue, they will always remain and must never be done away with unless we can somehow magically make every efficient, of the same level of intelligence, beliefs, interests, and dedication. We, of course, do not desire such a system of clones and thus these inequalities must remain to properly deal with the inequal nature of individuals and their relationships. You will need to reward the efficient hard worker and punish the inefficient slacker. The idea of rotating goods is also irrational and counter-productive as it treats all people as inherently equal despite their contributions, work, intelligence, etc. Such a rota-based distribution system would only promote slacking of the part of the hard workers as they are already either way going to get those rationed goods when it's their turn. They have no real incentive to work harder. Rationing scarce goods is the only rational decision. A lottery is as counter-productive as the idea of rota-based distribution. If you have scarce goods or desired locations, you want to use such opportunities to get people to work harder, when they work harder they benefit their entier society, when they benefit their entire society by working hard, they must by every means be rewarded by increased remuneration allowing them to buy the desired location or buy the scarce goods they obtained through their own labor and contribution. The best means of rationing scarce goods and solving the issue of incentives is the remuneration of labor by credits or labor notes according to contribution rather than need.


But pretty quickly scarsity could become a thing of the past for food, then housing, education and eventually services like medical facilities and better transportation systems, communities designed for our convinience and health and enjoyment.

What about cars? TVs? Diamonds? Electronics? Expensive and naturally scarce goods? How much are you willing to sacrifice the environment to meet people's needs of scarce resources? Food as an issue of scarcity can be solved. The same goes for housing, education, medical facilities, and transportation, but what cannot be solved is the issue of finite resources and scarcity of resources and products. People cannot all have a Lamborghini or Ferrari, their cost of production is too much for sustainability, especially on the large-scale such as the world or multiple "countries".


For other needs where it might not be immediately or physically possible to allow everyone to have what they want, a society where production is for use and collectivly guided, new methods for fufilling wants could be organized. Maybe better public transportation isn't enough and there are many people who want to be able to dive where they want or travel to remote areas. It may not make sense to produce enough single cars to allow everyone to have one all the time, so instead maybe each community would have a fleet of cars so that it would be possible to reserve one when you needed, but then it isn't just sitting on the side of the road unused aside for a couple hours a day like cars are in modern cities. Maybe luxury beach or mountain homes that are very desireable are turned into vaccation homes also available for people to reserve.

What if I want to visit my cousin in area X, my friend in area Y, or take my girlfriend? Now get that simple example and multiply it by many millions of individuals desiring to go personal and private places. People need private transport and these people who are going to the same destination need not at all be living together to make public transportation of carpooling effective. People need their own cars, if not their own then their family's.


For air travel specifically, I personally think that people would want to invest more in high-speed rail for most travel from region to region, but I think air-travel will still be a big thing. However, we could increase passenger travel by a lot while just maintaining current levels of flights (if we wanted) through the elimination of business and military flights. In addition, the reorganization of production might also reduce the amount that we have to ship commodities since only things that can only be produced in certain regions will HAVE to be shipped, a lot more local production could happen if production wasn't based on finding what's most convinient for capital (low-cost labor, centralized production that only serves the purpose of increasing profits).

I don't agree with that decentralized local "reorganization of production". That would essentially be creating duplicates of the same factory in every region whilst forcing factories to underproduce when they can produce at a much higher capacity purely because they cannot ship their goods to where they're needed. You can never and must never do away with international "markets". Peoples' demands today are not what they were during Kropotkin's or Marx's time or even as they were during medieval times. We need electronics produced in Japan with specialized factories, we need microchips from Silicon Valley, we need clothing from X and Y, we need goods from A and B, we need various goods that cannot be produced locally. We are not living off of bread and coal. We cannot produce everything we need locally with the exception of what is impossible to be produced locally. The division of labor is a necessity, this is my disagreement with Marx here, and it must be embraced. Let France produce X, the US will produce Y. Countries/regions can never become fully self-sustainable and if they were to become so then they would entirely eliminate the need for globalization and internationalism. Also I disagree on the question of meeting what's "most convenient for capital", it is necessary to find what's "most convenient for capital" or else we'd risk inefficiencies, waste, extreme expenditure, etc. as some of the criticisms by Mises and Co. explain. We need to find where the cost of production is cheap, we need to find where demand is high and supply is low, we need price signals and feedback, and we need centralized planning or Market Socialism for that.

[LifeIs2Short]

I believe that the basic needs for living, water, food, housing etc, should be socialised and available to all for free. This is already happening in most welfare states. Items of want on the other hand should be distributed on a consumer market, purchasable with labour credits.

[LifeIs2Short]

For those of us who live in a capitalist society, the things we believe are desirable and the things we consider to be "luxury goods" will be affected by the capitalist culture we live in. Even post-revolution, this effect will not completely disappear from those who grew up under capitalist-owned advertising-funded mass media.

It would be an interesting sociological study to see what people would want in a generation that grows up without being subjected to consumer advertising in all their media.

People who grew up in USSR always craved for western products, despite living in a advertising-free society.

[Skyhilist]

I believe that the basic needs for living, water, food, housing etc, should be socialised and available to all for free. This is already happening in most welfare states. Items of want on the other hand should be distributed on a consumer market, purchasable with labour credits.

It's already happening in most welfare states? Last I recall they weren't just giving away free houses to poor people in Sweden.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Nevertheless, the fairness of which I spoke of is concerning contribution and remuneration. It would prove to be extremely inefficient, irrational, illogical, and counter-productive to remunerate every individual the same as every other individual. Wage discrepancies and differing income levels according to contribution rather than need are much preferable and sustainable.For most things, no. Aside from absolute scarcity of some resource, assuming that it is possible to realativly easily produce, say a certain medicine, then this can be done simply on a "need" basis. As I said before with the water issue - since no one really worries about tap-water, people don't feel the need to monitor eachother's personal use. Where there's consumer-waste, it's more due to things like lawns in deserts and other things like that, not people pouring too much water or drawing too many baths for themselves. Here in California where there is water rationing, agriculture, not the population is the biggest consumer and waster of water. So re-organizing production, would go a lot further than rationing induvidual consumption. And aside from absolute rarity like with diamonds or whatever, most basic things can be consumed on demand even while waste is reduced through new methods of production and distribution.

It's a bigger question to me of how people will handle the interrum period after a revolution where, say water-systems will still have to be built in some places, hospital services created, new skills taught, etc. At this point it is likely that people will have to have to take more of a count of who's contributing or have to ration or make other compromises based on collective decisions on how to handle some gaps or shortages or lack.


You disregard, for some reason, the necessity of "looking over each other's shoulders in the food co-op" to check for an inefficiencies in the labor force, any laziness, and to ensure that people "put in an amount of work to justify dinner".I think there may be a required minimum that communities demand of people as condition of enjoying the benifits of that community; I definately think that even if there was total abundance, co-workers would want to keep eachother in check, but I also think that beyond any "transition" era, that this will be done through custom, that "helping out" would be 2nd nature for people and if someone is slacking, it would be handled through peer-pressure for the most part.

Why do I think this, well for one thing, assuming that socialist relations have become normalized and well-established, then taking part in such a society would need as much instruction as someone getting a job today has. If people want to have their own appartment, they know they have to get employment - there's no real vagabond law enforcing us to belong to a master anymore because capitalism is "common sense" and for induviduals, there really isn't another real way to have an appartment and so on. I think the same would apply in a communist society, people would know that if you want to take part in the community that you are expected to pitch in. The other reason I think this is that before highly developed class societies, this is how people usually lived: hard-work was ensured both through the desire to have an effective use of your labor and time (why half-ass something that's going to benifit you?) and peer-pressure was used to ensure that people pitched in and didn't pass work onto others. I don't think it would run smoothly all the time, I think people might get in arguments and whatnot, some people may be notorious slackers and be disliked because of it, but in a society where production wasn't based on squeezing as much surplus value out of the laborer as possible, this would not cause major problems for overall production.


Such actions of personal accountability are necessary, even Kropotkin the Anarcho-Communist himself spoke of the necessity of such actions to address laziness. If we do not take into account contributions and remunerate individuals properly according to their contribution then we create a system where it is rational for individuals to waste, slack off, and yet at the end of the day receive the same or better than others who may have worked twice or more as hard. Overachievement must by every means be rewarded just as underachievement and slacking must be punished. This can be solved through the introduction of a credits system, labor notes, wages (yes), and material bonuses/incentives to make it rational, logical, and rewarding to contribute. Aside from peer-pressure like I described above, I think some of what you describe here could apply in a transition era where extra effort or organization of production may be needed in various places.


Structural inequalities are not an issue, they will always remain and must never be done away with unless we can somehow magically make every efficient, of the same level of intelligence, beliefs, interests, and dedication.Woah. Well when I mean structural inequalities I mean like how there are no decent houses in the ghetto or no services in rural areas. I think people would want to eliminate this and while they attempt to do so, there probably would be some temporary shortages or rationing or roation to deal with the gap between the need and the immediate ability to meet it.

Personal differences are not "structural inequalities" in my view. People are different and have their own qualities and things to contribute to those around them... hence, "from each according to their ability". I think people would be more valued since they would all have something to add to a community, even those who currently can't meet the pace of exploitation required by capitalist production.


We, of course, do not desire such a system of clones and thus these inequalities must remain to properly deal with the inequal nature of individuals and their relationships. You will need to reward the efficient hard worker and punish the inefficient slacker.Why... to extract surplus labor from them? Again, "peer-pressure" I understand and I think it would be natural since if I'm working, I don't really want other people wasting my time and energy by not carrying their end. But, assuming a level of realative abundance (which is possible now) for most things there wouldn't be the pressures as there are now at work: you work until the job is done, rather than: work this fast in this way to do the most for the least wage.


The idea of rotating goods is also irrational and counter-productive as it treats all people as inherently equal despite their contributions, work, intelligence, etc.Rewarding "intelligence"?


Such a rota-based distribution system would only promote slacking of the part of the hard workers as they are already either way going to get those rationed goods when it's their turn. They have no real incentive to work harder.Where's this pressure to work harder coming from? For what purpose? Subsistance farmers work hard when they have to till the soil, they work hard when they harvest, and then they drink all winter when there's nothing to do. The drive to work harder relentlessly is due to the drive for profits from exploited laber - spreading out work, eliminating structural "slacking" and wastefullness will go much further than monitoring induvidual laborers.


Rationing scarce goods is the only rational decision. A lottery is as counter-productive as the idea of rota-based distribution. If you have scarce goods or desired locations, you want to use such opportunities to get people to work harder, when they work harder they benefit their entier society, when they benefit their entire society by working hard, they must by every means be rewarded by increased remuneration allowing them to buy the desired location or buy the scarce goods they obtained through their own labor and contribution. Again, maybe at a time when there are still many lags in production and meeting basic needs and wants, but in a system of production for use, rather than exchange value, this pressure to ensure maximum effort of each worker just doesn't exist in the same way.


What about cars? TVs? Diamonds? Electronics? Expensive and naturally scarce goods? How much are you willing to sacrifice the environment to meet people's needs of scarce resources?If there is an absolute scarcity in something, then I think people would probably want to figure out analogues if it is something with broad demand. Other things can be organized in ways in which less labor results in more use: creating technology that's more flexible and long-lasting, creating communal use of things (if for some reason it's too wasteful for everyone to have their own TV - although I don't think this would be the case - then why not a communal rec-center for every 12 people or few families with a movie screen and digital projector? Why not just two screens for everyone - nice tablet computers and a home big-screen that can also double as a computer monitor. Why do people need 3 game consuls, why do they have to be replaced every 2 years? Why not long-lasting and flexible tech instead?

oops, gotta go - to be continued

[cyu]

People who grew up in USSR always craved for western products, despite living in a advertising-free society.


I never grew up in the USSR, so I don't know what it was really like there, but I can certainly tell you that China is currently not free of consumerist advertising. Similarly, religion had a revival after the fall of the Soviet Union - does that mean Russians are naturally Russian Orthodox or whatever?

There are always preachers of all kinds - for example, plenty of people in the US "crave a capitalist-free society" despite living in a "communist-free society". There is a difference between an authoritarian system pushing advertising on you (which happens with both authoritarian communism and authoritarian capitalism), and a non-authoritarian system in which advertising is pushed by everyone into the rest of society.

Those brainwashed by Charles Koch may believe only communist nations are authoritarian, but the simple fact is that every corporation is run as an authoritarian entity - and of course, they're the ones that fund advertising - and some corporations rival other nations in power.

[Conscript]

The goal of the socialist economy would be to make these use values as accessible as possible to the average worker by producing as much as possible of it and expanding the means of production. This is all done in order to bring the value down to the equivalent labor put into it. From there, the socialist economy would tend towards simplifying the productive process in order to expand the labor force applicable to such and make the use value take less labor-time to produce individually.

When these steps are taken on a mass scale, over time quantitative changes are made that lead to communism, 'to each according to their need', and at least reasonable abundance.

That doesn't mean all use values have to be produced in abundance to reach communism. I believe there are some that will always be scarce items of use, a reality we will have to deal with as our economy simply can't produce more of it (perhaps yet), we will simply have no choice but to consume less of it, and its distribution would operate according to the 'to each according to their work' principle, as the law of value still applies and we're measuring up commodities/use values against each other. This 'problem' was posed to me by a libertarian here as an inherent fault in socialism, yet, it is a problem of resources, not socialism.

[Lord Hargreaves]

You're speaking of the post-scarcity of basic goods and foodstuffs. Post-scarcity does not merely refer to the post-scarcity of basic goods, but a general post-scarcity of goods. In relation to the topic at hand, the OP, and the title, this post-scarcity is not a post-scarcity of food or basic goods but the elimination of scarcity for luxury goods.

But it is not immediately straightforward determining exactly what basic goods are, what luxury goods are, etc. and where the distinctions lie. Many goods - goods "in general" - are actually derivative of basic goods and their scarcity largely determined by the former.



Nevertheless, the fairness of which I spoke of is concerning contribution and remuneration. It would prove to be extremely inefficient, irrational, illogical, and counter-productive to remunerate every individual the same as every other individual.

Distribution according to need is not remunerating everyone to the same degree - by definition, since everyone has different needs.

And it is not clear why it would be so much easier determining what someone's "efforts" were as opposed to determining what their "needs" are. Both concepts are fairly open and debatable. There is no reason why the former principle of distribution would be less bureaucratic and cumbersome to administer than the latter. Unless you just short-circuit the problem by paying by the hour, but we all know how unfair and inaccurate such a measure can be.

So disregarding efficiency, rationality, logic - what is left? Productivity. But productivity is only a value under a regime that is concerned with building a condition of post-scarcity... and you are arguing that this is an impossible goal (taking all goods - basic and luxury - into account). In your position "productivity" is a moral value that remains unanalysed and unscrutinised.



Wage discrepancies and differing income levels according to contribution rather than need are much preferable and sustainable. You disregard, for some reason, the necessity of "looking over each other's shoulders in the food co-op" to check for an inefficiencies in the labor force, any laziness, and to ensure that people "put in an amount of work to justify dinner". Such actions of personal accountability are necessary, even Kropotkin the Anarcho-Communist himself spoke of the necessity of such actions to address laziness.

I think there is a strong difference between making sure everyone who signs up for a project pulls their weight to ensure that the project succeeds; and a personal moral belief that hard work should always be well rewarded, that labour in-itself is something praiseworthy, etc., which is never necessarily true and takes the form of ideology when generalised.



If we do not take into account contributions and remunerate individuals properly according to their contribution then we create a system where it is rational for individuals to waste, slack off, and yet at the end of the day receive the same or better than others who may have worked twice or more as hard. Overachievement must by every means be rewarded just as underachievement and slacking must be punished.

I think these are really exaggerated concerns, the result perhaps of you buying too much into neoclassical ideas on individual motivation. Perhaps in rational choice theory these are pressing problems, but not in a communist society based on solidarity.



This can be solved through the introduction of a credits system, labor notes, wages (yes), and material bonuses/incentives to make it rational, logical, and rewarding to contribute.

This might be useful as a supplementary system to deal with things like luxury goods, but is surely unnecessary when it comes to basic goods (and goods in general).



Structural inequalities are not an issue, they will always remain and must never be done away with unless we can somehow magically make every efficient, of the same level of intelligence, beliefs, interests, and dedication. We, of course, do not desire such a system of clones and thus these inequalities must remain to properly deal with the inequal nature of individuals and their relationships. You will need to reward the efficient hard worker and punish the inefficient slacker.

Similar to the above, I don't see these as pressing concerns.

In abstract moral theorising - say, in what has become known as "luck egalitarianism" - it is a pressing dilemma of the age as to whether someone can be said to "deserve" or have a moral claim to their high IQ, and so also to the huge gains in material resources that will supposedly follow directly from this fact. If you are clever you will be rich, and that's that.

But of course this is nonsense. As Steven Lay Gould once put it: how many people of Einstein's talent and intelligence spent their entire working lives in cotton fields and sweatshops, because they had no opportunity to do anything different? And what would it have meant for scientific advance if this had not been the case? (Basically: since when has the talent and intelligence of a person meant anything about how much success a person will achieve, in the complete absence of other social factors?)

The real way to go about increasing productivity is not in trying to motivate the odd individual who is slacking at his post, it is rather to overthrow what currently exists so that we can institute a general economic system and mode of production that allows everyone to maximize their potential.



What about cars? TVs? Diamonds? Electronics? Expensive and naturally scarce goods? How much are you willing to sacrifice the environment to meet people's needs of scarce resources? Food as an issue of scarcity can be solved. The same goes for housing, education, medical facilities, and transportation, but what cannot be solved is the issue of finite resources and scarcity of resources and products. People cannot all have a Lamborghini or Ferrari, their cost of production is too much for sustainability, especially on the large-scale such as the world or multiple "countries".

This may sound glib and dismissive, but seriously - who the fuck actually wants a Lamborghini? Or a set of diamonds? Only a rather greedy and distasteful person I would gues. The problem just seems exaggerated to me.



I don't agree with that decentralized local "reorganization of production". That would essentially be creating duplicates of the same factory in every region whilst forcing factories to underproduce when they can produce at a much higher capacity purely because they cannot ship their goods to where they're needed. You can never and must never do away with international "markets".

I don't understand how a local factory producing goods for a local community is being "forced to underproduce"? The objection is only coherent if other communities can't meet their own needs and need assistance from outside.

The idea that a factory should produce large quantities of goods just because it is capable of doing so is an assumption based in a productivist intellectual paradigm that we need to move away from.



Peoples' demands today are not what they were during Kropotkin's or Marx's time or even as they were during medieval times. We need electronics produced in Japan with specialized factories, we need microchips from Silicon Valley, we need clothing from X and Y, we need goods from A and B, we need various goods that cannot be produced locally. We are not living off of bread and coal. We cannot produce everything we need locally with the exception of what is impossible to be produced locally. The division of labor is a necessity, this is my disagreement with Marx here, and it must be embraced. Let France produce X, the US will produce Y. Countries/regions can never become fully self-sustainable and if they were to become so then they would entirely eliminate the need for globalization and internationalism.

Also I disagree on the question of meeting what's "most convenient for capital", it is necessary to find what's "most convenient for capital" or else we'd risk inefficiencies, waste, extreme expenditure, etc. as some of the criticisms by Mises and Co. explain. We need to find where the cost of production is cheap, we need to find where demand is high and supply is low, we need price signals and feedback, and we need centralized planning or Market Socialism for that.

I think we need a greater balance between local production and global production/international trade etc. Currently we are very heavily geared toward the latter to the detriment of the former, which barely exists at all in some places. So while I agree that socialist globalisation can be a very good thing, I would disagree that this can be made the sole economic basis of a communist society.

And in many cases of course it is hugely inefficient to have the divisions of labour you mention, especially when it is based on huge corporations trying to find low-wage labour simply to reduce costs.

Not to mention that the colossal amount of energy needed to make current rates of international freight viable is environmentally unsustainable.

[LifeIs2Short]

It's already happening in most welfare states? Last I recall they weren't just giving away free houses to poor people in Sweden.

Actually, in the nordic welfare model people unable to pay for rent get theirs subsidised by the social services.

[Theophys]

For most things, no. Aside from absolute scarcity of some resource, assuming that it is possible to realativly easily produce, say a certain medicine, then this can be done simply on a "need" basis. As I said before with the water issue - since no one really worries about tap-water, people don't feel the need to monitor eachother's personal use. Where there's consumer-waste, it's more due to things like lawns in deserts and other things like that, not people pouring too much water or drawing too many baths for themselves. Here in California where there is water rationing, agriculture, not the population is the biggest consumer and waster of water. So re-organizing production, would go a lot further than rationing induvidual consumption. And aside from absolute rarity like with diamonds or whatever, most basic things can be consumed on demand even while waste is reduced through new methods of production and distribution.

It is exactly because you believe that people must not monitor water because it is not scarce that we must monitor it. The cost of production of water that goes to waste is still there even if it is abundant as you are still using up fuel, machinery, electricity, etc. to purify and pump water. These resources can be put to better use if they are not wasted because they are abundant. Even in abundant conditions water must still be monitored and cannot be allowed to go to waste. Purified clean water does not fall from the sky, it takes labor, fuel, and other various costs in order to produce. I do not see how we can create a "for need" production system seeing as the starting up a factory costs much more than than the continued production of a factory as you will need to turn on the machines, call in the workers, and whatnot. Factories must never be put on hold due to a "for need" basis, but must instead be constantly running in order to either stockpile or ship the goods abroad to where they are needed. To allow factories to remain closed until they are needed is a complete waste of resources, land, labor, effort, and time which could be put to better use elsewhere. The agricultural industry may be consuming a lot of water, but we cannot by any means rip it out and take it elsewhere, if it is unprofitable or inefficient then it must be closed down and replaced with imports from elsewhere. Cost accountability is a necessity to measure how a workplace is doing. You speak of "new methods of production and distribution" which have not been achieved yet, that is quite Utopian and I would not desire to speak of such pipedreams myself.


It's a bigger question to me of how people will handle the interrum period after a revolution where, say water-systems will still have to be built in some places, hospital services created, new skills taught, etc. At this point it is likely that people will have to have to take more of a count of who's contributing or have to ration or make other compromises based on collective decisions on how to handle some gaps or shortages or lack.

Which is exactly why Socialism exists as the interim transitional period. I do not believe collective decisions will be of any help here other than a hindrance, economic cost accountability would prove to be a much better factor here in management of remuneration and rationing.


I think there may be a required minimum that communities demand of people as condition of enjoying the benifits of that community; I definately think that even if there was total abundance, co-workers would want to keep eachother in check, but I also think that beyond any "transition" era, that this will be done through custom, that "helping out" would be 2nd nature for people and if someone is slacking, it would be handled through peer-pressure for the most part.[/quote ]

But without costs, accounting, etc. it would be impossible to ensure that an entire workplace does not decide to slack together. There needs to be a system of filtering that ensures that inefficient factories cannot continue as they are or be risked shut down. Solely relying on coworkers keeping each other in check does not by any means sound like a functioning alternative as we cannot by any means ensure that they will be faithful and truthful in their actions. We may very well end up with a Soviet-style factory system.


[quote]Why do I think this, well for one thing, assuming that socialist relations have become normalized and well-established, then taking part in such a society would need as much instruction as someone getting a job today has. If people want to have their own appartment, they know they have to get employment - there's no real vagabond law enforcing us to belong to a master anymore because capitalism is "common sense" and for induviduals, there really isn't another real way to have an appartment and so on. I think the same would apply in a communist society, people would know that if you want to take part in the community that you are expected to pitch in. The other reason I think this is that before highly developed class societies, this is how people usually lived: hard-work was ensured both through the desire to have an effective use of your labor and time (why half-ass something that's going to benifit you?) and peer-pressure was used to ensure that people pitched in and didn't pass work onto others. I don't think it would run smoothly all the time, I think people might get in arguments and whatnot, some people may be notorious slackers and be disliked because of it, but in a society where production wasn't based on squeezing as much surplus value out of the laborer as possible, this would not cause major problems for overall production.
Well the issue here is that people can half-ass something because it doesn't exactly benefit them directly. Under a communist system follow "each according to his need" individuals would receive what they need regardless of their contribution and effort. This acts in opposition to "each according to his contribution" which I find to be most appealing and effective. If person X were to slack without anyone knowing then he would still receive the same amount of goods others are receiving if they work harder than he does. You need a system of remuneration based on labor and contribution to ensure that person X works harder in order to receive more money and thus more goods and that if he does not then he receives nothing. Before highly developed class societies you had Primitive Communism and that system is nothing that we should ever attempt to emulate. We are in the 21st century, we cannot by any means look back at societies that lived in caves and attempt to base our societies on them. Peer-pressure can only do so much, especially as we cannot ensure that peer-pressure would exist or act faithfully to the system rather than betray it to maximize profit. The problem here is exactly because such a society does not squeeze as much surplus value as possible it would tend to be inefficient, slow, not cost-efficient, not accountable, and unable to meet the demands of billions. When you extract surplus value, you create value and increase value in society's overall pool. That is necessary if we are talking about a highly advanced system of production and exchange.


Woah. Well when I mean structural inequalities I mean like how there are no decent houses in the ghetto or no services in rural areas. I think people would want to eliminate this and while they attempt to do so, there probably would be some temporary shortages or rationing or roation to deal with the gap between the need and the immediate ability to meet it.
Most likely.


Personal differences are not "structural inequalities" in my view. People are different and have their own qualities and things to contribute to those around them... hence, "from each according to their ability". I think people would be more valued since they would all have something to add to a community, even those who currently can't meet the pace of exploitation required by capitalist production.

A bit too Utopian, but alright.


Why... to extract surplus labor from them?

Nothing wrong with it as long as that surplus labor and value is extracted by society for society including that worker rather than for private and personal interests as in the case of the bourgeoisie. Advanced society is based on the extraction of surplus value, without that we'd end up with unprofitable and subprofitable production without new value being created.


Again, "peer-pressure" I understand and I think it would be natural since if I'm working, I don't really want other people wasting my time and energy by not carrying their end. But, assuming a level of realative abundance (which is possible now) for most things there wouldn't be the pressures as there are now at work: you work until the job is done, rather than: work this fast in this way to do the most for the least wage.

Well the thing is that we cannot "assume" anything, be it relative abundance or abundance. Relative abundance is possible now only because of the superexploitation of labor that leads to cheap goods and high productivity. It is exactly when they say "work this fast" that you can ensure efficiency and speed as opposed to "work until the job is done" which would allow inefficiencies to take form.


Rewarding "intelligence"?

Yes, skilled labor, educated choices, etc. must all be rewarded in order to encourage such actions to take place.


Where's this pressure to work harder coming from?

Profit. When you pay workers for overproducing and overachieving, you encourage them to work harder.


For what purpose?

All their products end up benefiting their own society, not any individual bourgeois overlord. The more products they can produce, the better demands are met.



Subsistance farmers work hard when they have to till the soil, they work hard when they harvest, and then they drink all winter when there's nothing to do. The drive to work harder relentlessly is due to the drive for profits from exploited laber - spreading out work, eliminating structural "slacking" and wastefullness will go much further than monitoring induvidual laborers.

Monitoring individual laborers will actually eliminate slacking, wastefulness and whatnot. If a worker gets paid the more he contributes, he has no reason to slack for he will be paid less. If a worker has to buy his products, then anything he throws away he loses in terms of money. In the production process if he resorts to wasteful methods of production, he loses profits. That's why we need to have a system of credits and cost accountability. It is much more effective and efficient.


Again, maybe at a time when there are still many lags in production and meeting basic needs and wants, but in a system of production for use, rather than exchange value, this pressure to ensure maximum effort of each worker just doesn't exist in the same way.

We cannot know if there ever will cease to be lags in production and the inability to meet basic needs and wants. There is absolutely no guarantee that a system of production for use would lead to superabundance or the meeting of those basic needs and wants and as such we need to ensure a system of labor that would allow us to fulfill those needs and wants without leading to shortages and starvation. The common mistake that many Communist make is that they directly assume that they would have a system of abundance; we cannot ensure that there will be abundance. Also I didn't get the last part of your sentence concerning "this pressure [...] doesn't exist in the same way".


If there is an absolute scarcity in something, then I think people would probably want to figure out analogues if it is something with broad demand. Other things can be organized in ways in which less labor results in more use: creating technology that's more flexible and long-lasting, creating communal use of things (if for some reason it's too wasteful for everyone to have their own TV - although I don't think this would be the case - then why not a communal rec-center for every 12 people or few families with a movie screen and digital projector? Why not just two screens for everyone - nice tablet computers and a home big-screen that can also double as a computer monitor. Why do people need 3 game consuls, why do they have to be replaced every 2 years? Why not long-lasting and flexible tech instead?

A lot of assertions and assumptions. You speak of technology, restructuring, finding more efficient alternatives, etc. but we cannot by any means ensure the existence of any of that. How can we create technology that's more flexible and long-lasting? Every company today wants to create more flexible and long-lasting products and yet they cannot magically create them. The same applies to communism. It's easy to solve the issue of TVs, but what about jewelry, small gadgets and electronics, rare types of food, and other consumer products which cannot be shared? Game consoles need to be replaced after multiple years due to changing technology and the inability to recycle such products.


But it is not immediately straightforward determining exactly what basic goods are, what luxury goods are, etc. and where the distinctions lie. Many goods - goods "in general" - are actually derivative of basic goods and their scarcity largely determined by the former.

No. Is a computer a basic good or a luxury good? Is clothing a basic good or a luxury good? What type of computers is a basic good or a luxury good? What type of clothing is a basic good or a luxury good? What type of food is a basic food or a luxury good? There are BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of such goods, we cannot label them all and distinctions are hard to make especially without a pricing mechanism.


Distribution according to need is not remunerating everyone to the same degree - by definition, since everyone has different needs.

And it is exactly because these needs are vague, abstract, fluid, and cannot be determined that a slacker can "need" much more than what an efficient worker "needs". Distribution is actually remuneration to the same as degree, i.e. to the degree of need, whatever that may be.


And it is not clear why it would be so much easier determining what someone's "efforts" were as opposed to determining what their "needs" are. Both concepts are fairly open and debatable. There is no reason why the former principle of distribution would be less bureaucratic and cumbersome to administer than the latter. Unless you just short-circuit the problem by paying by the hour, but we all know how unfair and inaccurate such a measure can be.

Efforts can be objectively observed through efficiencies in production, needs cannot be objectively observed nor measured. I honestly do not care if it is more or less bureaucratic or cumbersome, I care about which ensures proper contribution, rewards, remuneration, efficiency, productivity, etc. Remunerating according to contribution and effort could take the form of piece-meal production and pay as opposed to the pay according to "needs" where contribution, efficiency, effort, etc. is disregarded.


So disregarding efficiency, rationality, logic - what is left? Productivity. But productivity is only a value under a regime that is concerned with building a condition of post-scarcity... and you are arguing that this is an impossible goal (taking all goods - basic and luxury - into account). In your position "productivity" is a moral value that remains unanalysed and unscrutinised.

Is it just me or did that make no sense at all? I am claiming that a system that bases itself on a gift economy and/or "according to need" rather than "according to contribution" would be inefficient, irrational, and illogical. You claim that productivity would be left. In order to achieve a system of post-scarcity, as one that is being referring to in the topic, title, and OP concerning luxury goods then you need to take into account productivity, efficiency, rationality, and logic to answer that question. A gift economy and/or production "according to need" cannot answer the question because they lead to inefficiency, irrational behavior, and illogical behavior. A post-scarcity society is the issue that needs to be addressed as requested by the OP, you sideline it and claim that you are not concerned with it. I do not care if you are are concerned with it or not, I'm discussing this for the OP, not you. He wants a post-scarcity society and asks how we are to address the question of luxuries in a post-scarcity society. I am arguing that this is an impossible goal indeed. Productivity I leave because it hinges on the other factories that I spoke of, namely efficiency, rationality, and logical behavior amongst other things. Since those cannot be ensured then, since there is no incentive to overproduce, no incentive not to slack, no remuneration according to contribution, etc. productivity would fall as well. Productivity was already analysis and scrutinized, it's merely correlated with the other factors; if they fail, it also falls.


I think there is a strong difference between making sure everyone who signs up for a project pulls their weight to ensure that the project succeeds; and a personal moral belief that hard work should always be well rewarded, that labour in-itself is something praiseworthy, etc., which is never necessarily true and takes the form of ideology when generalised.

The thing is that there is absolutely no guarantee that those who sign up for a project will sign up or that they will even pull their weight. They need not even care if the project succeeds or not. Hard work should always be rewarded if you want to achieve a productive and efficient system that can sustain itself and others. Half your post is philosophical poetry that makes no sense at all, but alas...


I think these are really exaggerated concerns, the result perhaps of you buying too much into neoclassical ideas on individual motivation. Perhaps in rational choice theory these are pressing problems, but not in a communist society based on solidarity.

Woah, woah, did you actually just disregard rational choice theory by pulling a solidarity cop-out card? There is absolutely no guarantee that solidarity will exist nor that solidarity will act as a proper alternative to individual motivation. You seem to do the same mistakes as many other Utopian Communists do by making unsupported, unfounded, and baseless assumptions and base your entire system on. These are not exaggerated concerns, these are real concerns. I buy too much into neoclassical ideals on individual motivation purely because that is the convention, that is what is rational, and that is what people base their entire lives and work on. If we are to step into the world of magical pipedreams from which you hail from then we'd be creating a disaster of a system based on assumptions which we can never guarantee to achieve.


This might be useful as a supplementary system to deal with things like luxury goods, but is surely unnecessary when it comes to basic goods (and goods in general).

I support a system of credits where everything costs credits. Credits would be received by working, measured by various factors such as productivity, efficiency, goods per hour, etc. These credits would be non-transferable. These credits would be spent in state shops. These credits would then act as "points" or a feedback mechanism with price signalling to relay information to the planners on which goods are desired, at what cost, etc. allowing the planners to adjust demand and supply and allocate resources properly. Think of it as money, just doesn't circulate, cannot be speculated upon, cannot be traded between individuals, etc. etc. similar to the currency found in video games.


Similar to the above, I don't see these as pressing concerns.

Of course, because you got your magical cards.


In abstract moral theorising - say, in what has become known as "luck egalitarianism" - it is a pressing dilemma of the age as to whether someone can be said to "deserve" or have a moral claim to their high IQ, and so also to the huge gains in material resources that will supposedly follow directly from this fact. If you are clever you will be rich, and that's that.

It is not much of an issue where he "deserves" anything as we do not base anything on the individuals and their own actions but on what they can contribute to their society. If the individual with high IQ can supply his society with valuable labor then he would be rewarded accordingly to encourage such actions to take place, but if that individual with the high IQ contributes the same as any other or refuses to contribute to his society then he receives the same or nothing in return, respectively. It is not because he is clever that he will be rich, but that he is, for instance, offering his society twice what others are offering and thus must be awarded twofold, whether he deserves it or not I do not care. I only care about what he provides his society with.


But of course this is nonsense. As Steven Lay Gould once put it: how many people of Einstein's talent and intelligence spent their entire working lives in cotton fields and sweatshops, because they had no opportunity to do anything different? And what would it have meant for scientific advance if this had not been the case? (Basically: since when has the talent and intelligence of a person meant anything about how much success a person will achieve, in the complete absence of other social factors?)

Ever since society correlates success with contribution to society. That worker contributes, that workers receives in kind.


The real way to go about increasing productivity is not in trying to motivate the odd individual who is slacking at his post, it is rather to overthrow what currently exists so that we can institute a general economic system and mode of production that allows everyone to maximize their potential.

Indeed and good luck with that. Although that can be addressed by doing away with the artificial market barriers and barriers on entry when it comes to the issue of higher education, inventing, distribution of inventions and their production, equal starting opportunity, etc. etc.


This may sound glib and dismissive, but seriously - who the fuck actually wants a Lamborghini? Or a set of diamonds? Only a rather greedy and distasteful person I would gues. The problem just seems exaggerated to me.

And since in real-life we have people today who want a Lamborghini and a set of diamonds, we cannot dismiss the fact that it exists and may very well still exist in the future. You call them greedy and distasteful, that does not change the fact that they would desire such goods. If it's not Lamborghinis and diamonds then it's high-end gaming computers, servers, cars, boats, various sizes and qualities of television, etc. etc. Do not dismiss this issue so lightly as you attempted to do with the others. The problem is not by any means exaggerated, it is very real and is the main subject of this thread - luxury goods and post-scarcity.


I don't understand how a local factory producing goods for a local community is being "forced to underproduce"? The objection is only coherent if other communities can't meet their own needs and need assistance from outside.

Wow... I just... Sigh, I'll explain. A local factory has a very small local demand as opposed to an international demand from an international market. When demand is satisfied for the local populace, which can overtime be easily predictable by computers calculating demand and supply trends, the factory is forced to do nothing but shutdown for the end of the month, quarter, or year instead of continuing production to meet the demands of an international market. You would essentially be having a closed factory whilst other regions are in need of the goods of that factory. You take that into slight consideration as a sideline issue. Other communities will not be able to meet their needs and will inevitably need assistance from the outside. You here make yet another baseless assumption by claiming that all communities will generally be self-sufficient and only in a rare circumstance would a community be unable to meet its own needs. You cannot build the same factory in every single community, it would be stupid, wasteful, counter-productive, and inefficient. Instead of building 200 same factories in 200 separate communities where each factory would shutdown when their own community's demand is sated there can be built 10 large factories where they sate the demand of 200 communities as what happens today. Such a system is much more efficient, productive, less wasteful, less labor intensive, less time consuming, takes up less land, takes up less resources, takes up less machinery, etc. etc. Let's not even mention when it comes time to upgrade, the need for scarce and rare goods (diamond tools, diamond drills, diamond cutters, etc.), and so on that would put your clusterfuck of an idea to the grave.


The idea that a factory should produce large quantities of goods just because it is capable of doing so is an assumption based in a productivist intellectual paradigm that we need to move away from.

Lol? Are you kidding me? A factory should produce large quantities of goods to satisfy demand as opposed to building thousands of factories for each community just to meet its local demand! That is the most ridiculous shit I have ever seen coming from anyone. You not only want us to waste numerous resources, time, labor, and effort building the same factory over and over against for numerous communities when we could use the same labor, resources, and effort to build other types of factories, houses, goods, etc. but you want us to also shutdown production when local demand is met and attempt to ignorantly ridicule the traditional mode of factory production! What you are supporting here is akin to digging holes and refilling them, a waste and nothing more.


I think we need a greater balance between local production and global production/international trade etc. Currently we are very heavily geared toward the latter to the detriment of the former, which barely exists at all in some places. So while I agree that socialist globalisation can be a very good thing, I would disagree that this can be made the sole economic basis of a communist society.

Screw local production. There is absolutely no need for local production. International production is of the utmost necessity for a globalized world. A communist society must be geared towards internationalism and globalization, not towards petty local divisions and decentralization that would prove to do nothing but hinder.


And in many cases of course it is hugely inefficient to have the divisions of labour you mention, especially when it is based on huge corporations trying to find low-wage labour simply to reduce costs.

Oh and do tell me how it is inefficient to have a division of labor, specialization, etc. I'd be very interested as opposed to the mythical lack of division of labor. A doctor cannot become an engineer in the afternoon just as a miner cannot become a scientist in the morning.


Not to mention that the colossal amount of energy needed to make current rates of international freight viable is environmentally unsustainable.
Oh environmentally unsustainable? You want to build a fuckton of the SAME factories in each local community destroying numerous land, trees, resources, effort, and requiring a "colossal amount of energy" but reject the idea of international freight? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? This shit is more than fucking ridiculous.

[Lord Hargreaves]

And it is exactly because these needs are vague, abstract, fluid, and cannot be determined that a slacker can "need" much more than what an efficient worker "needs". Distribution is actually remuneration to the same as degree, i.e. to the degree of need, whatever that may be.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "remunerated to the same as degree", presumably you mean the same distribution principle is applied uniformly.

What is your obsession with the "slacker"? Who are these people?


Efforts can be objectively observed through efficiencies in production, needs cannot be objectively observed nor measured. I honestly do not care if it is more or less bureaucratic or cumbersome, I care about which ensures proper contribution, rewards, remuneration, efficiency, productivity, etc. Remunerating according to contribution and effort could take the form of piece-meal production and pay as opposed to the pay according to "needs" where contribution, efficiency, effort, etc. is disregarded.

That kind of misses my point though - why should anyone accept the idea that effort is defined by efficiency in production?

You say you wouldn't be interested if measuring effort was more bureaucratic and/or cumbersome than the alternative, but then go on to say that payment to contribution will be more efficient. This is a contradiction surely? Unless you associate bueracracy with efficiency, which is slightly strange.


Is it just me or did that make no sense at all? I am claiming that a system that bases itself on a gift economy and/or "according to need" rather than "according to contribution" would be inefficient, irrational, and illogical.

Yes, but I don't see any reason why I should agree.


You claim that productivity would be left. In order to achieve a system of post-scarcity, as one that is being referring to in the topic, title, and OP concerning luxury goods then you need to take into account productivity, efficiency, rationality, and logic to answer that question. A gift economy and/or production "according to need" cannot answer the question because they lead to inefficiency, irrational behavior, and illogical behavior. A post-scarcity society is the issue that needs to be addressed as requested by the OP, you sideline it and claim that you are not concerned with it. I do not care if you are are concerned with it or not, I'm discussing this for the OP, not you. He wants a post-scarcity society and asks how we are to address the question of luxuries in a post-scarcity society. I am arguing that this is an impossible goal indeed. Productivity I leave because it hinges on the other factories that I spoke of, namely efficiency, rationality, and logical behavior amongst other things. Since those cannot be ensured then, since there is no incentive to overproduce, no incentive not to slack, no remuneration according to contribution, etc. productivity would fall as well. Productivity was already analysis and scrutinized, it's merely correlated with the other factors; if they fail, it also falls.

I'm saying that even though there are identifiable problems with the scarcity of luxury goods, this does not and should not therefore mean that a general condition of post-scarcity is impossible. For most essential goods we are already living in a condition of post-scarcity. So yes, we could have a supplementary system of labour credits, wages, other forms of money etc. (as you lay it out) for people to purchase luxury goods, but this shouldn't be the basis of the whole economy imho. I'm a communist not a market socialist.



The thing is that there is absolutely no guarantee that those who sign up for a project will sign up or that they will even pull their weight. They need not even care if the project succeeds or not. Hard work should always be rewarded if you want to achieve a productive and efficient system that can sustain itself and others. Half your post is philosophical poetry that makes no sense at all, but alas...

I can't really accept wholeheartedly and without question the idea that hard work should be rewarded. It depends on too many other factors that you aren't considering: how is one measuring effort?, and what is an appropriate reward for such effort? What kind of work is it? What are the power relationships involved? What are the general needs of society, or of this community? What are the needs and/or other circumstances of the worker aside from his effort? Did the worker only put great effort into production by neglecting his family or dependants? How does one really define "shirking"? What kind of obligations does the individual have as against society/what is his right to refuse work and cooperation with others? Etc.

To you these are non-questions because the market deals with it all, but for me these are profound moral issues that deserve thoroughgoing democratic discussion, consensus-based decision making where possible, and all within a framework of freedom and solidarity.



Woah, woah, did you actually just disregard rational choice theory by pulling a solidarity cop-out card? There is absolutely no guarantee that solidarity will exist nor that solidarity will act as a proper alternative to individual motivation. You seem to do the same mistakes as many other Utopian Communists do by making unsupported, unfounded, and baseless assumptions and base your entire system on. These are not exaggerated concerns, these are real concerns. I buy too much into neoclassical ideals on individual motivation purely because that is the convention, that is what is rational, and that is what people base their entire lives and work on. If we are to step into the world of magical pipedreams from which you hail from then we'd be creating a disaster of a system based on assumptions which we can never guarantee to achieve.

This is nonsense. Either rational choice theory captures what is fairly commonsensical, and so is useless; or else, it becomes sheer neoliberal dogma that merely serves the interests of capitalists. There is no reason to take it seriously as a set of foundational principles for an economic system.

And no, people do not "base their entire lives and works on" it. Who are these people? I have never met them. :rolleyes:



I support a system of credits where everything costs credits. Credits would be received by working, measured by various factors such as productivity, efficiency, goods per hour, etc. These credits would be non-transferable. These credits would be spent in state shops. These credits would then act as "points" or a feedback mechanism with price signalling to relay information to the planners on which goods are desired, at what cost, etc. allowing the planners to adjust demand and supply and allocate resources properly. Think of it as money, just doesn't circulate, cannot be speculated upon, cannot be traded between individuals, etc. etc. similar to the currency found in video games.

Certainly, if we had such a system it would be infinitely better and more just than what we have now. It would be worth fighting for. However personally, as I said, I can't accept this for my own vision of communist society. It could be supplementary but not the whole deal.



It is not much of an issue where he "deserves" anything as we do not base anything on the individuals and their own actions but on what they can contribute to their society. If the individual with high IQ can supply his society with valuable labor then he would be rewarded accordingly to encourage such actions to take place, but if that individual with the high IQ contributes the same as any other or refuses to contribute to his society then he receives the same or nothing in return, respectively. It is not because he is clever that he will be rich, but that he is, for instance, offering his society twice what others are offering and thus must be awarded twofold, whether he deserves it or not I do not care. I only care about what he provides his society with.

Yes but if someone with a 170 IQ and someone with a 90 IQ "put the same effort it", ceteris paribus, then this would surely mean that the clever person ends up making a greater contribution to society than the former, and so receives a much larger slice of the cake. To you this is fair; to me, unfair.

And anyway I don't think its an issue of incentive or rewarding people, or at least not in the main. "Incentive" and "reward" are the things capitalists use to get workers to do what they want them to do. Instead, under a communist society (and here I get all utopian on you) most people will do their best and want to work anyway.



Indeed and good luck with that. Although that can be addressed by doing away with the artificial market barriers and barriers on entry when it comes to the issue of higher education, inventing, distribution of inventions and their production, equal starting opportunity, etc. etc.

That sounds like a great reformist left-liberal platform that I might even vote for. However as a communist I don't believe any of those things are possible without smashing capitalism and building something much different.



And since in real-life we have people today who want a Lamborghini and a set of diamonds, we cannot dismiss the fact that it exists and may very well still exist in the future. You call them greedy and distasteful, that does not change the fact that they would desire such goods. If it's not Lamborghinis and diamonds then it's high-end gaming computers, servers, cars, boats, various sizes and qualities of television, etc. etc. Do not dismiss this issue so lightly as you attempted to do with the others. The problem is not by any means exaggerated, it is very real and is the main subject of this thread - luxury goods and post-scarcity.

I concede your point inasmuch as the thread is about luxury goods under communism, so therefore we must assume that at least some people will want them. I forgot this.

But surely I can still argue that the current thirst for brash obnoxious consumables is a product of capitalist culture, and that it becomes much less of a pressing concern under a more just and equitable society?



Wow... I just... Sigh, I'll explain. A local factory has a very small local demand as opposed to an international demand from an international market. When demand is satisfied for the local populace, which can overtime be easily predictable by computers calculating demand and supply trends, the factory is forced to do nothing but shutdown for the end of the month, quarter, or year instead of continuing production to meet the demands of an international market. You would essentially be having a closed factory whilst other regions are in need of the goods of that factory. You take that into slight consideration as a sideline issue. Other communities will not be able to meet their needs and will inevitably need assistance from the outside. You here make yet another baseless assumption by claiming that all communities will generally be self-sufficient and only in a rare circumstance would a community be unable to meet its own needs.

Yes you're right, I assumed a large degree of self-sufficiency. Where this is not possible, then obviously goods from other factories and production centres will be needed. So far so good. But for me a degree of local self-sufficiency is a desirable goal, whereas for you this isn't the case.


You cannot build the same factory in every single community, it would be stupid, wasteful, counter-productive, and inefficient. Instead of building 200 same factories in 200 separate communities where each factory would shutdown when their own community's demand is sated there can be built 10 large factories where they sate the demand of 200 communities as what happens today. Such a system is much more efficient, productive, less wasteful, less labor intensive, less time consuming, takes up less land, takes up less resources, takes up less machinery, etc. etc. Let's not even mention when it comes time to upgrade, the need for scarce and rare goods (diamond tools, diamond drills, diamond cutters, etc.), and so on that would put your clusterfuck of an idea to the grave.

To me this is an example of productivist thinking. I don't really care if it is not as "efficient" or not as "productive", assuming we really have a handle on what these concepts mean. I don't want gigantic factories of utterly standardized, alienated labour, run by supposedly all-intelligent supercomputers.



Lol? Are you kidding me? A factory should produce large quantities of goods to satisfy demand as opposed to building thousands of factories for each community just to meet its local demand! That is the most ridiculous shit I have ever seen coming from anyone. You not only want us to waste numerous resources, time, labor, and effort building the same factory over and over against for numerous communities when we could use the same labor, resources, and effort to build other types of factories, houses, goods, etc. but you want us to also shutdown production when local demand is met and attempt to ignorantly ridicule the traditional mode of factory production! What you are supporting here is akin to digging holes and refilling them, a waste and nothing more.


Actually your assertion that always making everything bigger and more centralized will necessarily make it more efficient is dogmatism. In many ways it would be hugely cumbersome, would spawn a parasitic management class, would be inflexible, would be unresponsive to fluctuations in regional demand and technical change, unable to recognise local talent and initiative unless through some standardized measure of productivity, etc. Isn't most of this rather standard fare in mainstream economic theory?



Screw local production. There is absolutely no need for local production. International production is of the utmost necessity for a globalized world. A communist society must be geared towards internationalism and globalization, not towards petty local divisions and decentralization that would prove to do nothing but hinder.

We need both thriving local economies AND international trade.



Oh and do tell me how it is inefficient to have a division of labor, specialization, etc. I'd be very interested as opposed to the mythical lack of division of labor. A doctor cannot become an engineer in the afternoon just as a miner cannot become a scientist in the morning.

I didn't say it is always inefficient, I merely gave an example of where it isn't. Isn't the sweatshop an example of the division of labour in action?


Oh environmentally unsustainable? You want to build a fuckton of the SAME factories in each local community destroying numerous land, trees, resources, effort, and requiring a "colossal amount of energy" but reject the idea of international freight? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? This shit is more than fucking ridiculous.

I don't reject the idea of international freight, but simply point out that shipping (let's say) vegetables from the other side of the planet when they could have been grown in your own backyard is inefficient, and wasteful of energy. Current levels of shipping are environmentally unsustainable.

If we had already decided beforehand that we should collectively grow vegetables as a socialist nation, and distribute them centrally, then yes, I guess it might then be efficient to construct a huge greenhouse so big you could see it from space, bulldoze green spaces to build new towns from scratch to house the mass army of people needed to work it, etc. To me this is the height of folly; to you, the answer to all our dreams.

[Theophys]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "remunerated to the same as degree", presumably you mean the same distribution principle is applied uniformly.

I explained it with the "i.e., to the degree of need, whatever that may be." That is to say that individuals are remunerated regardless of contribution, they only remunerated according to need.


What is your obsession with the "slacker"? Who are these people?

A slacker is an individual who takes advantage of such a system by working less, loafing, putting less effort, etc. than the average worker. These people were a huge problem in the USSR and numerous texts by Lenin and Co. addressed this issue of slackers calling them "parasites", "loafers", etc. This type of people would see itself expanded aggressively if a system "according to need" is implemented as it would be completely rational and logical for an individual not to put too much effort and attempt to "cheat" the system by working less and yet would still receive the same, i.e. according to his need, with no fluctuation in what he is to receive. I'm quite surprised you actually asked such a question.


That kind of misses my point though - why should anyone accept the idea that effort is defined by efficiency in production?

Because that's a logical conclusion. When one puts in more labor-power, does so efficiently and effectively without waste and issue the he thus increases productivity and thus production. Seriously, have you even taken a single course in economics? Suppose you are assembling widgets, you put all your effort into it, use the best tools, minimize waste, and speed up your assembling, all of that is increasing in efficiency and all of that thus increases productivity and thus production. As such, effort is defined by efficiency in production because we care about the end-product and the amount of those products produced. That's why we care about effort and that's why effort is defined by efficiency in production. The more one puts in effort, the more products would be assembled. The less one puts in effort, the less products would be assembled. That's as simple as it gets as we can also give other examples in the services field and production field with more effort leading to better efficiency.


You say you wouldn't be interested if measuring effort was more bureaucratic and/or cumbersome than the alternative, but then go on to say that payment to contribution will be more efficient. This is a contradiction surely? Unless you associate bueracracy with efficiency, which is slightly strange.

No. A bureaucracy need not by any means be inherently inefficient, I do not know where you got that ridiculous idea from. The multinationals, governments, and corporations of today are proof of this with their streamlined, effective, and efficient organization, planning, etc. thanks to the use of computers. Everything will not be micromanaged as micro-transactions would be acts not needing direct intervention much like the case of ATMs today. Bureaucracy can by every means be efficient, you take yet another assumption that bureaucracy is not efficient as a given.


Yes, but I don't see any reason why I should agree.

Which is why we're debating.


I'm saying that even though there are identifiable problems with the scarcity of luxury goods, this does not and should not therefore mean that a general condition of post-scarcity is impossible. For most essential goods we are already living in a condition of post-scarcity. So yes, we could have a supplementary system of labour credits, wages, other forms of money etc. (as you lay it out) for people to purchase luxury goods, but this shouldn't be the basis of the whole economy imho. I'm a communist not a market socialist.

We live in a condition of post-scarcity today because of capitalism, not communism. Unless you want to superexploit Third World labor, destroy the environment, start imperialist wars, exploit other countries, start selling oil, etc. then you cannot by any means take the conditions created by Capitalist exploitation as a basis for communism. The essential goods hat you have today are due to superexploited Third World labor, not because they magically appear on your table. The basis of the whole economy must have a form of pricing signaling, cost accountability, feedback mechanisms, etc. and those can be best observed through the use of money, in one form or another. Oh and Market Socialism is different from communism due to many reasons, not just because of its use of money. Nevertheless, back to the main point, I claim that a general condition of post-scarcity is impossible because of multiple factors, the most important of which is the existence of finite resources that makes it necessary to ration these resources and use them as effectively and efficiently as possibly. How can that be done? Set prices on goods. Pay workers according to contribution. This way you pay those who work the most effectively, efficiently, and contribute the most get a larger share of these finite resources in turn. If you start giving everyone "according to need" then there is absolutely no reason why someone should put in any proper effort, work as much as he can, or even not resort to corruption and waste.


I can't really accept wholeheartedly and without question the idea that hard work should be rewarded. It depends on too many other factors that you aren't considering: how is one measuring effort?, and what is an appropriate reward for such effort? What kind of work is it? What are the power relationships involved? What are the general needs of society, or of this community? What are the needs and/or other circumstances of the worker aside from his effort? Did the worker only put great effort into production by neglecting his family or dependants? How does one really define "shirking"? What kind of obligations does the individual have as against society/what is his right to refuse work and cooperation with others? Etc.

Easy. Hard work should be rewarded for reasons I have explained directly above, no point in repeating that. We measure effort by local supervision by coworkers or supervisors to check on performance, we measure effort by the total amount of goods produced in a given time compared to others or past records. An appropriate reward for such effort is increased payment according to products produced or effort put in, the latter as determined by their coworkers or supervisors. The kind of work and the proper remuneration of that would be determined by payment as is the case today and in the past. Power relationships? I do not care about petty "power relationships". The general needs of society are determined by demand. The needs of the worker aside from his effort? What does that even mean? His effort is not one of his "needs". Let him neglect his family and dependents, those are not his problem, they are the problem of the community he is in. We only care that he contributes and benefits all of society, if you are going to question that on the basis of individualistic desires then you just destroyed the entire system of yours. Shirking can be defined by producing below the social or factory average, by observable shirking and wastefulness such as the sloppy handling of work, low productivity, etc. as is determined today. The obligations of an individual to society? He wants money? He contributes to society, not to a private bourgeois employer. Any other obligations would be too specific for general theory and I do not care for such nonsense.

Now that you asked me all those questions, it's my turn to show you how "according to contribution" is much more defined and objectively measured than "according to need". How does one measure need? According to who is need measured and determined? How do you not know if someone is lying about his needs and takes out more than he needs claiming that he needs it? How does that someone know how much he needs (if you say that he only takes out what he needs when he needs it then no, the risks such as those of empty shelves would not allow this to happen)? What is an appropriate reward for overachievement and underachievement (rhetorical; you don't have to answer this because the reward is the same - according to need not contribution)? What kind of work is it (funny you asked this as it makes no difference in your system and thus no incentive to work in risky and hard jobs)? Did the worker even put in greater effort, if so for what reason? What about shirking in your system? Will it exist? Is there any incentive for it to not exist? What kind of obligations does the individual have as against society/what is his right to refuse work and cooperation with others?

In such a system he has every right to resort to an exit strategy, he can even work in a factory, produce goods, and keep them for himself by paying the cost of production of those goods. The worker can then decide what to do with the fruits of his own labor, will he sell him in return for credits that would allow him to purchase other goods or will he keep them for himself and consume them? This is the only system that I have witnessed that allows the worker to receive the fruits of his labor.


To you these are non-questions because the market deals with it all, but for me these are profound moral issues that deserve thoroughgoing democratic discussion, consensus-based decision making where possible, and all within a framework of freedom and solidarity.

Why do you idealize democracy so much? "Democratic discussion", "consensus-based decision making", "freedom", what is this bullshit? You remind me of when I used to be an Anarcho-Communist spewing such nonsense like there's no tomorrow. What's so good about direct democracy? Have you ever heard of the statement "the most popular decision isn't always the best decision"? You can observe examples of this statement in real-life when it comes to what many consider to be mainstream such as the case of Justin Bieber, Obama, Bush, etc. All of them were/are popular and yet they are not the best decision even if you do not like it. Have you ever heard about the Condorcet Paradox and Arrow's Theorem that lead to direct democracy being unable to represent the true will of the people/voters? Google them. What about consensus? Why do you care so much about consensus? Consensus is EXTREMELY difficult to ever read and must never be sought after due to the time, effort, and disasters that it creates. Freedom? Why do you even speak of freedom? No Communist should care about freedom. Freedom is not a package with democracy that must always be taken as a given good. Freedom is detrimental, destructive, divisive, and leads to suicide. Think about it yourself.


This is nonsense. Either rational choice theory captures what is fairly commonsensical, and so is useless; or else, it becomes sheer neoliberal dogma that merely serves the interests of capitalists. There is no reason to take it seriously as a set of foundational principles for an economic system.

Aha, if it's commonsense then you are actually arguing against commonsense. Rational choice theory is the basis of the "commonsense" in economics and other fields that allows us to treat people as rational actors and base theories on them. It is not by any means useless, it is crucial. There is every reason to take it seriously as a foundational principle for an economic system as it deals with individuals on the individual basis, on collectives on the collective level, and ends up showing us what is in the rational best self-interest of the individual, the commune, the nation, or even the world by maximizing rewards and profits. Such principles must be used especially due to the fact that we currently are in a Capitalist system and base our theories on that basis. Economic theories, political theories, etc. all depend on rational choice theory without which we'd end up with absolutely nothing, just like your mythical "solidarity", "freedom", and "democracy", the empty slogans that will solve all your problems in your pipedream. There is every reason to take it seriously because this is what can be counted on - the individual maximizing profits and rewards. Sure, exceptions will exist and the general spirit of people may change in the future, but until then we must not resort to idiotic adventurism and daydreaming.


And no, people do not "base their entire lives and works on" it. Who are these people? I have never met them. :rolleyes:

You've never met people? Oh my. I'll just tell you this, people work to maximize their own individual utility, rewards, and profits, not to give everything away because "SOLIDARITY, BRO!"


Certainly, if we had such a system it would be infinitely better and more just than what we have now. It would be worth fighting for. However personally, as I said, I can't accept this for my own vision of communist society. It could be supplementary but not the whole deal.

Such as a system is much more probably and plausible than a system of communism that is based on a vague "need" that does not reward efficient labor and hard work.


Yes but if someone with a 170 IQ and someone with a 90 IQ "put the same effort it", ceteris paribus, then this would surely mean that the clever person ends up making a greater contribution to society than the former, and so receives a much larger slice of the cake. To you this is fair; to me, unfair.

Unless you are planning on making everyone an exact clone of each other then this is what you will to live with. In fact, we should not condemn such an action but instead promote and encourage it. That person with the 170 IQ is benefiting his society much more than that person with the 90 IQ, we do not care about what they personally do, we care about what they can contribute to their society. The individual is nothing, you do not remember your great-great-grandfather nor do many of us. We do not remember the average plebeian from the 1600s. What we do remember is their societies, their nations, their systems, their economies, and their contributions. I see absolutely no reason why you must call this by any means "unfair". The guy with the 170 IQ contributes a larger share and thus received a larger share of the cake. As simple as that. This encourages that worker to contribute more and better to his society rather than do barely anything and yet receive the same as any other. This gives him every reason to contribute better and more.


And anyway I don't think its an issue of incentive or rewarding people, or at least not in the main. "Incentive" and "reward" are the things capitalists use to get workers to do what they want them to do. Instead, under a communist society (and here I get all utopian on you) most people will do their best and want to work anyway.

No, incentives and rewards are things that everyone needs to get everyone else to do what they want them to do. This system of incentives and rewards is empirically observable in nature in the case of even animals or a simple example: You like candy, I tell you help me with his and I will give you candy, you say "Sure!" This is the most basic example here. Capitalism grabs this, abuses it, destroys it, mangles it, deforms it, twists it, and then spits it out. Capitalism uses it for exploitation for PERSONAL and PRIVATE interests, the interests of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism uses this system to coerce those with no alternative to slave off for the Capitalist's profits. Under a communist/socialist system this would not be the case, every single act of labor and its products can be kept by the worker or sold through the factory. The incentives and rewards for effort would not be for personal and private interests, but for the interests of society as a whole including that worker. All incentives and rewards would be based on amount of labor put in, not the passive reaping of profits off of the labor of others as in the case of the bourgeoisie. Under this system, individuals have the alternative to resort to an exit strategy. Individuals will not end up starving to death if they cannot find employment as is the case with unreformed Laissez-Faire Capitalism.

As for that last sentence, you said it yourself, "all Utopian". We cannot base anything on Utopian ideals that can very well lead our society to disaster should such assumptions not take place.


That sounds like a great reformist left-liberal platform that I might even vote for. However as a communist I don't believe any of those things are possible without smashing capitalism and building something much different.
Capitalism must by every means be "smashed", I was referring to a socialist or "communist" system. I do not support Capitalist at all nor do I wish to mildly reform it, but to replace it from the bottom-up.


I concede your point inasmuch as the thread is about luxury goods under communism, so therefore we must assume that at least some people will want them. I forgot this.
Alright.


But surely I can still argue that the current thirst for brash obnoxious consumables is a product of capitalist culture, and that it becomes much less of a pressing concern under a more just and equitable society?

Our current society is indeed a "brash obnoxious" consumer society, but that need not necessarily be bad. People love consumer goods. I love consumer goods. People in the USSR loved consumer goods. When you play a video game, the best aspect of it is the loot, the upgrades, obtaining gold, buying various goods, etc. etc. Those aspects of the game add a lot more flavor to it and make it quite interesting. Nevertheless, I say it is not necessarily bad only if we can properly address it by presenting consumer goods without the disasters that are found in a Capitalist market. A simple look at the iPhones and their various iterations that barely add anything new, are not replaceable, where the older models are generally literally thrown as newer and newer models are presented, etc. would show that we need a variation in this aspect. Several types of competing statist companies can create their own version of a smartphone, they would be replaceable, modified, and even, IF possible but not necessarily, recyclable. The state would not approve any minor changes in the smartphones, smartphones that cannot be modified, that are not open source, etc. People need to have consumer goods otherwise life is dull and quite boring, we cannot send society back to the middle-ages. A more just and equitable society is not that alluring as we can see in the case of the Soviet Socialist countries versus the consumerist West. Currently consumer goods are designed to extract as much profit from the consumer as possible by creating artificial demand and consumer loyalty.


Yes you're right, I assumed a large degree of self-sufficiency. Where this is not possible, then obviously goods from other factories and production centres will be needed. So far so good. But for me a degree of local self-sufficiency is a desirable goal, whereas for you this isn't the case.

Yes, I see no reason for self-sufficiency and artificial divisions. If I were to resort to Utopianism, I'd imagine a unified world with humanity working together rather than it being divided and decentralized. Generally when one imagines a spacefaring civilization he does not imagine a divided world based on small irrelevant autonomous communes or the Capitalist individual divisions, but an entire unified global society working for the advancement of their species.


To me this is an example of productivist thinking. I don't really care if it is not as "efficient" or not as "productive", assuming we really have a handle on what these concepts mean. I don't want gigantic factories of utterly standardized, alienated labour, run by supposedly all-intelligent supercomputers.

If you need to meet the demands "according to need" then you will need to be efficient and productive lest you fall to the problems of waste, inefficiency, and the lack of productivity. We need to maximize the utility of all the finite resources and production if we are to not destroy the environment, waste resources, waste energy, waste time, and waste labor. We need to make the best with what we have. Productivist thinking is good thinking, even the USSR itself tried to follow such a method of thinking. If I recall Marx, Kropotkin, Lenin, Trotsky, etc. followed such a method of thought concerning attacks on slacking and loafing in favor of productivity and honest hard labor. They imagined a Socialist/Communist world where everyone would put in as much as he can, "from each according to his ability" not "from each according to what he wants to put in" nor "from each according to the least of his ability", etc.


Actually your assertion that always making everything bigger and more centralized will necessarily make it more efficient is dogmatism. In many ways it would be hugely cumbersome, would spawn a parasitic management class, would be inflexible, would be unresponsive to fluctuations in regional demand and technical change, unable to recognise local talent and initiative unless through some standardized measure of productivity, etc. Isn't most of this rather standard fare in mainstream economic theory?

Actually that assertion of mine is quite true and was even held by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Co. when they praised Capitalism for the creation of large-scale production and large factories that allowed for the possibility of Socialism. When these theorists attacked Feudalism and other such primitive production they attacked it on the basis of being small-scale, divided, decentralized, disorganized, dead-end, and so on as opposed to being large-scale, united/cooperative, centralized, global, organized, and not progressive. IN fact it was Marx who claimed that it was the factory production that allowed the conditions for Socialism to be created by "socializing" production. It was also Trotsky and Lenin who spoke of the benefits of the factory system, the use of Taylorist methods, the adoption of American methods of production, etc. etc. They did not divided their society and send it back to the medieval ages of self-sufficiency, our world today is too complex for any small-scale production.

Making things bigger and more centralized will by every means make them more efficient. Why? Simple: organization. Bigger centralized factories would allow a simple location for production, delivery, and shipping, it would allow for the easy of installing of upgrades as opposed to having to go to around 1000 factories in each community, it would allow for mass production using expensive and advanced machinery which cannot be installed in every factory, it would allow for the hiring of skilled labor rather than having it divided amongst thousands of factories, it would allow for a centralized record-keeping system rather than the many hassles and problems of having to sift through each factory, it would allow for a centralized location for everything related to a product, etc. etc.

A parasitic management class? There is no such thing as a "parasitic management class", you have workers who are managers, those who studied management, account, and so on and are capable of planning and assigning production according to demand and supply to meet the demand of society. You also use the term "class" falsely and not in the Marxist context. In Marxist class theory, classes are defined by their relations of production, not by their social status. The "parasitic management class" is not a class because it does not own the means of production privately nor personally and does not receive the surplus value as its own. The "parasitic management class" is nothing more than individuals capable of managing society and production for society, nothing else. Even the USSR itself at first shunned them and the skilled workers before begging for them to return under Lenin, Trotsky, and the early Bolsheviks. As for parasitic, really? How are they in any way parasitic? A parasite does not contribute anything to the host, a management "class" is vital for the functioning of any modern economy.

It would be inflexible? on the contrary, if anything it would be much more flexible to "flex" one large central factory than to "flex" 1000 factories in EACH community. Oh and no, a centralized large factory would be much more capable of addressing local demand and the fluctuations of regional demand along with technical change. A centralized large-scale factory has centralized record-keeping with direct information being relayed from the planning agency or consumer markets on what is needed and exists. Previous demand trends can also aid the "parasitic management class" to predict price and demand fluctuations.

As for technical change, it is easier to present technical change to one large, advanced factory rather than to thousands of factories all over the world in EACH community. Now compare this to the decentralized and localized factories, thousands of them in each region/community, would it be by ANY MEANS easier for these 1000+ factories in each region/community to be responsive to fluctuations in regional demand and technical change? Not. By. Any. Means. It would take then centuries just to receive the new technical changes, it would take them ages just to respond properly to regional demand by having to communicate with each and every other factory (since you don't have the "parasitic management class" to do that for them) in the world to decide on who is to produce what or stop producing what according to changing demand.

As you can see for yourself, it is far, far easier, simpler, and more streamlined to have large centralized factories with management and planning than to have thousands of barely organized factories all over the world. You claim that these factories would be unable to recognize local talent and initiative? That is false. It is only these types of factories that can recognize local talent and initiative by organizing the best of these talents and adding them to the laborforce as opposed to having these local talents and initiatives divided amounts thousands of factories.

All of this is quite standard fare mainstream economic theory, indeed, and it must be adopted for socialism and even communism.


We need both thriving local economies AND international trade.

International trade is what creates thriving local economies, not the other way around otherwise you'd be stuck in the Feudal age of localized production which Marx and Co. severely criticized.


I didn't say it is always inefficient, I merely gave an example of where it isn't. Isn't the sweatshop an example of the division of labour in action?

The sweatshop is a FORM of the division of labor, not the rule of thumb. Any factory system today tends to have a division of labor for it to function effectively. Any economy today needs to have a division of labor.


I don't reject the idea of international freight, but simply point out that shipping (let's say) vegetables from the other side of the planet when they could have been grown in your own backyard is inefficient, and wasteful of energy. Current levels of shipping are environmentally unsustainable.

And that is exactly why we need credits. Such an example of inefficiency as the one you give can only take place in a moneyless society that cannot organize itself properly through pricing mechanism and feedback mechanisms. To take your example, in a system that useless cost accounting, price signals, etc. such as a credits system, the international freight would have to go through a LOT of expenses and thus the cost of the vegetables received by the community would be VERY expensive. This would prompt the local community that received these vegetables from the other side of the world to start building their own farms and planting their own vegetables. They would thus be "forced" by the pricing mechanism to solve this issue. In a society without money, they cannot "calculate" costs, the fuel would be free, the vegetables that would be received would be free, etc. which would not force the locals to plant their own because they aren't receiving any "information" as to the costs incurred or the difficulties undertaken to get the vegetables where they are. International freights may not be sustainable, but it is exactly money that forces us not to use international freights as much in a system without money since imported goods would cost more than local goods.


If we had already decided beforehand that we should collectively grow vegetables as a socialist nation, and distribute them centrally, then yes, I guess it might then be efficient to construct a huge greenhouse so big you could see it from space, bulldoze green spaces to build new towns from scratch to house the mass army of people needed to work it, etc. To me this is the height of folly; to you, the answer to all our dreams.

I do not see why it is the height of folly, but do notice that I did not say "decided beforehand" but that the changing society and the costs incurred would force them to become efficient by growing their own vegetables rather than importing them for huge prices and costs. As for houses, those can take the form of apartment complexes and towers, not the destructive, wasteful, and isolationist American suburban homes.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It is exactly because you believe that people must not monitor water because it is not scarce that we must monitor it. The cost of production of water that goes to waste is still there even if it is abundant as you are still using up fuel, machinery, electricity, etc. to purify and pump water. These resources can be put to better use if they are not wasted because they are abundant. Even in abundant conditions water must still be monitored and cannot be allowed to go to waste. Purified clean water does not fall from the sky, it takes labor, fuel, and other various costs in order to produce. I do not see how we can create a "for need" production system seeing as the starting up a factory costs much more than than the continued production of a factory as you will need to turn on the machines, call in the workers, and whatnot. Factories must never be put on hold due to a "for need" basis, but must instead be constantly running in order to either stockpile or ship the goods abroad to where they are needed. To allow factories to remain closed until they are needed is a complete waste of resources, land, labor, effort, and time which could be put to better use elsewhere. The agricultural industry may be consuming a lot of water, but we cannot by any means rip it out and take it elsewhere, if it is unprofitable or inefficient then it must be closed down and replaced with imports from elsewhere. Cost accountability is a necessity to measure how a workplace is doing. You speak of "new methods of production and distribution" which have not been achieved yet, that is quite Utopian and I would not desire to speak of such pipedreams myself. No, I must not have been clear because this totally misunderstands my point. My point was that though water is relativly cheap and available in most urban areas in the developed world, consumers don't waste it just because it's abundant - and in addition a little PR went a long way in California in encouraging people to change their habbits when there was a drought. But in the bigger picture the actual "waste" of water is much higer in California agriculture (though there are structural things that could change like eliminating lawns in desert regions and so on) and factory production in general. So, rather than monitor CONSUMPTION, rather than strictly make sure that the amount of water used by induviduals equals the labor they put in 100%, re-organization of structural things and conservation and new methods in production would be much more effective in creating more "efficiency". Pollution is "efficient" for capitalism because they basically pass the costs of clean-up onto the commons - we have to deal with the bad water, bad air either as induviudals or through government reforms.

If there isn't that public-privite divide, if production is organized for collective use, then "efficiency" takes on a totally different meaning than it does under capitalism. It would be more efficient to use less labor and less materials than to produce more profits through planned-obsolensence and whatnot. It would be more efficient in the long-run to aim for sustainability, rather than move facotories to chase lower wages, etc.

As far as production for use meaning that we wait until someone needs a glass of water to turn on the pumps... well that's not it at all, that's a little silly.


Which is exactly why Socialism exists as the interim transitional period. I do not believe collective decisions will be of any help here other than a hindrance, economic cost accountability would prove to be a much better factor here in management of remuneration and rationing.Who makes the decisions and on what basis then?


But without costs, accounting, etc. it would be impossible to ensure that an entire workplace does not decide to slack together. There needs to be a system of filtering that ensures that inefficient factories cannot continue as they are or be risked shut down. Solely relying on coworkers keeping each other in check does not by any means sound like a functioning alternative as we cannot by any means ensure that they will be faithful and truthful in their actions. We may very well end up with a Soviet-style factory system.This implies a level of alienation in the labor process that I think is not possible for a socialist society.

Why would a workplace decide to slack together - then nothing gets done and they have to stay at work longer to finish things. Widespread slacking only makes sense if you have no decision-making ability and are alienated from the results of your labor-effort.

If there is a crisis or severe shortage or lack of something, then temporary incentives or some kind of deal to make up for the gap will probably have to be divised, but otherwise, contributing labor in exchange for having your needs met is just part of the social compact of that community. This is how people lived for most of human existance in regards to group work.


Well the issue here is that people can half-ass something because it doesn't exactly benefit them directly. Under a communist system follow "each according to his need" individuals would receive what they need regardless of their contribution and effort. This acts in opposition to "each according to his contribution" which I find to be most appealing and effective. If person X were to slack without anyone knowing then he would still receive the same amount of goods others are receiving if they work harder than he does. You need a system of remuneration based on labor and contribution to ensure that person X works harder in order to receive more money and thus more goods and that if he does not then he receives nothing. Before highly developed class societies you had Primitive Communism and that system is nothing that we should ever attempt to emulate. We are in the 21st century, we cannot by any means look back at societies that lived in caves and attempt to base our societies on them. Peer-pressure can only do so much, especially as we cannot ensure that peer-pressure would exist or act faithfully to the system rather than betray it to maximize profit. The problem here is exactly because such a society does not squeeze as much surplus value as possible it would tend to be inefficient, slow, not cost-efficient, not accountable, and unable to meet the demands of billions. When you extract surplus value, you create value and increase value in society's overall pool. That is necessary if we are talking about a highly advanced system of production and exchange.Unaccountable to what and to whom? Efficient at doing what?

What about workers who do necissary tasks that doesn't automatically result in surplus value? How do we then judge what they can get in return if they just help assist others in producing surplus value?

Surplus value is connected to production for exchange, not production for use. The goal of communism would be to not have "surplus value" but simply value, to produce for use, not exchange and capital accumulation for the sake of it.

Would this be inefficient? Well how do you determine efficiency? Efficiency could be in reducing labor-effort. As I see it, the goal is collective control over social surplus, not collective management of our own exploitation.


Well the thing is that we cannot "assume" anything, be it relative abundance or abundance. Relative abundance is possible now only because of the superexploitation of labor that leads to cheap goods and high productivity. It is exactly when they say "work this fast" that you can ensure efficiency and speed as opposed to "work until the job is done" which would allow inefficiencies to take form. No, production methods now allow each laborer to produce more than they can induvidually consume - this is how labor tasks are so diversified and how there can be tons of tasks done now that are not directly "productive" and how there can be whole layers of society that enjoy wealth while doing really no actual labor (or even any direct management of labor or capital - they can just collect returns and pay others to manage their capital). Under the current system, the pressures and interest in organizing production this way, introducing labor-saving tech is driven by the dirve for surplus value, but the desire for use-value in a democratic system could also be the incentive for more labor-saving forms of production and technology. Rather than taking that value and investing it for the sake of finding more surplus vale, workers might decide that they can just reduce labor-demands as the value of productice output is increased.


Monitoring individual laborers will actually eliminate slacking, wastefulness and whatnot. If a worker gets paid the more he contributes, he has no reason to slack for he will be paid less. If a worker has to buy his products, then anything he throws away he loses in terms of money. In the production process if he resorts to wasteful methods of production, he loses profits. That's why we need to have a system of credits and cost accountability. It is much more effective and efficient.Effective and efficient at what? Maintaining a system based on labor exploitation.


We cannot know if there ever will cease to be lags in production and the inability to meet basic needs and wants. There is absolutely no guarantee that a system of production for use would lead to superabundance or the meeting of those basic needs and wants and as such we need to ensure a system of labor that would allow us to fulfill those needs and wants without leading to shortages and starvation. The common mistake that many Communist make is that they directly assume that they would have a system of abundance; we cannot ensure that there will be abundance. Also I didn't get the last part of your sentence concerning "this pressure [...] doesn't exist in the same way". Capitalism has already allowed for this surplus, that's part of the reason communism is only a possibile option out of capitalism rather than feudalism or whatnot.


A lot of assertions and assumptions. You speak of technology, restructuring, finding more efficient alternatives, etc. but we cannot by any means ensure the existence of any of that.Much of it exists now, just as a way to maximize profits though - this is why it only takes dozens of dockworkers to do what would have required hundreds half a century ago.


How can we create technology that's more flexible and long-lasting? Every company today wants to create more flexible and long-lasting products and yet they cannot magically create them.LOL! No they don't. Do you really think Apple wants us to have one divice for everthing, a device that we don't have to chage in 3-4 years and buy the new model because they don't make apps for that work with the old one?


The same applies to communism. It's easy to solve the issue of TVs, but what about jewelry, small gadgets and electronics, rare types of food, and other consumer products which cannot be shared?Then people will have to figure out what to do - how to prioritize. I think for many of these things, people would just seek other analogues. If status is taken out of the picture is jewlery made from a rare substance really more desireable than equally beutiful work done with other objects?



Is it just me or did that make no sense at all? I am claiming that a system that bases itself on a gift economy and/or "according to need" rather than "according to contribution" would be inefficient, irrational, and illogical. You claim that productivity would be left. In order to achieve a system of post-scarcity, as one that is being referring to in the topic, title, and OP concerning luxury goods then you need to take into account productivity, efficiency, rationality, and logic to answer that question. A gift economy and/or production "according to need" cannot answer the question because they lead to inefficiency, irrational behavior, and illogical behavior. A post-scarcity society is the issue that needs to be addressed as requested by the OP, you sideline it and claim that you are not concerned with it. I do not care if you are are concerned with it or not, I'm discussing this for the OP, not you. He wants a post-scarcity society and asks how we are to address the question of luxuries in a post-scarcity society. I am arguing that this is an impossible goal indeed. Productivity I leave because it hinges on the other factories that I spoke of, namely efficiency, rationality, and logical behavior amongst other things. Since those cannot be ensured then, since there is no incentive to overproduce, no incentive not to slack, no remuneration according to contribution, etc. productivity would fall as well. Productivity was already analysis and scrutinized, it's merely correlated with the other factors; if they fail, it also falls.
Efficiency and rationality and are not super-historical, super-class objective categories as you seem to suggest. Capitalists can not produce caviar shoes just for the want of it, what they can produce has to be decided on, how to use resources must be prioritized. But the capitalists do this within a framwork of the drive for profits and accumulation. This is the frame in which things can be determined to be "efficient" or done rationally.

In communism, we can not all have diamonds just because we wish it. We will have to determine how and what is the best use of resources. But it is not "rational" to do this on the basis of indvidual input since as a whole modern production can't really be divided up like that (since two people can put in the same amout of effort, but one is in a more productive area of the economy, whereas another might be in service or support). Second, because modern production allows each producing worker to create more value that they would induvidually use, such a strict acconting of labor also doesn't make sense.


It is not much of an issue where he "deserves" anything as we do not base anything on the individuals and their own actions but on what they can contribute to their society. If the individual with high IQ can supply his society with valuable labor then he would be rewarded accordingly to encourage such actions to take place, but if that individual with the high IQ contributes the same as any other or refuses to contribute to his society then he receives the same or nothing in return, respectively. It is not because he is clever that he will be rich, but that he is, for instance, offering his society twice what others are offering and thus must be awarded twofold, whether he deserves it or not I do not care. I only care about what he provides his society with. How do you judge what someone contributes, how is that broken down and made into a quantity? How will the people in charge of monitoring and evaluating people's IQ's be paid since they aren't contibuting more actual value directly, but doing beurocratic work? Do dockworkers who move billions of credits worth of goods get paid more than a doctor since objectivly the work of moving those products is much more important to society as a whole than the handful of sick people treated each day?

[ckaihatsu]

That's ridiculous, although you said you do not advocate it. You do not eliminate scarcity by giving out everything until there's nothing left. The price mechanism exists for a very good reason and that is to ration these finite goods.


The biggest difficulty with this topic is that 'scarcity' has at least *two* meanings -- [1] a lack of material availability from the earth's resources, and [2] lack of social production to fulfill outstanding mass demand for whatever is being demanded.

As revolutionaries we *are* advocating giving everything away until either (demand-based) scarcity is eliminated, or until there's nothing left -- for *basic human needs*, that is.

If we would fall back to any kind of price mechanism that would be a tacit admission that we were not able to do better with our revolution -- the whole point is to grasp and wrestle with these issues of material availability in a hands-on way, *not* to leave them to "the invisible hand".





And "where" will they get "everything" to give out "free based on need"? Thin air? No, they will need to extract them from somewhere. That somewhere has a finite number of resources that can be extracted. That extraction process can also only extract a finite number of resources per day.


While humanity's capacities may be finite, that doesn't mean that humanity's *demands* are *infinite*. Many seem to unconsciously assume that a post-capitalist social order would automatically give way to a childish free-for-all, with rampant selfishness overtaking people's better judgments, leaving a chaotic 'me-me-me' mess throughout.





They can't just hand out everything for free based on need and thus claim that they eliminated scarcity as by doing that they will create another scarcity, a more severe and disastrous scarcity, a scarcity of resources. You know the environmental problems we have today? Those would be nothing compared to what these Utopians aspire to achieve.


Or -- given sufficient 'political will' (mass organic demand) -- a social order could find ways to make sure that the *most important* needs and desires are fulfilled from the capacities of mass-based cooperative production.





Think of it this way. You have a shop with a finite amount of goods. There's a scarcity of those goods outside your shop. You open your shop and give out "everything free based on need". You will run out of products in your shop. Replace the shop with Earth. What then? Mass chaos, unemployment, starvation, poverty, wars over what little resources you have left, and even extinction.


Now you're using the same kind of scare tactics that any *right-winger* would use in arguing against the feasibility of socialism.





Socialism's "From each according to his ability; to each according to his contribution" is much more logical, rational, effective, and "fair".


Ironically enough, even this Communist Manifesto principle is woefully out-of-date -- here's from another thread:





In socialism what you produce and what you contribute is what you're entitled to!





No, this is standard cynical moralism -- for a material society that has the capacity to *easily* overproduce, such tit-for-tat exchange-based thinking no longer makes any sense. (According to this logic the person who throws the main power switch to start up a factory's automated assembly line, *and* keeps their hand there, would be entitled to the *most* production from that production run -- which is absurd, of course.)

[ckaihatsu]

Everyone can only fly an "x" amount of miles per year. This amount of miles can be based on the current supply of fuel, trained operating personnel, accepted degree of environmental impact, etc.


I like this 'resource-based allocation' approach better, especially if all mass demand is put forth up-front, for the purposes of pre-planning and allocating actual production (plane flights).

But the pitfall of just putting-all-production-out-there is that it would be crudely *guess-timating* at how much air travel would be necessary, based on some kind of across-the-board average, presumably. Workers could readily complain about why they're working to make air travel so accessible when in fact it's *not* being specifically pre-planned, and so much overcapacity is continuously being produced.

[MarxArchist]

People would have less under global communism. There would be no 99 cent stores full of useless junk. No mansions with 5 cars. The earth can't sustain even western middle or working class rates of consumption globally. We're talking about equality here. The quality of life, as far as consuming random products and luxury items, would decrease but that's the thing, is amplified materialism what we should consider quality of life? There's simply not enough resources to give everyone their own personal cars, video game consoles, large homes with huge yard space, laptops, phones, closets full of clothes, gold watches, silk underwear etc. About 7 billion people. I'm not sure if I support population control. I'm also not sure if I support living in a tent eating wheat grass.

http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable


Current global population of over 7 billion is already two to three times higher than the sustainable level. Several recent studies show that Earth’s resources are enough to sustain only about 2 billion people at a European standard of living. What do you do? Acting like some magic technology will solve all the problems isn't sufficient.

[MarxArchist]

angry stuff

I've noticed you're kinda rude. Try flossing. I had a seed stuck in my tooth once and it was creating presure which caused a massive amount of discomfort and pain. Lasted for a couple days then I flossed and noticed the seed. Things are better now. Good hygiene is important.

[ckaihatsu]

Nevertheless, the fairness of which I spoke of is concerning contribution and remuneration. It would prove to be extremely inefficient, irrational, illogical, and counter-productive to remunerate every individual the same as every other individual.


Agreed.





Wage discrepancies and differing income levels according to contribution rather than need are much preferable and sustainable.


If some kind of material merit is looked-to as the basis for measurement of involvement, how exactly would that merit be measured -- ?





If we do not take into account contributions and remunerate individuals properly according to their contribution then we create a system where it is rational for individuals to waste, slack off, and yet at the end of the day receive the same or better than others who may have worked twice or more as hard.


But a standard of moralism only creates more headaches since an official societal moralism would have to be upheld and enforced in the face of ready productive capacities and real material production.





Overachievement must by every means be rewarded just as underachievement and slacking must be punished.


So then this purportedly liberated, communist-type society would actually *encourage* a sacrifice of one's own life, for the sake of what, exactly -- access to luxury goods and services -- ?





This can be solved through the introduction of a credits system, labor notes, wages (yes), and material bonuses/incentives to make it rational, logical, and rewarding to contribute.


I happen to agree, generally, with your approach, but not for moralistic reasons. Rather, I think that material accounting would be important, and that a sliding-scale liberated-labor-hour could be the standard of a post-capitalist method of material valuation.





What about cars? TVs? Diamonds? Electronics? Expensive and naturally scarce goods? How much are you willing to sacrifice the environment to meet people's needs of scarce resources?


I would prefer to see a method of qualifying *need*, and *demand*, separate from contributons to production, rather than attempting to justify consumption on the basis of contribution.





The problem here is exactly because such a society does not squeeze as much surplus value as possible it would tend to be inefficient, slow, not cost-efficient, not accountable, and unable to meet the demands of billions. When you extract surplus value, you create value and increase value in society's overall pool. That is necessary if we are talking about a highly advanced system of production and exchange.


This is economistic -- we can only *guess* at how 'motivated' and 'ambitious' a post-capitalist society might be, at consciously coordinating and leveraging its own mass liberated labor.





Yes, skilled labor, educated choices, etc. must all be rewarded in order to encourage such actions to take place.


This part is downright *terrifying* since it borrows from capitalism's egocentric individualism and managerial specialization. You posit a super-political method of judgment that is abstract, idealist and elitist.





How can we create technology that's more flexible and long-lasting? Every company today wants to create more flexible and long-lasting products and yet they cannot magically create them. The same applies to communism. It's easy to solve the issue of TVs, but what about jewelry, small gadgets and electronics, rare types of food, and other consumer products which cannot be shared? Game consoles need to be replaced after multiple years due to changing technology and the inability to recycle such products.


Agreed.





No. Is a computer a basic good or a luxury good? Is clothing a basic good or a luxury good? What type of computers is a basic good or a luxury good? What type of clothing is a basic good or a luxury good? What type of food is a basic food or a luxury good? There are BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of such goods, we cannot label them all and distinctions are hard to make especially without a pricing mechanism.


I appreciate the point but differ with you on the approach.





A gift economy and/or production "according to need" cannot answer the question because they lead to inefficiency, irrational behavior, and illogical behavior.


No, there is nothing inherently 'illogical' about separating impetus to production from impetus to consumption.

As others often point out, people should be free to 'produce' in the best ways they see fit, independent of coercion over necessities and/or crude schemes of "reward".

Likewise, people should be free to *consume* as they see fit, especially since such 'consumption' may very well turn out to be 'developmental' in the end, as such free resources are indirectly incorporated into new, higher-level, more-sophisticated 'productive' activities.





I support a system of credits where everything costs credits.


Positing an exchangeability between (liberated) labor and material goods is a bad idea since it inherently imbues those goods with a commodity-like 'value' -- a communist direction should be looking to acknowledge and recognize liberated *labor*, *not* to attempt to abstractly "value-ize" its incidental productivity.

[Skyhilist]

So the reason that I made the thread was to see if an idea that I had in my head was compatible with communism and what it's shortcomings might be.

What I envisioned was this:

3 different levels of availability of goods, which influence access to those goods.


Non-scarce goods could be freely consumed by anyone as much as they wanted.

Goods with the potential to become scarce could be consumed by anyone but would require justification that would have to be approved by local communities should I person want to consume them above a certain level.

Naturally scarce goods would require justification for the possession of any amount. Everyone might be able to have x different types of naturally scarce goods, so they'd have to choose what they preferred. If it was a really scarce item local communities would have to agree that would be necessary to obtain that item. For example if I were a neuroscientist and wanted a catscanner or something, I'd have to get it approved because there isn't a global abundance of catscanners.

[Skyhilist]

I was thinking also there could be some type of ecological footprint where if your consumption made you exceed a certain size footprint, you'd have to do work to offset that footprint until it got back down to an ecologically sustainable level.

[Theophys]

@Jimmie Higgins:


No, I must not have been clear because this totally misunderstands my point. My point was that though water is relativly cheap and available in most urban areas in the developed world, consumers don't waste it just because it's abundant - and in addition a little PR went a long way in California in encouraging people to change their habbits when there was a drought. But in the bigger picture the actual "waste" of water is much higer in California agriculture (though there are structural things that could change like eliminating lawns in desert regions and so on) and factory production in general. So, rather than monitor CONSUMPTION, rather than strictly make sure that the amount of water used by induviduals equals the labor they put in 100%, re-organization of structural things and conservation and new methods in production would be much more effective in creating more "efficiency". Pollution is "efficient" for capitalism because they basically pass the costs of clean-up onto the commons - we have to deal with the bad water, bad air either as induviudals or through government reforms.

Water isn't abundant everywhere. Water isn't the only example of abundance and waste. In fact, Khazzoom–Brookes Postulate:

"Increased energy efficiency can increase energy consumption by three means. Firstly, increased energy efficiency makes the use of energy relatively cheaper, thus encouraging increased use. Secondly, increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use in the whole economy. Thirdly, increased efficiency in any one bottleneck resource multiplies the use of all the companion technologies, products and services that were being restrained by it"

People in water-rich areas will inevitably consume more water than others in less abundant areas. Now, water is easy to make abundant as it falls from the sky, try applying the same issue to the million types of food and you will fail. The Soviet Union was not capable of supplying even the most basic of types of food (even though now that can be solved). We must always monitor consumption even if a good is abundant. Hell, we could have one single individual leaving the water open just in spite of it, how would you know then? Every act of consumption must be monitored, if not to decrease waste then to calculate demand and supply.

In fact, if California's problem is the use of water for agriculture it just goes to show that local production is not always preferable over international production. Nevertheless, you cannot say "new methods in production", you cannot magically come up with such a statement that you will solve it somehow. Pollution is not efficient for Capitalism, that's an absurd claim, pollution is a side-effect of efficiency in all systems. Communism will not solve it, no matter how many magical assumptions you make. To deal with pollution, you have to cut corners when it comes to efficiency, productivity, and costs.


If there isn't that public-privite divide, if production is organized for collective use, then "efficiency" takes on a totally different meaning than it does under capitalism. It would be more efficient to use less labor and less materials than to produce more profits through planned-obsolensence and whatnot. It would be more efficient in the long-run to aim for sustainability, rather than move facotories to chase lower wages, etc.

Profits in this case are nothing more than the effective objective measurement of efficiency. If you use less expensive materials, you make more profits. If you decrease the cost of production, you make more profits. This is what a moneyless communism does not have and cannot ever have - cost accountability. Your new type of "efficiency" would be a disaster and cannot be solved as easily you make it out to be. It would be more "efficient" in the long-run to aim for sustainability? Not really, no. In fact, it would be much, much more expensive, less effective, and less efficient. It would be also impossible for a moneyless communism to resort to sustainability whilst providing the "needs" of billions of people all over the world without having the poor, the starving, or the homeless. If you aim for sustainability, you have to ration resources even more, you have to resort to costly and expensive equipment which currently costs millions for a reason, and you will not be able to meet the "needs" of billions. The reason why Capitalism is capable of meeting the demands of billions is because it does not aim for sustainability but for meeting demand. That's how communism will inevitably end up in order to satisfy the "needs" of billions. When iron runs out of a mine, they will need to look for other areas for mines and that would most likely lead to massive environmental destruction. You will need to feed every single person on Earth, even the Africans, you will have to resort to the extreme and massive destruction of the environment. That's how it's going to happen, stop imagining that your case will be different with false axioms and assumptions. It would not be more efficient to aim for sustainability, it would be sustainable in the long-run to aim for sustainability, but even then you would have to cut short on fulfilling needs.


As far as production for use meaning that we wait until someone needs a glass of water to turn on the pumps... well that's not it at all, that's a little silly.

Actually that's not silly, this is what you said yourself:
"Aside from absolute scarcity of some resource, assuming that it is possible to relativity easily produce, say a certain medicine, then this can be done simply on a "need" basis"

On a "need basis" implies that the product would be produced every time someone needs it, ergo if it's shutdown after all the needs are fulfilled, someone gets sick, you'll have to start the production process all over again. This is especially the case if you support local over international production. Otherwise you'd be speaking of demand


Who makes the decisions and on what basis then?

The vanguard party, the central planning agency, whatever it may be on the basis of various issues relative to those specific issues. If it's something concerning economics, the decisions will be made by either organization on the basis of best solving that issue regarding economics.


This implies a level of alienation in the labor process that I think is not possible for a socialist society.

Not possible only in your imaginations, this is real-life, it must be considered and addressed whether you like it or not. The Bolsheviks expected people all to work harmoniously together, without question, like a "well-oiled machine", and look what happened.


Why would a workplace decide to slack together - then nothing gets done and they have to stay at work longer to finish things. Widespread slacking only makes sense if you have no decision-making ability and are alienated from the results of your labor-effort.

They do not at all have to work longer to finish anything because they are not receiving "according to contribution" but "according to need" and the Socialist adage that "he who does not work, neither shall he it" does not apply under communism. It would only be rational to maximize profits and slacking is one way to do it. Under communism you already are alienated from the productions of your "labor-effort" (new word?) as you surrender your products to your commune and others. This is why I support a system of credits, it allows you to receive the full products of your labor if you so desire. Widespread slacking is not and cannot be done away with through the introduction of a "decision-making ability" unless you start monitoring workplace labor by supervisors, managers, or monitors. During the "decision-making" processes, the slacking workers can make numerous corrupt excuses that their machinery is failing, they had a fire incident, or that they're exporting to somewhere else. Even if they find out, they cannot be held accountable because their system follows an "according to need" system that must supply them with what they subjectively need. Even if they were not alienated from the results of their "labor-effort" and had a decision-making ability, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason and no guarantee whatsoever that they will not slack. Add a few computers there for fun, and boom.


If there is a crisis or severe shortage or lack of something, then temporary incentives or some kind of deal to make up for the gap will probably have to be divised, but otherwise, contributing labor in exchange for having your needs met is just part of the social compact of that community. This is how people lived for most of human existance in regards to group work.

People in "most of human existence" were exploited, had their products taken away from them, did not have decision-making in their hands, had supervisors, managers, the bourgeoisie, and had the profit motive to ensure that they did what they did. Under your system, they have absolutely nothing to make them work, work efficiently, or even not slack. If you're referring to Primitive Communism, then lol, no. Primitive Communism is not by any means a model to look up to or even follow ranging from the very primitive needs of such a society, the existence of small numbers of people, the lack of advanced means of production, etc. In fact under such a system they were purely motivated by survival for the sake of survival trying to fight off the wild. Temporary incentives is good and all, but why would it even bother them when they already receive what they "need"? It would not work in an "according to need" communism. Claiming that "having your needs met is just part of the social compact of that community" is a cop-out excuse, what is this "social compact of that community"? Does such a thing even exist or did you make it up? Why should anyone care about the "social compact of that community"? This would slightly be understandable if the means of production in that commune only produced for that commune, but that will never be the case. Workers will only care about producing more of product X is if their needs for product X are not fulfilled, but if they produce product X and are in need of product A which is not being fulfilled, then they will take action, be it strikes, protesting, etc. Mind you that the producers of product A may not even reside or work in the other commune and may very well be in another country. There are so many things wrong with this theory...


Unaccountable to what and to whom? Efficient at doing what?

Not accountable as in the workers have no reason to be responsible for production, resources used for production, where the products go, etc. because they do not control such things. They only produce what the commune needs, even if that means cutting corners. Efficient at production with minimal waste and high productivity making most and best with what they have.


What about workers who do necissary tasks that doesn't automatically result in surplus value? How do we then judge what they can get in return if they just help assist others in producing surplus value?

Ask that to those that support the LTV. As for my answer, under your system it would impossible to calculate such a thing. Under a credits system it could be calculated just as it is calculated under Capitalism, how much is the labor of that individual worth to the state or the coop? Prices could be adjusted to attract laborers. Even then, shares of profits can be assigned, supervisors receive 15% more than normal workers, managers receive 20% more, etc. as can be found in the case of cooperatives today. Your system of "according to need" will pay them all the same with as much as they want to extract from society even though they won't be able to do that as you cannot by any means ensure abundance or super-productivity.


Surplus value is connected to production for exchange, not production for use. The goal of communism would be to not have "surplus value" but simply value, to produce for use, not exchange and capital accumulation for the sake of it.

Lol? Most of all production for exchange is production for use. Even under your system production for exchange will exist as different communes exchange resources as needed. If your system has no "surplus value" but only "value" then the workers would have to receive the full value of their labor as you will have no "surplus value" to give to society. That is, of course, not the case as you will forcibly take away the products of labor of the workers and give them to the commune. This is not the case with a credits system. Exchange is necessary and inevitable. Capital accumulation for the sake of capital accumulation can be done away with.


Would this be inefficient? Well how do you determine efficiency? Efficiency could be in reducing labor-effort. As I see it, the goal is collective control over social surplus, not collective management of our own exploitation.

Yes. We determine efficiency by how much goods and services are provided by comparison with other communes or factories, by how much is done with a given amount of resources, etc. Here you go as I see that you have no taken a single course in economics and have never come up on the topic of efficiency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_efficiency

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_efficiency

Efficiency can very well be in reducing labor-effort if and only if you can still maintain better production than others. Collective control over social surplus? The social surplus arising from labor surplus value? Collective management of our own exploitation is a necessity, we all need to make sacrifices for society and that comes in the form of exploiting ourselves as opposed to being exploited by the bourgeoisie for private and personal interests.


No, production methods now allow each laborer to produce more than they can induvidually consume - this is how labor tasks are so diversified and how there can be tons of tasks done now that are not directly "productive" and how there can be whole layers of society that enjoy wealth while doing really no actual labor (or even any direct management of labor or capital - they can just collect returns and pay others to manage their capital). Under the current system, the pressures and interest in organizing production this way, introducing labor-saving tech is driven by the dirve for surplus value, but the desire for use-value in a democratic system could also be the incentive for more labor-saving forms of production and technology. Rather than taking that value and investing it for the sake of finding more surplus vale, workers might decide that they can just reduce labor-demands as the value of productice output is increased.

And when they produce more than they can consume, the products would be sold to those who have a demand on them. You then speak of today's society with the passive reapers of wealth, I really do not care about such things because I do not support them and already oppose them. And yes, you said it yourself, all this efficiency is driven by surplus value. You speak of a "democratic system" having a desire for use-values and thus would seek labor-saving forms of production and technology. No, labor-saving techniques are not the only form by which efficiency, productivity, cheap goods, etc. are produced. The profit motive stands above all to ensure that efficiency, productivity, cheap goods, etc. are produced. The risk of losing the business and living on the streets and the desire to become wealthy is what drives such actions. In fact, it is also the superexploitation of labor that drives such qualities, not a communal desire to work better. Capitalism cuts corners, that's why it has cheap goods. Capitalism also seeks to maximize profits, that's why it resorts to efficiency and productivity. We need to emulate that, not oppose it. "The desire for use-value" is not an incentive at all as we have seen in many societies throughout history, specifically the USSR. There's a very good reason why Feudal societies were considered reactionary, backwards, and to be opposed while Capitalism was progressive, advanced, and to be supported over Feudalism but opposed over Socialism by Marx and Engels. Capitalism brought forth in technology and advancement what could not have ever been brought forth in any other society in the past. Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. all said this themselves. When people take that value and invest it for more surplus value, that means that their investment was correct and helped aid production.


Effective and efficient at what? Maintaining a system based on labor exploitation.

As if your form of communism won't have labor exploitation where you take away the products of their labor, you force them to work to be fed, where the commune controls the means of production, where the commune reigns above all, where the majority decisions reign over the desires of the minority (do not speak of consensus), etc. etc.


Capitalism has already allowed for this surplus, that's part of the reason communism is only a possibile option out of capitalism rather than feudalism or whatnot.[quote]

Do not forget socialism and communism's many forms.

[quote]Much of it exists now, just as a way to maximize profits though - this is why it only takes dozens of dockworkers to do what would have required hundreds half a century ago.

It exists now because of Capitalism, not because of feudalism, not because of communism "according to need". It exists now because of the superexploitation of labor, markets, profit, and so on. It is because there's "a way to maximize profits" that "much of it exists now". Many Utopian communists seem to make this mistake here where they, as Slavoj Zizek explained, want to do away with Capitalism and yet still keep the products, abundances, technology, and results of production of Capitalism. The thing is, you won't be able to maintain the products, abundances, technology, and results of production of Capitalism, without Capitalism. The reason why only dozens of dockworkers are needed as opposed to dozens is because of Capitalism, following the profit motive, wanted a means to MINIMIZE COSTS and MAXIMIZE PROFITS, something which an "according to need" communism doesn't and cannot have, in order to win over the rabid COMPETITION.


LOL! No they don't. Do you really think Apple wants us to have one divice for everthing, a device that we don't have to chage in 3-4 years and buy the new model because they don't make apps for that work with the old one?

Apple computers from their first iteration still exist and still work. Old iterations of iPhones still function and still have apps that wok with them. This is less of an example in favor of Apple as it is an example in favor of numerous other industries that provide quality goods such as the automobile industry for example.


Then people will have to figure out what to do - how to prioritize. I think for many of these things, people would just seek other analogues. If status is taken out of the picture is jewlery made from a rare substance really more desireable than equally beutiful work done with other objects?

You CANNOT take status out of the picture, stop resorting to magical assumptions that will most likely never happen in an attempt to answer things which you have no answer for. And yes, apparently jewelry is more desirable than other beautiful objects which you just also made another assumption for to be "equally beutiful [sic]". You say that you will leave people up to their own, leaving them to learn how to prioritize and just "deal with it", the thing is that they will not "deal with it", they will want them and you will be unable to provide them, ergo huge bread lines and black markets. You cannot simply "seek other analogues" as many things cannot be properly replaced with "analogues" such as the various electronics, gadgets, goods, etc. today. That's not even talking about quality.


Efficiency and rationality and are not super-historical, super-class objective categories as you seem to suggest.

They are.


Capitalists can not produce caviar shoes just for the want of it, what they can produce has to be decided on, how to use resources must be prioritized.

If there is a use-value, a demand for it, it will be produced. You just need to pay for them and that cost can be high. Pay me $5,000-$10,000 and I'll personally make you caviar shoes, which of course you cannot wear.


But the capitalists do this within a framwork of the drive for profits and accumulation. This is the frame in which things can be determined to be "efficient" or done rationally.

Yes and this is the framework which ensures that they are done in the first place. There is nothing wrong with profit, socialists and communists need to adopt this. Profit is merely a measurement of how socially valuable your contributions are. Now, specific Capitalist methods of the accumulation of profits are detrimental and do not properly reflect contribution as in the case of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates continuing to receive profits for goods they are no longer personally producing. Profits must only reflect personal contribution.


In communism, we can not all have diamonds just because we wish it. We will have to determine how and what is the best use of resources. But it is not "rational" to do this on the basis of indvidual input since as a whole modern production can't really be divided up like that (since two people can put in the same amout of effort, but one is in a more productive area of the economy, whereas another might be in service or support). Second, because modern production allows each producing worker to create more value that they would induvidually use, such a strict acconting of labor also doesn't make sense.

Not because "we wish it" but because "we need it". How do you even define "need"? You cannot determine how and what is the best use of resources, Mises and Hayek already showed this to be the problem that your "according to need" communism cannot solve. You have no pricing system, no markets, and nothing of that sort to determine where products should go, where the extracted iron should go and be prioritized. Modern production can very well be divided up like that, if one person is in a more productive area of th economy then he naturally contributes more to society thanks to his productive area which must be by every means praised and rewarded properly. As for the other guy with the "same effort" but is "less productive", he is contributing less to society whether you like it or not and must be rewarded properly according to his contribution. The problem is thus no on the individual's part, but on the part of the technology and productivity. That is not something that is bad at all, in fact it is necessary for any fucntioning society and economy as it shows us which AREA of production, which TYPE of production, which MEANS of production, which METHODS of production, etc. are better than others and thus more efficient and more productive than other, ergo which is more beneficial for society, which is contributing to society more, and which must be emulated. That's also one reason why local production is an extremely stupid idea and why centralized and large-scale production is much preferable as technology can be easily put into place without having to implement the same technology IN EVERY SINGLE FACTORY in EVERY SINGLE COMMUNITY.


How do you judge what someone contributes, how is that broken down and made into a quantity?

Total profits from the total products produced divided by share of each worker determined by the workers in that factory or as wages are determined today. But you're better off asking the supporters of the LTV how labor-power embedded and a workers' value are calculated. It depends on the form of production and the work he's in, if it's individual labor such as the worker himself building a car by himself, he'd receive the profits from the car minus the cost of production with other factors, but if he's part of a workforce he receives a share of the profits minus the cost of production as is the case today. Of course, that's if this is a Market Socialist system, if it's a centrally planned society then the workers receive a share of the profits minus taxes minus cost of production or they receive a share of the profits made from the sales by the state, or they receive as much as the state determines the worth of their labor.


How will the people in charge of monitoring and evaluating people's IQ's be paid since they aren't contibuting more actual value directly, but doing beurocratic work?

How are bureaucrats and service workers paid today? Exactly.


Do dockworkers who move billions of credits worth of goods get paid more than a doctor since objectivly the work of moving those products is much more important to society as a whole than the handful of sick people treated each day?

Depends on how much profits they make.


@ckaihatsu:


The biggest difficulty with this topic is that 'scarcity' has at least *two* meanings -- [1] a lack of material availability from the earth's resources, and [2] lack of social production to fulfill outstanding mass demand for whatever is being demanded.

As revolutionaries we *are* advocating giving everything away until either (demand-based) scarcity is eliminated, or until there's nothing left -- for *basic human needs*, that is.

If we would fall back to any kind of price mechanism that would be a tacit admission that we were not able to do better with our revolution -- the whole point is to grasp and wrestle with these issues of material availability in a hands-on way, *not* to leave them to "the invisible hand".

Whether it is either type of scarcity, it still is scarcity. Your type 1 scarcity is a main issue that cannot be solved. Your type 2 scarcity is extremely difficult to solve even with today's highly decentralized market economies.

Advocating the giving away of everything until you deplete the Earth's resources, thus killing everyone, is quite an atrocity. I would never advocate such a thing. A brief time of abundance is not by any means a justification for the extinction of our species. Goods need to rationed, specifically the scarce and irreplaceable goods. We cannot, by any means, give away everything until we run out of resources.

As for the type 2 scarcity, we do not know if we can solve that, but we would try to solve it. We really can do little for this type of scarcity until we assume power. At which point, we'd have to reorganize production and cannot know if that reorganization would prove to be effective or even work at all.

Falling back to a price mechanism? Nonsense. A price mechanism is necessary whether you wish it or not. The "invisible hand" is nothing more than people and their demands being fulfilled by other people and their supply. This is something that will exist in every system, not just Capitalism. You claim that we need to "grasp and wrestle with these issues", you can do so all you want but if you cannot find a proper solution then you are forced to "fall back to a price mechanism". That, furthermore, is not by any means a "tacit admission that were not able to do better with our revolution", if you idea of a revolution is simply the end to a pricing mechanism then I seriously question your revolution and definition of it. There doesn't exist solely one form of a pricing mechanism but numerous others which can be large improvement over the current system that utilizes the pricing mechanism. That fact cannot be avoided nor ignored.


While humanity's capacities may be finite, that doesn't mean that humanity's *demands* are *infinite*. Many seem to unconsciously assume that a post-capitalist social order would automatically give way to a childish free-for-all, with rampant selfishness overtaking people's better judgments, leaving a chaotic 'me-me-me' mess throughout.
I never claimed that humanity's demands are infinite because there is no such thing as infinite demand, but I claimed that humanity would demand and consume all the way until resources are depleted even with a CONSTANT demand. You can never sate demand and end it there, you need to constantly sate demand every time it arises and that is usually every day, month, year, or decade. And yes, if you create a system "according to need" then you will give way to a childish free-for-all full of problems with the inability to satisfy the demands of the "me-me-me" mess because everyone would want the latest technology, the latest computers, the latest caviars (if they like caviar), all types of food, etc. You will not be able to supply that at all. You will have a reactionary counter-revolution that will lead to the restoration of a market economy that will be able to satisfy these demands which you were unable to satisfy. Under a market economy or an economy with a pricing mechanism people who desire rare caviar would "bid" and pay more to see their demand satisfied. Under an "according to need" communist system, there is absolutely no reason why they are to receive this rare caviar, and if they were too, what's to stop others from taking or even receiving it? Nothing. In a market/price-based economy, if demand hugely outweighs supply, price will keep increasing until demand meets supply. Such an "according to need" system rather than "according to contribution" is nothing more than an open lottery where everyone can take part in it without restrictions whatsoever.


Or -- given sufficient 'political will' (mass organic demand) -- a social order could find ways to make sure that the *most important* needs and desires are fulfilled from the capacities of mass-based cooperative production.
Like the USSR? No. The USSR, China, and other such countries attempted to create a "political will" and mass-based organizations such as in the case of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolutions, look what happened. There was a demand for iron, they tried to recycle iron, they stripped down any iron they find and produced useless pig iron. Everything needs to be organized, the masses alone cannot be counted upon without a market. That and the fact that you cannot by any means ensure or guarantee that you will be able to create that "political will" or even what you assume would ever come to fruition. What determines "most important needs and desires"? Someone's most important needs and desires could be computers, the other games, the other food, the other vacations, the other books, the other cars, the other electronics, etc. how can you determine who needs what most and which of these billions of demands are to be "most important" since you have no market nor even a pricing mechanism? Even then, these "most important" needs and desires being fulfilled at the expense of other needs and desires which are not "most important" would lead to problems as many people see their needs and desires not being fulfilled. The USSR et al. determined that bread and other such "most important" products were to be prioritized over other goods such as butter and meat. Consumer products were almost entirely neglected until the late years of the USSR and even then they failed.


Now you're using the same kind of scare tactics that any *right-winger* would use in arguing against the feasibility of socialism.
That is not even a counter-argument, that is a ad hominem logical fallacy. This is a scare tactic that is to be considered and used by anyone who wants to consider any system. I am not a right-winger and yet I used it because it is vital, deal with it.


Ironically enough, even this Communist Manifesto principle is woefully out-of-date -- here's from another thread:

No, this is standard cynical moralism -- for a material society that has the capacity to *easily* overproduce, such tit-for-tat exchange-based thinking no longer makes any sense. (According to this logic the person who throws the main power switch to start up a factory's automated assembly line, *and* keeps their hand there, would be entitled to the *most* production from that production run -- which is absurd, of course.)


And as we can see here, more Utopian pipedreams, false axioms, and false assumptions. Your whole argument hinges on teh false assumption that your system "has the capacity to *easily* overproduce". The thing is, you CANNOT ensure that your society will "*easily* overproduce". It is EXACTLY because you cannot guarantee that you will easily overproduce that you cannot even speak of a system "according to need" and that only an "according to contribution" system is viable. As for your example of who would receive the most according to contribution, that is a nonsensical "example" that would never take place in real-life. The example was absurd because you made it out to be absurd instead of using a proper example that may actually happen in real-life to prove your point.


Agreed.

Okay.


If some kind of material merit is looked-to as the basis for measurement of involvement, how exactly would that merit be measured -- ?

Explained this above in my reply to Jimmie.


But a standard of moralism only creates more headaches since an official societal moralism would have to be upheld and enforced in the face of ready productive capacities and real material production.
I don't understand. Moralism? Please explain with less cryptic poetry. The only standard of moralism that I find here is from the ones who are supporting an "according to need' communism as they depend on false assumptions of "solidarity", "cooperation", and other false incentives that are based upon morality for their system to work. They expect people to work their best because "they are part of society", "they are affected in the end", or other such moralistic fallacy. Now, as for a system based on a pricing mechanism or a market then all it needs is paying someone for bigger contributions to society. As simple as it gets. You do not need an "official societal moralism" as much as you need simply a pricing mechanism or market. That merit would be measured by contribution to be determined through many means that society can choose. See my reply to Jimmie explaining this.


So then this purportedly liberated, communist-type society would actually *encourage* a sacrifice of one's own life, for the sake of what, exactly -- access to luxury goods and services -- ?

It would encourage sacrifice not for luxury goods or services, but for the sake of society. Every contribution by him, and every sacrifice would be not for the bourgeoisie their personal and private interests, but for society as a whole. Society then as a result rewards him for his sacrifice according to his contributions to it.



I happen to agree, generally, with your approach, but not for moralistic reasons. Rather, I think that material accounting would be important, and that a sliding-scale liberated-labor-hour could be the standard of a post-capitalist method of material valuation.

I don't see where I speak of any moralistic reasons, please do show me where I do because I'm interested. I support that approach for "materialistic account" not for moral reasons, although morality could very well be included as a result of such actions. Tell me more about this "siding-scale liberated-labor-hour" because I've never heard of it before, I'm interested in material valuation.


I would prefer to see a method of qualifying *need*, and *demand*, separate from contributons to production, rather than attempting to justify consumption on the basis of contribution.

I do not see a reason for qualifying need and demand separate from contribution. I see that need and demand can be reflected in contribution. If an individual has a need or demand for X amount of widgets, he needs to contribute more to society to receive credits in order to refund his credits in exchange for those X widgets. If he has no needs and demands for any widgets, he does not need to contribute to society at all to receive credits. This allows us to calculate demand according to contribution without separating them from each other. The need to separate them would only be an issue in the case of Capitalist market economies where there exists entry barriers in the market, in production, in employment, etc. that prevent a proper calculation of demand (see notional demand and actual demand). Such a system of credits as the one I support has no restrictions on entry besides credits, there exists no restrictions on obtaining credits. you merely have to work and receive goods. It is necessary to reflect contribution through consumption.


This is economistic -- we can only *guess* at how 'motivated' and 'ambitious' a post-capitalist society might be, at consciously coordinating and leveraging its own mass liberated labor.

This part is downright *terrifying* since it borrows from capitalism's egocentric individualism and managerial specialization. You posit a super-political method of judgment that is abstract, idealist and elitist.

And what is the issue if something is "economistic"? We do not deny reality nor what available means we have to reach our ends. Last thing I'd like to see if Lysenkoism taking place. Your guesses, i.e. false assumptions which you base your "post-capitalist society" as facts, can never be guaranteed and must NEVER have anything based upon them except with a notice that this is "purely Utopian and idealistic, but...". I use "economistic" means because they are being used today, are generally scientifically tested, and are working. In fact, the other reason why I do so is because I take the worst case possibility and build my theories upon that. I do not take the best possible scenarios and conditions and then imagine a Utopia on it. I take individualism for that very reason, I base it on what he have today, not on what I BELIEVE will happen in the future. Again as I have explained to Jimmie, the Bolsheviks imagined a Utopia of a "well-oiled machine" with people all working harmoniously together in the name of Socialism and whatnot, look what happened and look how they had to fall back to price mechanisms. All revolutions start out Utopian but then have to submit to pragmatism and reality. Do I even have to mention China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution based on mass decentralized labor mobilization in a quasi-liberated form? Or what about Cuba's "guerrelismo", if I remember correctly, their system that they supported based on popular labor mobilizations which they later on abandoned in favor of the Soviet model?


Agreed.

Okay.


I appreciate the point but differ with you on the approach.

Right.


No, there is nothing inherently 'illogical' about separating impetus to production from impetus to consumption.

Actually there is. By separating the two, you have absolutely no reason to produce more if you consume all the same. You would only be acting rationally and logically if you produce as less as you can on the condition that consumption remains the same. If you, however, are given to consume as much as your produce then you have every incentive and reason to produce more to consume more.


As others often point out, people should be free to 'produce' in the best ways they see fit, independent of coercion over necessities and/or crude schemes of "reward".

That is ridiculous, suicidal, and destructive. You can never count on people "producing in the best ways they see fit" because they have ABSOLUTELY NO incentive to produce the best ways they see fit. People must be given an incentive to produce the best way they see fit, not be "free" to do whatever they want! That is completely ridiculous.


Likewise, people should be free to *consume* as they see fit, especially since such 'consumption' may very well turn out to be 'developmental' in the end, as such free resources are indirectly incorporated into new, higher-level, more-sophisticated 'productive' activities.

No they should not. At all. People should consume as much as they give to society or else you will have a DEFICIT as consumption outweighs production. You make yet another false assumption that "consumption may very well turn out to be developmental" whilst entirely forgetting that it may very well not be. With an unlimited amount of consumption people have no reason to rationally and logically use their goods as best as they can to the fullest because they can just get another good and service at absolutely no cost to them. They can throw food half-eaten, they'll just get more with absolutely no cost at all. However if you make them pay for these goods out of their own labor then they are forced not to do the same but think twice over their actions because they will end up spending twice or more the amount when they buy new food. Cost accountability can never and must never be done away with. With such a system as yours, you eliminate any means of price signalling, people will still consume all the same if resources are abundant or if they're running out because prices will not change and restrictions do not exist to determine if goods are getting scarcer. With a pricing mechanism, if goods become scarce or demand outweighs supply then you will have prices increase which leads to the less consumption of these now-scarce goods because they have to pay more for the same or less amount of the same goods.


Positing an exchangeability between (liberated) labor and material goods is a bad idea since it inherently imbues those goods with a commodity-like 'value' -- a communist direction should be looking to acknowledge and recognize liberated *labor*, *not* to attempt to abstractly "value-ize" its incidental productivity.

And what is the problem here if that "value" is not used for private and personal interests as in the case of the bourgeoisie but for the advancement, progress, and development of society as a whole? I do not believe that labor should be liberated separate from society, but that labor is a part of society that needs to be given an incentive to contribute more to society which in turn benefits every single other individual.


@MarxArchist:


I've noticed you're kinda rude. Try flossing. I had a seed stuck in my tooth once and it was creating presure which caused a massive amount of discomfort and pain. Lasted for a couple days then I flossed and noticed the seed. Things are better now. Good hygiene is important.
Your problems do not apply to other people. If you just so happen to have lost a hand, it doesn't mean every other person who lost their hand lost it the same way as you.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu:

Whether it is either type of scarcity, it still is scarcity. Your type 1 scarcity is a main issue that cannot be solved. Your type 2 scarcity is extremely difficult to solve even with today's highly decentralized market economies.

Advocating the giving away of everything until you deplete the Earth's resources, thus killing everyone, is quite an atrocity. I would never advocate such a thing. A brief time of abundance is not by any means a justification for the extinction of our species. Goods need to rationed, specifically the scarce and irreplaceable goods. We cannot, by any means, give away everything until we run out of resources.


I really object to your whole attitude here, conceiving of (natural) resources as being entirely non-renewable and only to be consumed into a void until nothing is left. It's unrealistic, fatalistic, and defeatist on the whole.

Again, this line of yours -- whether wittingly or unwittingly -- plays right into the hands of anyone who would argue against the feasibility of socialism and communism in *any* kind of formulation. Your line is a disservice to the cause of revolution.





As for the type 2 scarcity, we do not know if we can solve that, but we would try to solve it. We really can do little for this type of scarcity until we assume power. At which point, we'd have to reorganize production and cannot know if that reorganization would prove to be effective or even work at all.


Your conventional linear thinking is on display here, since you conceive of some kind of 'master blueprint' that a post-capitalist productivity would "try out" in an all-or-nothing, one-shot attempt, to "prove" that socialism either works or doesn't.

Contrast this framework and mindset of yours with a more-involved, more-flexible give-and-take within a self-liberated dynamic political economy. (For some reason you view the greater 'commune' as being separate from, and having different interests from, those workers who are *part* of the commune itself.)





Falling back to a price mechanism? Nonsense. A price mechanism is necessary whether you wish it or not. The "invisible hand" is nothing more than people and their demands being fulfilled by other people and their supply. This is something that will exist in every system, not just Capitalism. You claim that we need to "grasp and wrestle with these issues", you can do so all you want but if you cannot find a proper solution then you are forced to "fall back to a price mechanism". That, furthermore, is not by any means a "tacit admission that were not able to do better with our revolution", if you idea of a revolution is simply the end to a pricing mechanism then I seriously question your revolution and definition of it. There doesn't exist solely one form of a pricing mechanism but numerous others which can be large improvement over the current system that utilizes the pricing mechanism. That fact cannot be avoided nor ignored.


Just because you assert the validity of a pricing mechanism does *not* mean that you're automatically correct.

I obviously differ with you on the method of a political economy, since the basis for such *should* be controlled and determined *mass-consciously*, instead of relying on and passively following market-type bidding mechanistics.





I never claimed that humanity's demands are infinite because there is no such thing as infinite demand, but I claimed that humanity would demand and consume all the way until resources are depleted even with a CONSTANT demand. You can never sate demand and end it there, you need to constantly sate demand every time it arises and that is usually every day, month, year, or decade. And yes, if you create a system "according to need" then you will give way to a childish free-for-all full of problems with the inability to satisfy the demands of the "me-me-me" mess because everyone would want the latest technology, the latest computers, the latest caviars (if they like caviar), all types of food, etc. You will not be able to supply that at all. You will have a reactionary counter-revolution that will lead to the restoration of a market economy that will be able to satisfy these demands which you were unable to satisfy. Under a market economy or an economy with a pricing mechanism people who desire rare caviar would "bid" and pay more to see their demand satisfied. Under an "according to need" communist system, there is absolutely no reason why they are to receive this rare caviar, and if they were too, what's to stop others from taking or even receiving it? Nothing. In a market/price-based economy, if demand hugely outweighs supply, price will keep increasing until demand meets supply. Such an "according to need" system rather than "according to contribution" is nothing more than an open lottery where everyone can take part in it without restrictions whatsoever.


Well, you're mentioning a lottery-type method here, which is closer to a better-reasoned approach to this issue of 'according to need'. (For example certain popular events like concerts may have limited physical venue space for a given calendar date -- in such a case popular demand for attendance at this event would have to be *qualified* somehow, though not necessarily using a lottery-type approach.)





I would prefer to see a method of qualifying *need*, and *demand*, separate from contributons to production, rather than attempting to justify consumption on the basis of contribution.


---





Or -- given sufficient 'political will' (mass organic demand) -- a social order could find ways to make sure that the *most important* needs and desires are fulfilled from the capacities of mass-based cooperative production.





Like the USSR? No. The USSR, China, and other such countries attempted to create a "political will" and mass-based organizations such as in the case of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolutions, look what happened. There was a demand for iron, they tried to recycle iron, they stripped down any iron they find and produced useless pig iron.


Your inclusion of this vignette from history is hardly supportive of the point you're trying to make -- the capital-C "Communist" countries were *not* popularly, democratically controlled.





Everything needs to be organized,


Yes -- this is the point that *I'm* making.





[T]he masses alone cannot be counted upon without a market.


Whatever.





Or -- given sufficient 'political will' (mass organic demand) -- a social order could find ways to make sure that the *most important* needs and desires are fulfilled from the capacities of mass-based cooperative production.





That and the fact that you cannot by any means ensure or guarantee that you will be able to create that "political will" or even what you assume would ever come to fruition.


Hey, look, I'm not the omnipotent puppetmaster here -- the point of politics, from the here-and-now going-forward, is to assert some *feasible* approaches to mass concerns so that potentialities are increased for success. There's plenty I *would* 'sign-off' on, but then I'm just one guy using his head to plow through the matters at hand -- that's all.





What determines "most important needs and desires"?


Glad you asked -- I have a model that I developed a few years ago for just such an occasion as this. I will be excerpting from it in order to respond to specific theoretical points in a consistent way.





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://s6.postimage.org/nwiupxn8t/2526684770046342459_Rh_JMHF_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/nwiupxn8t/)





Someone's most important needs and desires could be computers, the other games, the other food, the other vacations, the other books, the other cars, the other electronics, etc. how can you determine who needs what most and which of these billions of demands are to be "most important" since you have no market nor even a pricing mechanism?


By asking, essentially:





Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily





Even then, these "most important" needs and desires being fulfilled at the expense of other needs and desires which are not "most important" would lead to problems as many people see their needs and desires not being fulfilled.


Well, by definition those needs and desires that are 'more important' are more important.





The USSR et al. determined that bread and other such "most important" products were to be prioritized over other goods such as butter and meat. Consumer products were almost entirely neglected until the late years of the USSR and even then they failed.


True, but what does this have to do with what we're discussing -- ?


---





Think of it this way. You have a shop with a finite amount of goods. There's a scarcity of those goods outside your shop. You open your shop and give out "everything free based on need". You will run out of products in your shop. Replace the shop with Earth. What then? Mass chaos, unemployment, starvation, poverty, wars over what little resources you have left, and even extinction.





Now you're using the same kind of scare tactics that any *right-winger* would use in arguing against the feasibility of socialism.





That is not even a counter-argument, that is a ad hominem logical fallacy.


No, it's a *characterization*, or implicit *value judgment* on what you're arguing.





This is a scare tactic that is to be considered and used by anyone who wants to consider any system. I am not a right-winger and yet I used it because it is vital, deal with it.


It is *not* a vital point -- that's why I'm dismissing it as a 'scare tactic'. You wildly extrapolate consumption in a vacuous attempt to "prove" a kind of materialistic entropy.





And as we can see here, more Utopian pipedreams, false axioms, and false assumptions. Your whole argument hinges on teh false assumption that your system "has the capacity to *easily* overproduce". The thing is, you CANNOT ensure that your society will "*easily* overproduce".


Yes, this assertion is simply based on the technological prowess / capacities that have been developed to-date.





It is EXACTLY because you cannot guarantee that you will easily overproduce that you cannot even speak of a system "according to need" and that only an "according to contribution" system is viable.


Whatever.

Again, all I can do is make arguments here -- I'd gladly add my signature to an appropriate document if that meant I'd be 'guaranteeing' it.





As for your example of who would receive the most according to contribution, that is a nonsensical "example" that would never take place in real-life. The example was absurd because you made it out to be absurd instead of using a proper example that may actually happen in real-life to prove your point.


And here I was really hoping you would *like* it....





I don't understand. Moralism? Please explain with less cryptic poetry. The only standard of moralism that I find here is from the ones who are supporting an "according to need' communism as they depend on false assumptions of "solidarity", "cooperation", and other false incentives that are based upon morality for their system to work.


'Solidarity' and 'cooperation' are *not* moralistic -- they are synonymous with 'symbiotic interest'.





They expect people to work their best because "they are part of society", "they are affected in the end", or other such moralistic fallacy. Now, as for a system based on a pricing mechanism or a market then all it needs is paying someone for bigger contributions to society. As simple as it gets. You do not need an "official societal moralism" as much as you need simply a pricing mechanism or market. That merit would be measured by contribution to be determined through many means that society can choose. See my reply to Jimmie explaining this.


The problem with your 'pricing mechanism' formulation is that it begs how the underlying unit of value ('price') would be determined. If markets are to be relied on then capital itself will become commodified, as into capital goods, with full financialization to follow, bringing back full-blown private property.





So then this purportedly liberated, communist-type society would actually *encourage* a sacrifice of one's own life, for the sake of what, exactly -- access to luxury goods and services -- ?





It would encourage sacrifice not for luxury goods or services, but for the sake of society. Every contribution by him, and every sacrifice would be not for the bourgeoisie their personal and private interests, but for society as a whole. Society then as a result rewards him for his sacrifice according to his contributions to it.


I actually have no contention with this principle, and will note that my own model is congruent with it.





I don't see where I speak of any moralistic reasons, please do show me where I do because I'm interested. I support that approach for "materialistic account" not for moral reasons, although morality could very well be included as a result of such actions.


I term your method as being 'moralistic' because there is no *political* approach present in it -- the only thing remaining that *could* serve as a driving force would *have* to be moralistic.





Tell me more about this "siding-scale liberated-labor-hour" because I've never heard of it before, I'm interested in material valuation.





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





I would prefer to see a method of qualifying *need*, and *demand*, separate from contributons to production, rather than attempting to justify consumption on the basis of contribution.





I do not see a reason for qualifying need and demand separate from contribution. I see that need and demand can be reflected in contribution.


No, again, it's apples-and-oranges.





If an individual has a need or demand for X amount of widgets, he needs to contribute more to society to receive credits in order to refund his credits in exchange for those X widgets. If he has no needs and demands for any widgets, he does not need to contribute to society at all to receive credits. This allows us to calculate demand according to contribution without separating them from each other. The need to separate them would only be an issue in the case of Capitalist market economies where there exists entry barriers in the market, in production, in employment, etc. that prevent a proper calculation of demand (see notional demand and actual demand). Such a system of credits as the one I support has no restrictions on entry besides credits, there exists no restrictions on obtaining credits. you merely have to work and receive goods. It is necessary to reflect contribution through consumption.


I resoundingly disagree.





And what is the issue if something is "economistic"? We do not deny reality nor what available means we have to reach our ends. Last thing I'd like to see if Lysenkoism taking place. Your guesses, i.e. false assumptions which you base your "post-capitalist society" as facts, can never be guaranteed and must NEVER have anything based upon them except with a notice that this is "purely Utopian and idealistic, but...". I use "economistic" means because they are being used today, are generally scientifically tested, and are working. In fact, the other reason why I do so is because I take the worst case possibility and build my theories upon that. I do not take the best possible scenarios and conditions and then imagine a Utopia on it. I take individualism for that very reason, I base it on what he have today, not on what I BELIEVE will happen in the future. Again as I have explained to Jimmie, the Bolsheviks imagined a Utopia of a "well-oiled machine" with people all working harmoniously together in the name of Socialism and whatnot, look what happened and look how they had to fall back to price mechanisms. All revolutions start out Utopian but then have to submit to pragmatism and reality. Do I even have to mention China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution based on mass decentralized labor mobilization in a quasi-liberated form? Or what about Cuba's "guerrelismo", if I remember correctly, their system that they supported based on popular labor mobilizations which they later on abandoned in favor of the Soviet model?


If you're so cautious and 'pragmatic' in your formulations then why bother even attempting to transcend the capitalist mode of production -- ?





Actually there is. By separating the two, you have absolutely no reason to produce more if you consume all the same. You would only be acting rationally and logically if you produce as less as you can on the condition that consumption remains the same. If you, however, are given to consume as much as your produce then you have every incentive and reason to produce more to consume more.


This shows the economism at the core of your position -- as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness, or ability to reflect on its own directions and outcomes.

By reducing all human motivation to that of the self-absorbed individual you are ignoring any and all other social possibilities.





As others often point out, people should be free to 'produce' in the best ways they see fit, independent of coercion over necessities and/or crude schemes of "reward".





That is ridiculous, suicidal, and destructive. You can never count on people "producing in the best ways they see fit" because they have ABSOLUTELY NO incentive to produce the best ways they see fit. People must be given an incentive to produce the best way they see fit, not be "free" to do whatever they want! That is completely ridiculous.


Sorry.





Likewise, people should be free to *consume* as they see fit, especially since such 'consumption' may very well turn out to be 'developmental' in the end, as such free resources are indirectly incorporated into new, higher-level, more-sophisticated 'productive' activities.





No they should not. At all. People should consume as much as they give to society or else you will have a DEFICIT as consumption outweighs production.


Then production would simply become *demand*-driven, spurring the necessity for future production.





You make yet another false assumption that "consumption may very well turn out to be developmental" whilst entirely forgetting that it may very well not be. With an unlimited amount of consumption people have no reason to rationally and logically use their goods as best as they can to the fullest because they can just get another good and service at absolutely no cost to them. They can throw food half-eaten, they'll just get more with absolutely no cost at all. However if you make them pay for these goods out of their own labor then they are forced not to do the same but think twice over their actions because they will end up spending twice or more the amount when they buy new food. Cost accountability can never and must never be done away with. With such a system as yours, you eliminate any means of price signalling, people will still consume all the same if resources are abundant or if they're running out


You make it sound as if there would be no *news* whatsoever about *anything* -- certainly economic pricing is not the only *information* that exists about material quantities.





because prices will not change and restrictions do not exist to determine if goods are getting scarcer. With a pricing mechanism, if goods become scarce or demand outweighs supply then you will have prices increase which leads to the less consumption of these now-scarce goods because they have to pay more for the same or less amount of the same goods.


---





Positing an exchangeability between (liberated) labor and material goods is a bad idea since it inherently imbues those goods with a commodity-like 'value' -- a communist direction should be looking to acknowledge and recognize liberated *labor*, *not* to attempt to abstractly "value-ize" its incidental productivity.





And what is the problem here if that "value" is not used for private and personal interests as in the case of the bourgeoisie but for the advancement, progress, and development of society as a whole? I do not believe that labor should be liberated separate from society, but that labor is a part of society that needs to be given an incentive to contribute more to society which in turn benefits every single other individual.


Here you *are* positing a mass social conscience, or politics -- but this would be at odds with everything else that you've described as material motivation, namely personal aggrandizement through societal contributions.

[Lord Hargreaves]

A slacker is an individual who takes advantage of such a system by working less, loafing, putting less effort, etc. than the average worker. These people were a huge problem in the USSR and numerous texts by Lenin and Co. addressed this issue of slackers calling them "parasites", "loafers", etc. This type of people would see itself expanded aggressively if a system "according to need" is implemented as it would be completely rational and logical for an individual not to put too much effort and attempt to "cheat" the system by working less and yet would still receive the same, i.e. according to his need, with no fluctuation in what he is to receive. I'm quite surprised you actually asked such a question.

No, I understand what the meaning of the word slacker is. I'm saying that I don't really understand why you think the spectre of the slacker in a socialist society will be so haunting. They will exist, sure, but the idea that they will constitute some kind of existential threat to socialism? It has never really occurred to me and I don't see it as at all plausible.

I realise that you see yourself as trying to build a rational, objective, value-free vision of socialism, one which doesn't need to resort to hippy college bullshit ideas like solidarity and mutual aid. Fine; you do you.

But I am saying that these are not so much the "tools" that socialists use to explain how their socialism can function efficiently, these things simply are socialism (at least to very large number of us). A society that goes around demonizing so-called slackers, and which utilizes ruthless competition to endlessly drive up productivity so we can have more and more stuff because...well, just because? It isn't really what I'd consider to be socialism, or communism, at all.



Because that's a logical conclusion. When one puts in more labor-power, does so efficiently and effectively without waste and issue the he thus increases productivity and thus production. Seriously, have you even taken a single course in economics? Suppose you are assembling widgets, you put all your effort into it, use the best tools, minimize waste, and speed up your assembling, all of that is increasing in efficiency and all of that thus increases productivity and thus production. As such, effort is defined by efficiency in production because we care about the end-product and the amount of those products produced. That's why we care about effort and that's why effort is defined by efficiency in production. The more one puts in effort, the more products would be assembled. The less one puts in effort, the less products would be assembled. That's as simple as it gets as we can also give other examples in the services field and production field with more effort leading to better efficiency.

It might be precisely because you are an economics student that you seem psychically unable to grasp my simple point. There is nothing within the actual term "effort" that entails that more effort will always result in us producing more stuff. We can say that effort which is productive will be productive, and nothing more. And is there a concept of "enough" in your system? Why would we continue to drive up productivity when we have enough stuff already?

It may also be that productive labour is tiring, boring, and alienating. Perhaps we should make labour less productive but more enjoyable? Or we could increase labour productivity until we reach a certain point, and then cut back working hours so people have more leisure time? Where is any of this in your vision?



No. A bureaucracy need not by any means be inherently inefficient, I do not know where you got that ridiculous idea from. The multinationals, governments, and corporations of today are proof of this with their streamlined, effective, and efficient organization, planning, etc. thanks to the use of computers. Everything will not be micromanaged as micro-transactions would be acts not needing direct intervention much like the case of ATMs today. Bureaucracy can by every means be efficient, you take yet another assumption that bureaucracy is not efficient as a given.

I don't automatically associate bureaucracy with planning. For me planning wouldn't necessarily have to mean top-down centralisation.

By "bureaucracy" I meant the kind of commonsensical, derisory, FOX News-esque meaning of the term - pointless box-ticking, micromanaging, jumping through legal hoops, etc. To return to the original point then: I think distribution according to contribution could be just as "bureaucratic" in the above sense as distribution according to need.


We live in a condition of post-scarcity today because of capitalism, not communism. Unless you want to superexploit Third World labor, destroy the environment, start imperialist wars, exploit other countries, start selling oil, etc. then you cannot by any means take the conditions created by Capitalist exploitation as a basis for communism. The essential goods hat you have today are due to superexploited Third World labor, not because they magically appear on your table. The basis of the whole economy must have a form of pricing signaling, cost accountability, feedback mechanisms, etc. and those can be best observed through the use of money, in one form or another. Oh and Market Socialism is different from communism due to many reasons, not just because of its use of money.

I think communism can exist after capitalism, making use of its technology and its efficiency gains, without continuing to superexploit etc. You believe this is possible through use of a reformed socialist market. Superexploitation, imperialist wars etc are obviously not crucial to productivity.

I agree that communism cannot be a system where efficiency doesn't matter, where wasting resources is completely OK and where there should be no labour accountability at all. But I don't see a full blown market as being necessary to ensure these things.

Yes, we could have shadow pricing, we could make use of other technologically advanced accounting techniques, and we could have some form of labour credit market for some select items. Yet still, however, I see the main economic mechanism being a form of planning. This wouldn't be primarily a behemoth government giving directives out to the lowly masses either, but a system where people learn skills by being taught by others in their own workplace, and where we help each other and cooperate as much as possible. Information can be exchanged through a market, but it can also be exchanged by people talking to each other and teaching by example.


Nevertheless, back to the main point, I claim that a general condition of post-scarcity is impossible because of multiple factors, the most important of which is the existence of finite resources that makes it necessary to ration these resources and use them as effectively and efficiently as possibly. How can that be done? Set prices on goods. Pay workers according to contribution. This way you pay those who work the most effectively, efficiently, and contribute the most get a larger share of these finite resources in turn. If you start giving everyone "according to need" then there is absolutely no reason why someone should put in any proper effort, work as much as he can, or even not resort to corruption and waste.

Yes there are finite resources, but only in capitalism is need considered to be something infinite. At some level there must be an objective measure, where it is reasonable to judge that the amount people in society are consuming constitutes "enough" and so thereby the concept "scarcity" loses it force.



Power relationships? I do not care about petty "power relationships".

If people are working extra hard to gain power and influence over the organisation, this can have detrimental effects on the organisation and have an oppressive effect on those who merely work as hard as they believe is necessary and is expected of them.


The general needs of society are determined by demand.

Ah yes, a perfectly circular definition. Spoken like a true economist.


The needs of the worker aside from his effort? What does that even mean? His effort is not one of his "needs". Let him neglect his family and dependents, those are not his problem, they are the problem of the community he is in. We only care that he contributes and benefits all of society, if you are going to question that on the basis of individualistic desires then you just destroyed the entire system of yours.

There will be a question of neglect so long as there is a distinction between work life and social life. I don't think recognising that someone has obligations to loved ones is "individualistic".


Now that you asked me all those questions, it's my turn to show you how "according to contribution" is much more defined and objectively measured than "according to need". How does one measure need? According to who is need measured and determined? How do you not know if someone is lying about his needs and takes out more than he needs claiming that he needs it? How does that someone know how much he needs (if you say that he only takes out what he needs when he needs it then no, the risks such as those of empty shelves would not allow this to happen)?

Well, who makes planning decisions within your economy?


What is an appropriate reward for overachievement and underachievement (rhetorical; you don't have to answer this because the reward is the same - according to need not contribution)?

You have the same problem don’t you? Or does the market decide these things for you?


In such a system[/B] he has every right to resort to an exit strategy, he can even work in a factory, produce goods, and keep them for himself by paying the cost of production of those goods. The worker can then decide what to do with the fruits of his own labor, will he sell him in return for credits that would allow him to purchase other goods or will he keep them for himself and consume them? This is the only system that I have witnessed that allows the worker to receive the fruits of his labor.

How can he have an exit strategy when he only receive goods by working in the factory, doing whatever work society has deemed appropriate? (Or have I missed something?)



Why do you idealize democracy so much? "Democratic discussion", "consensus-based decision making", "freedom", what is this bullshit? You remind me of when I used to be an Anarcho-Communist spewing such nonsense like there's no tomorrow. What's so good about direct democracy?

I'm assuming you are just irritated at my usage of these terms in this context and not the terms itself. Otherwise I would be puzzled as to why you would ever call yourself a socialist.


Have you ever heard of the statement "the most popular decision isn't always the best decision"? You can observe examples of this statement in real-life when it comes to what many consider to be mainstream such as the case of Justin Bieber, Obama, Bush, etc. All of them were/are popular and yet they are not the best decision even if you do not like it.

I don't consider this to have much to do with democracy. The US political system is not democratic and neither is the US music industry, which is controlled by just 4 corporate groups.


Have you ever heard about the Condorcet Paradox and Arrow's Theorem that lead to direct democracy being unable to represent the true will of the people/voters? Google them.

I have heard of them but don't know much about them. But I know just enough about the basic theory to say that your opinion that these theorems prove democracy to be unviable is utterly moronic and absurd.

Is any formalised voting procedure perfect? Of course not. Does that mean democracy is worthless? Of course not. You are committing the all-or-nothing fallacy.

Democracy is a fluid and holistic process, which involves discussion, persuasion, horse-trading, compromises and consensus-building, fighting and making-up: the ranking of preferences is at best just one small part of it.


What about consensus? Why do you care so much about consensus? Consensus is EXTREMELY difficult to ever read and must never be sought after due to the time, effort, and disasters that it creates.

Consensus is an important ideal (not always possible, I grant you) because every person is sovereign, and ultimately society is never just an aggregation of individual wills but a coming-together of sovereign equals. Notice that at no point in my answer do I concern myself with "productivity".


Freedom? Why do you even speak of freedom? No Communist should care about freedom. Freedom is not a package with democracy that must always be taken as a given good. Freedom is detrimental, destructive, divisive, and leads to suicide. Think about it yourself.

I can't begin to imagine what was going through your mind when you wrote the above. Truly shocking :scared:


Aha, if it's commonsense then you are actually arguing against commonsense. Rational choice theory is the basis of the "commonsense" in economics and other fields that allows us to treat people as rational actors and base theories on them. It is not by any means useless, it is crucial. There is every reason to take it seriously as a foundational principle for an economic system as it deals with individuals on the individual basis, on collectives on the collective level, and ends up showing us what is in the rational best self-interest of the individual, the commune, the nation, or even the world by maximizing rewards and profits. Such principles must be used especially due to the fact that we currently are in a Capitalist system and base our theories on that basis. Economic theories, political theories, etc. all depend on rational choice theory without which we'd end up with absolutely nothing, just like your mythical "solidarity", "freedom", and "democracy", the empty slogans that will solve all your problems in your pipedream. There is every reason to take it seriously because this is what can be counted on - the individual maximizing profits and rewards. Sure, exceptions will exist and the general spirit of people may change in the future, but until then we must not resort to idiotic adventurism and daydreaming.

No real arguments here, just restatements of your position.



You've never met people? Oh my. I'll just tell you this, people work to maximize their own individual utility, rewards, and profits, not to give everything away because "SOLIDARITY, BRO!"

If by "maximizing their own individual utility" you mean something like "people will usually try and act in such a way that they can achieve what they want to achieve" then yes, fine. But this is an entirely circular, entirely vacuous statement; it is common sense.

If by "maximizing their own individual utility" you mean something like "people will always work to become rich so they can receive company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables" then no, this is capitalist culture, not a universal truth about human beings. It is neoliberal dogma.

Have I not summed up rational choice theory?


Unless you are planning on making everyone an exact clone of each other then this is what you will to live with. In fact, we should not condemn such an action but instead promote and encourage it. That person with the 170 IQ is benefiting his society much more than that person with the 90 IQ, we do not care about what they personally do, we care about what they can contribute to their society. The individual is nothing, you do not remember your great-great-grandfather nor do many of us. We do not remember the average plebeian from the 1600s. What we do remember is their societies, their nations, their systems, their economies, and their contributions. I see absolutely no reason why you must call this by any means "unfair". The guy with the 170 IQ contributes a larger share and thus received a larger share of the cake. As simple as that. This encourages that worker to contribute more and better to his society rather than do barely anything and yet receive the same as any other. This gives him every reason to contribute better and more.

The problem is obviously that the guy with a 90 IQ is probably going to struggle to look after himself and live an independent life, so will need more resources than someone more capable. This is precisely not to treat everyone like a clone, but to have a social system that attempts to cater to every individual's unique needs.

Working for the benefit of one's society is obviously a praiseworthy act, and so I wouldn't say I'm against rewarding this type of behaviour. But there is another concern that rewarding people for doing good actually risks demeaning the act, especially if resources are finite.



No, incentives and rewards are things that everyone needs to get everyone else to do what they want them to do. This system of incentives and rewards is empirically observable in nature in the case of even animals or a simple example: You like candy, I tell you help me with his and I will give you candy, you say "Sure!" This is the most basic example here. Capitalism grabs this, abuses it, destroys it, mangles it, deforms it, twists it, and then spits it out. Capitalism uses it for exploitation for PERSONAL and PRIVATE interests, the interests of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism uses this system to coerce those with no alternative to slave off for the Capitalist's profits. Under a communist/socialist system this would not be the case, every single act of labor and its products can be kept by the worker or sold through the factory. The incentives and rewards for effort would not be for personal and private interests, but for the interests of society as a whole including that worker. All incentives and rewards would be based on amount of labor put in, not the passive reaping of profits off of the labor of others as in the case of the bourgeoisie. Under this system, individuals have the alternative to resort to an exit strategy. Individuals will not end up starving to death if they cannot find employment as is the case with unreformed Laissez-Faire Capitalism.

As I’ve said, yes I agree that this type of socialism would be an improvement over what we have. But to me socialism is not just a more rational – “rational” in this hypertrophied, reified sense - but also a more human system. Do you simply disregard the earlier Marx’s writings on alienation? I think they are important.

Capitalism is, yes, a class system based on accruing economic benefits to the bourgeoisie and the owners of capital. But it is also a reified system whereby social processes seem to happen “behind the backs” of people, and where strict instrumental, functional rationality rides roughshod over people’s personal autonomy. I am worried that you have recognised the former but failed to recognise the latter.


Our current society is indeed a "brash obnoxious" consumer society, but that need not necessarily be bad. People love consumer goods. I love consumer goods. People in the USSR loved consumer goods. When you play a video game, the best aspect of it is the loot, the upgrades, obtaining gold, buying various goods, etc. etc. Those aspects of the game add a lot more flavor to it and make it quite interesting. Nevertheless, I say it is not necessarily bad only if we can properly address it by presenting consumer goods without the disasters that are found in a Capitalist market. A simple look at the iPhones and their various iterations that barely add anything new, are not replaceable, where the older models are generally literally thrown as newer and newer models are presented, etc. would show that we need a variation in this aspect. Several types of competing statist companies can create their own version of a smartphone, they would be replaceable, modified, and even, IF possible but not necessarily, recyclable. The state would not approve any minor changes in the smartphones, smartphones that cannot be modified, that are not open source, etc. People need to have consumer goods otherwise life is dull and quite boring, we cannot send society back to the middle-ages. A more just and equitable society is not that alluring as we can see in the case of the Soviet Socialist countries versus the consumerist West. Currently consumer goods are designed to extract as much profit from the consumer as possible by creating artificial demand and consumer loyalty.

Again I find myself in a “yes that’s fine, but then on the other hand…” position when reading this. Socialism can be seen as a progressive social system that comes after capitalism in time, but also about launching a remorseless criticism of the ideas of progress, modernity and history themselves. As Walter Benjamin put it, it is also about “exploding the continuum of history”.



If you need to meet the demands "according to need" then you will need to be efficient and productive lest you fall to the problems of waste, inefficiency, and the lack of productivity. We need to maximize the utility of all the finite resources and production if we are to not destroy the environment, waste resources, waste energy, waste time, and waste labor. We need to make the best with what we have. Productivist thinking is good thinking, even the USSR itself tried to follow such a method of thinking. If I recall Marx, Kropotkin, Lenin, Trotsky, etc. followed such a method of thought concerning attacks on slacking and loafing in favor of productivity and honest hard labor. They imagined a Socialist/Communist world where everyone would put in as much as he can, "from each according to his ability" not "from each according to what he wants to put in" nor "from each according to the least of his ability", etc.

So when you read Marx on the Gotha Programme, and he cried out that we should inscribe on our banners “From each according to his ability…” - you thought - “ah yes, this conforms with the latest dogmatism my economics teacher told me! Now I wonder how we can beat this out of all these lazy slacking yokels!”

Marx wrote:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

The “enslaving subordination of the individual” will end, work will “become not only a means of life but life’s prime want” and “all the springs of co-operative wealth [will] flow more abundantly”. This is a profoundly moral vision as much as anything.

And you can keep your “narrow horizon of bourgeois right” because I don’t believe it will be necessary.



Actually that assertion of mine is quite true and was even held by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Co. when they praised Capitalism for the creation of large-scale production and large factories that allowed for the possibility of Socialism. When these theorists attacked Feudalism and other such primitive production they attacked it on the basis of being small-scale, divided, decentralized, disorganized, dead-end, and so on as opposed to being large-scale, united/cooperative, centralized, global, organized, and not progressive. IN fact it was Marx who claimed that it was the factory production that allowed the conditions for Socialism to be created by "socializing" production. It was also Trotsky and Lenin who spoke of the benefits of the factory system, the use of Taylorist methods, the adoption of American methods of production, etc. etc. They did not divided their society and send it back to the medieval ages of self-sufficiency, our world today is too complex for any small-scale production.

The socialisation of production is as much a political condition for socialism as much as an economic condition. Large factories that capitalism creates will be the most important focal points of agitation and organisation.

To the extent that Marxists have praised productivist approaches, I see that as an aspect of their thought which is now somewhat outdated: they were talking about Russia, China, etc; desperately poor countries where scarcity was absolute. The same emphasis on relentless production is out of date in 2013.



Making things bigger and more centralized will by every means make them more efficient. Why? Simple: organization. Bigger centralized factories would allow a simple location for production, delivery, and shipping, it would allow for the easy of installing of upgrades as opposed to having to go to around 1000 factories in each community, it would allow for mass production using expensive and advanced machinery which cannot be installed in every factory, it would allow for the hiring of skilled labor rather than having it divided amongst thousands of factories, it would allow for a centralized record-keeping system rather than the many hassles and problems of having to sift through each factory, it would allow for a centralized location for everything related to a product, etc. etc.

It is true that there are benefits to centralisation, but I was simply saying that this isn’t the full story. What of Hayek and the Austrian school’s critique of state planning, for instance? Knowledge is also tacit and formed through habit, and cannot simply be read into a computer. It is just not true that bigger is always better.

And is it really true that a productive economy is an utterly standardized, identikit economy? Where would the renegade entrepreneur stand in your plans?



A parasitic management class? There is no such thing as a "parasitic management class", you have workers who are managers, those who studied management, account, and so on and are capable of planning and assigning production according to demand and supply to meet the demand of society. You also use the term "class" falsely and not in the Marxist context. In Marxist class theory, classes are defined by their relations of production, not by their social status. The "parasitic management class" is not a class because it does not own the means of production privately nor personally and does not receive the surplus value as its own. The "parasitic management class" is nothing more than individuals capable of managing society and production for society, nothing else. Even the USSR itself at first shunned them and the skilled workers before begging for them to return under Lenin, Trotsky, and the early Bolsheviks. As for parasitic, really? How are they in any way parasitic? A parasite does not contribute anything to the host, a management "class" is vital for the functioning of any modern economy.

This almost sounds like Stalinism (“no communist should care about freedom” - a statement Uncle Joe would surely have approved of?) and is at any rate a perspective that disregards the entire historical experience of the Soviet economy.

And to the extent that orthodox Marxism is blind to all crushing political oppression that doesn’t strictly involve a class receiving surplus value for its private use, then that is a failure of the theory and not a defence of your position



As for technical change, it is easier to present technical change to one large, advanced factory rather than to thousands of factories all over the world in EACH community. Now compare this to the decentralized and localized factories, thousands of them in each region/community, would it be by ANY MEANS easier for these 1000+ factories in each region/community to be responsive to fluctuations in regional demand and technical change? Not. By. Any. Means. It would take then centuries just to receive the new technical changes, it would take them ages just to respond properly to regional demand by having to communicate with each and every other factory (since you don't have the "parasitic management class" to do that for them) in the world to decide on who is to produce what or stop producing what according to changing demand.

This presumes that technical innovation is handed down to factories from upon up high, which is the opposite of my point. What if a local community centre or something invents some new technology to deal with its own unique problems? Then there is an opportunity for others to learn and implement similar changes. This avenue for individual creativity could be lost under a system of extreme centralisation.



International trade is what creates thriving local economies, not the other way around otherwise you'd be stuck in the Feudal age of localized production which Marx and Co. severely criticized.

International trade is crowding out localized production, not making it thrive. How could you think it is?



And that is exactly why we need credits. Such an example of inefficiency as the one you give can only take place in a moneyless society that cannot organize itself properly through pricing mechanism and feedback mechanisms. To take your example, in a system that useless cost accounting, price signals, etc. such as a credits system, the international freight would have to go through a LOT of expenses and thus the cost of the vegetables received by the community would be VERY expensive. This would prompt the local community that received these vegetables from the other side of the world to start building their own farms and planting their own vegetables. They would thus be "forced" by the pricing mechanism to solve this issue. In a society without money, they cannot "calculate" costs, the fuel would be free, the vegetables that would be received would be free, etc. which would not force the locals to plant their own because they aren't receiving any "information" as to the costs incurred or the difficulties undertaken to get the vegetables where they are. International freights may not be sustainable, but it is exactly money that forces us not to use international freights as much in a system without money since imported goods would cost more than local goods.

No, I don’t think it takes an economics PhD to work out that such practices are inefficient. I find your analysis of why we need price mechanisms to work out that such uses of energy are inefficient slightly amusing, because I don’t see how it isn’t painfully obvious.

Anyway, the point is that this is happening now, where we already have price mechanisms. Multinational corporations can drive down the cost of labour and of capital to such a degree that it is cheaper for them to import vegetables from different continents, than to pay famers from across the street to grow them. It cannot be just cost accounting that ends these practices; we need different social priorities too.



I do not see why it is the height of folly, but do notice that I did not say "decided beforehand" but that the changing society and the costs incurred would force them to become efficient by growing their own vegetables rather than importing them for huge prices and costs. As for houses, those can take the form of apartment complexes and towers, not the destructive, wasteful, and isolationist American suburban homes.

I hear you loud and clear on suburban sprawl - the ugliest and most wasteful social form ever to emerge from human civilisation,

[Theophys]

I really object to your whole attitude here, conceiving of (natural) resources as being entirely non-renewable and only to be consumed into a void until nothing is left. It's unrealistic, fatalistic, and defeatist on the whole.
Show me how you can renew iron, coal, oil, etc. For the renewable resources we need not discuss them as they are not the issue here, they would not run out. What we are discussing since this thread started is the issue of non-renewable resources and their effect on luxury goods and the "according to need" model. Nevertheless, you can call this line of mine whatever you want to, I do not really take labels by other Communists as anything serious when they support Utopian societies that are in an of themselves "unrealistic, fatalistic, and defeatest on the whole" that base themselves on false assumptions. Nevertheless, this is not an argument and I have treated it as such.


Again, this line of yours -- whether wittingly or unwittingly -- plays right into the hands of anyone who would argue against the feasibility of socialism and communism in *any* kind of formulation. Your line is a disservice to the cause of revolution.

Not really as I am quite capable of offering a solution to this problem which your system or any other system that bases itself on 'according to need" cannot. This is a valid argument, be it used by anti-Communists or by Communists critiquing others. I do not, at all, get your problem here unless you think you're above criticism. My line, let it be so, is a disservice to any revolution which seeks to follow flawed lines in order to kill itself. If you point to a person that his airplane cannot fly and will crash, that is a disservice to him on the basis of saving his life, dignity, and explaining to him exactly how his airplane will not fly.


Your conventional linear thinking is on display here, since you conceive of some kind of 'master blueprint' that a post-capitalist productivity would "try out" in an all-or-nothing, one-shot attempt, to "prove" that socialism either works or doesn't.

Contrast this framework and mindset of yours with a more-involved, more-flexible give-and-take within a self-liberated dynamic political economy. (For some reason you view the greater 'commune' as being separate from, and having different interests from, those workers who are *part* of the commune itself.)

Oh please. Less Utopian rhetoric pipedream vagueness and more actual arguments. I really do not care about a "more-involved", "more-flexible", "give-and-take" (I do not get the point of the hyphens, really) within a "self-liberated dynamic political economy" because there is no such thing as what you describe. You are attempting to resort to a cop-out in order to keep your Utopian system above any criticisms with the simple fallacious argument of "it will solve itself". That is not the case at all. All systems can solve themselves one way or another, but if they're broken from the bottom-up then they cannot by any means function to be repaired, you're just setting the ground for a counter-revolution. My conventional line of thinking has worked and works, it is conventional for a reason. I use economic arguments to critique my system and base theories around that, I do not resort to wishful thinking and adventurist nonsense as the ones you speak of. A "master blueprint" is necessary as a form of theory or prediction of what can or may take place just as other individuals imagine communism and socialism to be in their various forms.

Again, no argument here, just you wasting time.


Just because you assert the validity of a pricing mechanism does *not* mean that you're automatically correct.
Which is why we have debates. You need to contest the validity of a pricing mechanism and offer a better workable alternative. Hint: An "according to need" system or gift economy isn't.


I obviously differ with you on the method of a political economy, since the basis for such *should* be controlled and determined *mass-consciously*, instead of relying on and passively following market-type bidding mechanistics.
The "mass-conscious" (the hyphens again) can very well be reflected through "market-type bidding mechanistics" (you know if you spent less time creating words and more time putting arguments, we'd be getting somewhere) as that is the basis of any "market-type bidding mechanistics", that is to properly determine demand, determine supply, determine prices, remunerate those who contribute more to society, and satisfy that demand by doing so. This "mass-conscious" Utopian nonsense is as vague as claiming that "people will fix stuff". The best way the "mass-conscious" can determine and control anything is through "market-type bidding mechanistics".


Well, you're mentioning a lottery-type method here, which is closer to a better-reasoned approach to this issue of 'according to need'. (For example certain popular events like concerts may have limited physical venue space for a given calendar date -- in such a case popular demand for attendance at this event would have to be *qualified* somehow, though not necessarily using a lottery-type approach.)
Lol? This is the most ridiculous contribution I have ever heard. Not only are you now giving "according to need" but you call a lottery to give out rewards and luxuries to be a "better-reasoned" (those hyphens) approach? Are you kidding me? Not only do you want to give out everything to anyone who wants them with complete disregard and inability to deal with scarcity, abundance, control demand, control consumption, create incentives, and so on but you also want us to give out rewards and luxuries at COMPLETE RANDOM? I just... No, just no. A lottery would be much worse than the "according to need" gift economy. It completely randomly selects a handful of winners out of millions regardless of contribution, regardless of need, and regardless of relevance of the reward to the winner. I could enter a lottery for a wheelchair when I do not need it. Here you'll claim that you cannot enter such a lottery if you're not handicapped, in which case I'll change the lottery reward to something much different such as the case of a racing car when I cannot race, a large television when I have no place to put it, a truck when I am not in need of one, a gaming console when I already have one, etc. etc. This causes numerous problems. We need to also take into consideration the chance of even winning the lottery, the mentality of a person who enters the lottery ("I'll just try my luck") even if he does necessarily "need" the reward, the possibility of corruption, the possibility of certain individuals getting lucky multiple time, or even the frustration of those who keep losing. Such a system would be atrocious and unacceptable. Instead of rewarding individuals according to their contributions to society and other such socially beneficial actions, they are instead left unrewarded with a system of rationing that takes nothing into consideration. If you claim that you want to add a restriction to enter the lottery only to those who contributed over the social average or contributed the most to society then you are doing nothing but following an "according to contribution" system but you simply refuse to acknowledge this and simply want a ridiculous joke instead.


Then here I do not get why you quoted yourself, but I already addressed those


Your inclusion of this vignette from history is hardly supportive of the point you're trying to make -- the capital-C "Communist" countries were *not* popularly, democratically controlled.
Actually, it's a good thing they weren't, otherwise they would have fell on day 1 unable to produce anything but on the small disconnected scale after numerous attempts at organization failed. The Soviets were a legislative organization, they left the execution to the an executive organization such as the Central Executive Committee. Such a system was inevitable as long as the peoples' delegates, i.e. representatives, could not meet instantaneously. This is much more supporting of the point I'm trying to make than you seem to understand. There have been many experiments that based themselves on "popular will" and mobilizations that utterly failed forcing the governing bodies to fall back to the Soviet-style Socialism. Almost every revolution, in fact, based itself on popular will and mass mobilizations but they all failed ranging from the Americas to Africa to Europe to Asia. If we are to learn anything from history it is that such "mass will", "mass consciousness", "mass mobilizations", and whatnot CANNOT be counted on in theory, and empirically, in real life. Oh and yes, those system had at one time quite popular and democratically controlled system with the Soviets in the USSR, the popular committees and organizations during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, the committees in Korea, the labor mass organizations in Cuba, etc. None of those countries started a Blanquist revolution, they all based themselves on mass mobilizations and utilized them. The thing was that they didn't work out so well. In case you ask, I get this information from "The Red Flag: A History of Communism" should you need a source.


Yes -- this is the point that *I'm* making.
So much for organization in an "according to need" free-for-all, but yes, even then we have seen what took place in China, which was the conquest of the part you quoted.


Whatever.
No argument here, yet again.


Hey, look, I'm not the omnipotent puppetmaster here -- the point of politics, from the here-and-now going-forward, is to assert some *feasible* approaches to mass concerns so that potentialities are increased for success. There's plenty I *would* 'sign-off' on, but then I'm just one guy using his head to plow through the matters at hand -- that's all.
The thing is what you are proposing is not at all feasible. What you are putting forward is no something that can by any means increase the potential for success but minimize them and destroy the Earth with it. Nevertheless, this is admission from you that you "cannot by any means ensure or guarantee that you will be able to create that "political will" or even what you assume would ever come to fruition." This would also become a much, much worse problem as we consider the fact that your "feasible" approaches are based on false assumptions of superproductivity, mass organization, everyone actually caring, abundance, each working his best, and so on. These cannot happen in real-life, and if they do not then you just sent the whole revolution down the drain. The reason why I use economics and vast criticism to try to form a theoretical system is that I attempt my best to not depend on such fallacious false assumptions but attempt to take the worst possible scenario or even the models and concepts used today. This way, if things do not go according to plan and instead people organize, achieve superproductivity, etc. etc. then that is by everything something better but which I did not base anything upon that if does not take place I would destroy everything.

[quoet]Glad you asked -- I have a model that I developed a few years ago for just such an occasion as this. I will be excerpting from it in order to respond to specific theoretical points in a consistent way.[/quote]
I didn't understand anything from that, could you explain or at least use a simple layout? The English used is very abstract, vague, and choppy... Are you essentially stating the needs would be determined by pre-planned demand and requests? If so then that is a disaster if based on an "according to need" system rather than an "according to contribution" system which already solves this if it has a pricing mechanism or market. Nevertheless, I see a lot of assumptions in that model's text such as "all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status"
You cannot ensure that anyone will be liberated from all "coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status" because you cannot even ensure that you can fulfill some or all their basic human living needs.

You also state "no surplus value (subsistence living)" but then you claim that "no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property". That is essentially the extraction of surplus value and the taking away of it from the worker by the commune and others. There's still surplus value and that surplus value is being forcibly taking away from the worker. This simply is surplus value that is being taken away.

You also claim that:
"Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want with the privisio [sic] that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only - after a certain period of disuse any personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property."
And how do you determine if the material is in disuse? Do you perform regular visit and home searches to look for any "disused" products? You also make yet another false assumption that can send your whole chart down the drain, you claim that "individuals may posses and consume as much material as they want" so long as the actually use them. You cannot by ANY MEANS ensure that individuals can consume as much material as they want because you cannot ensure that you have a superabundance of resources. If you cannot ensure that superabundance then consumers will need to have the goods they desire rationed at which point that entire point would fall apart as they will not be able to consume "as much as they want" but "as much as they are given". Hell, even if a ration system is implemented in your system it would be completely unable to operate on the basis of "according to need" but would have to resort to an "according to contribution" system in order to not only ration the goods but also relieve the scarcity by encouraging people to work harder to receive more thus boosting the economy.


By asking, essentially:

"every person in a locality has a standard one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily"

Political demands? You mean consumer demands? This system is ridiculous. What if people put diamonds as their first priority? What if they put the largest size of plasma TV? What if they fill 1-10 with luxury goods? What if they fill the entire list with luxuries? Good luck then with that ridiculous system. These individuals would be receiving all the luxury goods while the rest who did not have a higher priority do not. There is absolutely no limitation on what goods you can add to the list, no restrictions on entry, and absolutely no reason to be modest in your demands. Any car that would be produced would not be based on who ACTUALLY needs it, but based on who has it high on his priority list. The thing is, you cannot by any means ensure that the list would be created with others in mind rather than the maximization of personal needs, desires, and utility. If I add a car to the top of the list, I may already have a car or may not need one as much as others but I did so just to obtain a car. I would be completely justified in doing so and there's no stopping me as I can come up with many reasons as to why I need another car if I already have one or no reasons at all if I have no car but do not "need" one. This system is prone to abuse, does not reflect actual demand, has no restrictions on entry, does not properly show prioritization as there is no sacrifice in the form of money paid or otherwise, and does not even account for contribution to give out goods but on what's numbered where on the list by anyone regardless of his impact and contribution on society.


Well, by definition those needs and desires that are 'more important' are more important.
Such as computers? 22 inch or 24 inch screens? 16:9 or 16:10? Black or white? Desktops or laptops? Televisions? Plasma? LCD? LED? TFT LCD? Matte or shiny finish? No? Then clothing? Cotton or wool? Polystyrene? Short or long sleeves? Polo shirts or ordinary T-shirts? Hamburgers or steaks? Eggs or salads? Caffeine or tea? Chocolate or chocolates with peanuts? HOW do you determine which is more important? Your 1-to-infinity list won't solve this as it cannot properly account for all the possibilities. I can't say "I want a red, polo shirt, size M" for example nor can I say "I want a 200" Television (or the largest), plasma, black". You need to impose restrictions on what individuals can demand, and that's best done through a pricing mechanism which properly shows how much people actually need something as they are forced to exchange their hard earned money in exchange for the goods they so eagerly want. If they do not want the goods that much then they do not front the cost. However, if the goods were free and based on "need" as determined by a petty list then I'll just add every luxury good as a priority at the top of the list with no reason to back off and then add the basic needs at the bottom. That way if the luxury goods cannot be found or produced, which is very likely, they jump directly down to food, but if these luxury goods are found they are brought to me as a priority above all else and probably above all others if the actually manage to list their needs properly without "cheating" or abusing the system in place.


True, but what does this have to do with what we're discussing -- ?
Read the context. The USSR was a real-life example. Production of what was considered "most important" (bread) was focused on at the cost of the other goods which were considered "less important" (butter, meat, etc.) but still in demand thus causing the large lines for these goods. I'm not even necessarily talking about the last days of the USSR.

"What determines "most important needs and desires"? Someone's most important needs and desires could be computers, the other games, the other food, the other vacations, the other books, the other cars, the other electronics, etc. how can you determine who needs what most and which of these billions of demands are to be "most important" since you have no market nor even a pricing mechanism? Even then, these "most important" needs and desires being fulfilled at the expense of other needs and desires which are not "most important" would lead to problems as many people see their needs and desires not being fulfilled. The USSR et al. determined that bread and other such "most important" products were to be prioritized over other goods such as butter and meat. Consumer products were almost entirely neglected until the late years of the USSR and even then they failed."


---
Those hyphens... They never cease. Must be a Marx syndrome.


No, it's a *characterization*, or implicit *value judgment* on what you're arguing.
Yes, an ad hominem logical fallacy. Attempting to prove the argument wrong by fallaciously attacking the one making the claim as using the same claim as a right-winger. You are not arguing against the claim, but against the one making the claim. You have not even touched the claim itself nor argued against it. As for that statement above by you, I seriously do not understand why you are resorting to an "argument by verbosity" logical fallacy as well. You are very capable of keeping things in English rather than vague nonsense that barely anyone understand. Nevertheless, that "characterization" is an actual ad hominem logical fallacy as you are attacking the one making the claim or the "origin" of the claim rather than the claim itself. Still a logical fallacy.


It is *not* a vital point -- that's why I'm dismissing it as a 'scare tactic'. You wildly extrapolate consumption in a vacuous attempt to "prove" a kind of materialistic entropy.
First of all, it does by any means matter if something is vital or not or if it is exaggerated or not as it is still a claim.
Secondly, more argument from verbosity.
Thirdly, you cannot by any means dismiss any claim without properly arguing against it. Claiming that something is a "scare tactic" and thus avoiding it is a cop-out and a logical fallacy. I do not need to keep repeating this in the future.
Fourthly, I do not "wildly extrapolate" anything, there IS a FINITE amount of goods on Earth, many of which that we depend on are NON-RENEWABLE such as oil, coal, iron, etc. ANY system that wants to function and keep humanity from killing itself off has to take this into consideration. Unless you have an infinite amount of resources then and only then can you speak of fulfilling all demand without costs or worries, but you do not, you have a finite amount of resources that must be rationed properly. This "rationed properly" is also necessary as it is necessary to reward those who contribute to their society rather than reward those who do nothing or contribute little.
Fifthly, you still did not use an argument there.


Yes, this assertion is simply based on the technological prowess / capacities that have been developed to-date.
Bullshit. You cannot by any means, as Slavoj Zizek explained, take the results of today's society and put them in your imaginary society with a different mode of production as your own results. The results of today's society are due to the superexploitation of Third World labor, markets, the rationing of goods, the price mechanism, capital accumulation, inequal wealth distribution, militaristic and economic imperialism, entrepreneurship and risk investment, the financial market and speculation, boom and bust cycles, and so on. You want to do away with all of those and yet claim that you will have not only the same results but even better results because this can be done today with the current technology and capacity? :laugh: You cannot have the same results in your same as we have in the current system, especially if you're trying to give everyone as much as they "need". Seriously, less Utopian daydreams and fallacies, they're only leading you to the destruction of your own system. You need to take everything into consideration, this is exactly why I stopped supporting an "according to need" system as it bases itself on nothing but false assumptions.



Whatever.

Again, all I can do is make arguments here -- I'd gladly add my signature to an appropriate document if that meant I'd be 'guaranteeing' it.
The thing is, you can't and are not making arguments. What about your signature? Your signature has nothing at all with guaranteeing anything. You cannot guarantee that your system has any of which you speak of, whether you sign an appropriate document or otherwise. The only means by which you can make such assumptions is if you have a magical crystal ball with the ability to see the future. Since, of course, that is not the case and you previously claimed that you are not an omnipotent being then you CANNOT guarantee nor ensure anything. Guaranteeing means ensuring that it will exist and take place, your signature has little to not value in that direction.


And here I was really hoping you would *like* it....
Why would anyone like it unless they're an idiot?


'Solidarity' and 'cooperation' are *not* moralistic -- they are synonymous with 'symbiotic interest'.
The "synbiotic interest" of yours is nonsense. If that were the case then people today would already operate on that basis rather than requiring markets and priving mechanisms. In fact, symbiotic interest would only be relevant if the system were based on survival and threat of extinction where everyone depends on another living in small communities such as tribes. In a fully-fledged economy this symbiotic interest is done away as altruism and memory no longer exist as they did in kin-based societies. You cannot count on any other, others are not basing their existence on you, and you have little to no direct contact to know and judge if they are working properly or not as in the case of tribal and kin-based societies. You need an accounting mechanism, such as a pricing mechanism with or without a market (Market Socialist or even State-owned and created), to ensure that other individuals are actually contributing to society in that "symbiotic interest" of yours to ensure that others will do the same. Money, pricing mechanisms, and the market are capable of doing so through the remuneration of work and labor with the appropriate credits. In other words, I fundamentally believe that a significantly high enough populations you need something approximating markets to have cooperation. Benefits must be proportional to aid given or cooperation breaks down. At small enough or simple enough scales cooperation can be maintained though altruism because memory is an effective accounting mechanism. Memory keeps tabs on who helped me and who didn't. When the size of society exceeds a certain threshold and the complexity along with the complexity of production there are limits to the memories capacity to police who is producing value and who isn't. Something must stand in for memory in a "meta conscious", that is, "beyond a singular consciousness". This is a price system. The market serves as an extended mind aggregating information because no "one person" possesses all the necessary information to organize society and then position us like pawns to engage in these tasks, there are no human gods. Your assumptions based on cooperation which you claim to be "symbiotic interest" are ridiculous as soon as you surpass the human limitation of the number of active human relationships you have known as Dunbar's number.


The problem with your 'pricing mechanism' formulation is that it begs how the underlying unit of value ('price') would be determined. If markets are to be relied on then capital itself will become commodified, as into capital goods, with full financialization to follow, bringing back full-blown private property.
Nonsense. Private property can only arise if the state and society allow for it to arise. The state acts as an organization ensuring that Capitalism cannot and does not return, that private property does not and cannot return, and that the bourgeoisie cannot and do not return. The party and the state ensure that this does not happen through their political intervention and even economic intervention through various means such as only allowing state-owned means of production, cooperatives and state-owned means of production, or solely cooperatives as in the case of Market Socialism. The markets, furthermore, need not at all be free but can very well be simulated through the state acting and managing a "virtual economy" as we find today in the case of retail websites, Amazon, ebay, etc. Should any financial markets and speculation that would prove to be harmful to society, they would be shutdown. Capitalism can only come back to fruition if it is not inhibited, if private property exists, and if the state refuses to suppress it or redirect it. As for the question of capital you will need to clarify in what sense do you use "capital", is it in the Marxist sense as being a social relation unique to Capitalism or as in the mainstream economic sense of being an asset of production?

The unit of value is not actually price in an economy with a disequilibrium amongst other conditions. Value only equals price under the conditions that Marx took into consideration of a perfect theoretical market economy with a supply-demand equilibrium, no competition, closed markets, etc. Nevertheless, the price of commodities would be determined by supply and demand, cost of production, cost of labor, and so on as they are today minus any influence of a financial market, speculation, commodity dumping, and so on.


I actually have no contention with this principle, and will note that my own model is congruent with it.
I wonder how your model agrees with such a principle if it bases itself upon an "according to need" model rather than an "according to contribution" model.


I term your method as being 'moralistic' because there is no *political* approach present in it -- the only thing remaining that *could* serve as a driving force would *have* to be moralistic.
And I find this to be false. For a pricing mechanism to exist, it alone acts as a driving force, not moralism. The political approach present in it would be objectified and found with the existence of a state and party that run, manage, and plan society. I do not believe communism to be viable without a state, party, or any planning organization whatsoever. There is no better driving force than the profit motive, not one that arises from passive lack of action but one that is directly proportional to contribution and production. I do not base anything on morals, you do so with your "political approach" that is nothing other than claims of solidarity, symbiotic interests and relationships, cooperation based on mutual needs and interests, etc. without the framework of a market or pricing mechanism. To maintain solidarity, symbiotic interests and relationships, etc. morality is a strict necessity as is altruism, both of which are disastrous in such a case.


No, again, it's apples-and-oranges.
Actually, no. Need, given no restrictions, is demand. Demand would solely be possible given your contribution to society. If one indiividual were to aspire to fulfill his actual demand rather than notional demand then his is to contribute more to society. That individual is not restricted from achieving the ability to call for actual demand unless by his physical and material limitations. The more the individual contributes, the more his demand is fulfilled. That is to say, if an individual desires products worth $200, he by himself seeks a way to obtain $200. The only means to obtain these $200 is through contribution, ergo the worker has every incentive and reason to contribute until he reached $200 worth of goods. Contribution would thus attempt by every means to equate demand, if not then demand would be adjusted to the finalized contribution. Either way the answer is, yes, need and demand can actually be reflected in contribution.


I resoundingly disagree.
That's it? That's not even an argument.


If you're so cautious and 'pragmatic' in your formulations then why bother even attempting to transcend the capitalist mode of production -- ?
Because the Capitalist mode of production is problematic when it comes to issues of contribution, accumulation, financial markets, speculation, exploitation, private property, passive "contribution" and remuneration for that, etc. etc. Of course you ignored what I said previously and did not even reply, but alas...


This shows the economism at the core of your position -- as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness, or ability to reflect on its own directions and outcomes.
Economism is at the core of my position as long as economism exists today and is depended upon. We need to use what we have today at our disposal and base our theories upon that. They currently work better than what we have ever created throughout history and as such if we use such economism and proceed on that basis then our society cannot possible become worse off, but if it appropriates "mass consciousness" then all the merrier, but we did not base anything on that point and would not fail entirely should that "mass consciousness" not take place. Nevertheless, yes, "as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness" because there is absolutely no guarantee, assurance, nor proof that it will have anything such as that mythical dream of yours. Again, Dunbar's number, lack of accountability, lack of contribution equaling or surpassing remuneration, lack of personal relationships with the rest of society, etc. etc. This "mass consciousness" of yours is what you previously referred to as moralism. You expect mass altruism and morality to dominate where everyone would contribute for the betterment of society and each other and all that Utopian shit. That will not happen and you have absolutely no proof, evidence, or guarantees that it will happen. The only instance where such a "mass consciousness" ever took place was during emotionally tense periods of strife and conflict on one side against another such as in the case of revolutions or in small-scale societies where memory and personal relationships solve the issue. The directions and outcomes of society cannot be reflected without a pricing mechanism or market. In large-scale societies memory is objectified and crystallized through money. See "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota.


By reducing all human motivation to that of the self-absorbed individual you are ignoring any and all other social possibilities.
Which is exactly why if they do not occur the system is not affected negatively, but if they do happen to occur the system is affected positively. I reduce the system to something that is ensured, manageable, empirically tried and tested, and effective. People are capable of ensuring that they work properly and thus can reward themselves properly for their own actions and sanction themselves for any negative actions, however individuals are not capable of doing the same for numbers in the millions surpassing Dunbar's number and the capabilities of memory accounting. I can count on myself that I work hard, but I cannot ensure that others will do the same because I cannot control them, read their minds, nor observe their actions and hold them accountable.


Sorry.
Huh?


Then production would simply become *demand*-driven, spurring the necessity for future production.
Yes and demand is actually the "need" in your system. Production would thus be "spurred" to satisfying demand (need). Of course if you consider need not to be demand but to be a part of demand then all the better! Claiming that wants and needs are represented by demand is even better.


You make it sound as if there would be no *news* whatsoever about *anything* -- certainly economic pricing is not the only *information* that exists about material quantities.
Propose another that doesn't involve a mythical hivemind of "mass consciousness". I'll be waiting. Economic pricing is the best that we have to calculate and transfer information, fairly and effectively ration finite goods, send and receive information about production methods, send and receive feedback information on efficiency and productivity, and send and receive information about the material quantities.


---
I guess these were the hyphens that were left over and not used according to your quote of hyphens to use?


Here you *are* positing a mass social conscience, or politics -- but this would be at odds with everything else that you've described as material motivation, namely personal aggrandizement through societal contributions.
Not really, all I'm saying is that the individual is a part of society that needs to be given signals to contribute and be rewarded properly, nowhere did I speak of an "mass social conscience". If you consider a pricing mechanism to be a "mass social conscience", then yes and no. Yes that is directs, moves, transforms, signals, and spurs society into the right direction, no that it does not require, base itself upon, nor necessity any means of mass organizations, "mass social consciousness" (whatever that vague clump of terms you want it to mean) outside of the economic sphere. The contributions by the individuals would not be motivated by social contribution, but by individual contribution which in turn INDIRECTLY benefits society as a whole. I never said otherwise. In fact, what I have said is not by any means at odd with anything. In the case of material motivation and personal aggrandizement through societal contributions, this is what had been said "labor is a part of society that needs to be given an incentive to contribute more to society which in turn benefits every single other individual."

================================================== ==============



No, I understand what the meaning of the word slacker is. I'm saying that I don't really understand why you think the spectre of the slacker in a socialist society will be so haunting. They will exist, sure, but the idea that they will constitute some kind of existential threat to socialism? It has never really occurred to me and I don't see it as at all plausible.
Yes, they will by every means be a threat to Socialism. When individuals receive as any other despite little to no contribution at all then this breeds an infectious disease that spreads like wildfire. There would be no direct accountability nor assurance for the rest that they can count on others working their best. Individuals who observe that others receive as much as they do despite the lack of effort as being something legal, they would then seek to emulate with the claim that "he's doing it, why should I not? I'm doing all the work while he's doing nothing, why should I do all the work while he does nothing"? The workers would be unable to do anything about it as it is completely legal. Slacking in the case of labor would act as a disincentive to labor. If such an action is completely legal with remuneration according to need rather than contribution then individuals would seek to maximize their profits and benefits at the lowest cost, they would follow suit through slacking. I cannot by any means see how you would consider this anything "minor". Efficiency, productivity, production, and so on would slow down or even cease to function unless forced and coerced otherwise.


I realise that you see yourself as trying to build a rational, objective, value-free vision of socialism, one which doesn't need to resort to hippy college bullshit ideas like solidarity and mutual aid. Fine; you do you.

But I am saying that these are not so much the "tools" that socialists use to explain how their socialism can function efficiently, these things simply are socialism (at least to very large number of us). A society that goes around demonizing so-called slackers, and which utilizes ruthless competition to endlessly drive up productivity so we can have more and more stuff because...well, just because? It isn't really what I'd consider to be socialism, or communism, at all.
It isn't at all "just because", it is in order to advance society, progress it, and allow it to grow by fulfilling DEMAND (need + wants). You cannot imagine a society to meet the needs of its billions of people if it is based on slacking, lack of productivity, lack of efficiency, and yet still somehow imagine that it will continue functioning! The USSR was not able to meet the many demands of its citizens, observe what happened. If you are to ever satisfy the demands of people, you are to increase productivity in order to increase supply. Again, I don to understand how you can have an issue with this or a problem with this. How do you honestly expect us to meet the needs of society and its demands if we cannot even produce enough goods to meet those demands? Hell, how do you even imagine a situation of superabundance if you cannot even ensure the bare minimum of efficiency and productivity? Exactly. You can imagine a society to be "given" as superabundant, extremely productive, and satisfying all demand, but you cannot have it so without first making it so.


It might be precisely because you are an economics student that you seem psychically unable to grasp my simple point. There is nothing within the actual term "effort" that entails that more effort will always result in us producing more stuff. We can say that effort which is productive will be productive, and nothing more.
And you forget that I may also be in constant debate with economics students and Capitalists that know what they're arguing about to such an extent as to pressure me into a crystallization of my form of Socialism? I am presented with issues that I cannot answer with traditional Socialism and Communism that I have to look for alternatives. Over time, the criticism and reading develops into a system that can very much work and answer many criticisms levied against Socialism and Communism. Nevertheless, back to the point. "Effort" alone need not ensure increased production, indeed, such as in the case of trying to bash your head into a boulder in an attempt to break it. Increasing effort in such a case would not yield any positive effects in breaking the boulder, but may very well lead to you wasting your effort and bashing your head open. But, if one is to increase his effort in a mode of production that would act relative to effort put in, be it in the case of remuneration or production, then it would lead actually result in producing more stuff. If you put in more effort at finishing more accounting papers, you produce more of those papers or better quality papers. If you put more effort in assembling widgets, you produce better quality or numerically superior widgets, depending on what you utilize your efforts upon and what the system in place is. Effort which is productive is, indeed, productive. If that effort is productive then it produces better or more goods. Such effort must then properly be remunerated depending on the system in place, a point which I can expand upon a lot.


And is there a concept of "enough" in your system? Why would we continue to drive up productivity when we have enough stuff already?
"Enough" would only exist if demand is "enough". We need to continue driving up productivity to satisfy demand and be able to satisfy future demand if necessary. The thing is, we never have enough stuff, but if we do then there isn't much of a reason to increase productivity until it becomes necessary again to do so.


It may also be that productive labour is tiring, boring, and alienating. Perhaps we should make labour less productive but more enjoyable? Or we could increase labour productivity until we reach a certain point, and then cut back working hours so people have more leisure time? Where is any of this in your vision?
Part of it does not exist in my "vision", and for good reason. Productive labor that is tiring, boring, and alienating would be paid more than other forms of labor. Why? Firstly, it depends really, such a job would not have enough demand, to create demand the state or the cooperative would increase pay to attract more labor. Secondly, productive labor, being productive, receives more in terms of remuneration as it sends more in terms of contribution. Labor is never enjoyable and must be never enjoyable, labor is work, one does not enjoy "work". If you are to enjoy work then you can do so in your free time with anything you find enjoyable. And yes, when you have reached the optimum amount of labor productivity to satisfy all demand then it is quite possible to cut back on working hours and increase leisure time.


I don't automatically associate bureaucracy with planning. For me planning wouldn't necessarily have to mean top-down centralisation.

By "bureaucracy" I meant the kind of commonsensical, derisory, FOX News-esque meaning of the term - pointless box-ticking, micromanaging, jumping through legal hoops, etc. To return to the original point then: I think distribution according to contribution could be just as "bureaucratic" in the above sense as distribution according to need.
Why would it be bureaucratic in the above sense? I don't get it. Please explain how distribution according to contribution would be "bureaucratic" as I do not get your point. I know that you gave me the definition of how you used the term "bureaucracy" but I do not see on what basis would "according to contribution" be "just as 'bureaucratic'".



Actually they are. Superexploitation decreases costs of production which means that it can utilize an increased amount of labor hired which leads to decreased prices. Decreased prices allows for higher consumption and use of those cheaper goods in larger quantities or simply being able to access them. The larger access to these goods allows for a vaster array of information and knowledge being dispersed to each and every individual. Each of the consumers can then use the goods to produce other goods, such as if they're raw materials for instance. With a lower cost of living and lower cost of production, prices would also decrease and still maintain the same or even an increased profit. If price do or do not increase relative to a lower cost of production then profits will either way increase allowing the entrepreneurs and bourgeoisie more money to invest elsewhere and in new technology to win over the competition. Imperialist wars ensure that foreign competition is low and allows for the expansion of the local national market to the international market. As you can see, it matters. A lot.

[quote]I agree that communism cannot be a system where efficiency doesn't matter, where wasting resources is completely OK and where there should be no labour accountability at all. But I don't see a full blown market as being necessary to ensure these things.
You don't need a "full blown market" for that. You need a pricing mechanism with planning and accounting to ensure that people actually pay for the goods they consume, forcing them not to waste as they would with no measurement of worth and "value".


Yes, we could have shadow pricing, we could make use of other technologically advanced accounting techniques, and we could have some form of labour credit market for some select items. Yet still, however, I see the main economic mechanism being a form of planning. This wouldn't be primarily a behemoth government giving directives out to the lowly masses either, but a system where people learn skills by being taught by others in their own workplace, and where we help each other and cooperate as much as possible. Information can be exchanged through a market, but it can also be exchanged by people talking to each other and teaching by example.
You can have all of that, but you would be approaching "my" system until you get to the "yet" part. You need to have a behemoth government for proper planning, you idea of people taking to each other is quite ridiculous and completely ineffective. People cannot go outside and discuss billions of commodities, billions of production processes, with billions of people in thousands of communities all over the damned world. You need something to simplify that and this comes in the form of money or credits. A behemoth government is preferable over what you suggest as that behemoth government has everything it needs at its disposal, manages everything in a centralized form, and utilizes the pricing mechanism and a market if need be for its information and calculations. A behemoth government knows what is being produced, with what materials, where it is being sent, how it is being sent, where the goods are needed, where the goods are being sold the most, which types of goods are in demand, etc. etc. Think of it as playing a complicated Sim City or Total War game, would it be preferable that each block or community had its own autonomous decision-making system trying to talk to each other and teaching each other or a central figure (yourself) knowing exactly what's happening and managing that society accordingly? Teaching people skills in their own workplace is not by any means similar nor an alternative to central planning by a behemoth government. I don't even see how teaching someone skills in a workplace is even planning in the first place. Even then, you claim that you can help each other and cooperate, how are you planning to do so with billions of decentralized information being only connected through word of mouth by billions of people?


Yes there are finite resources, but only in capitalism is need considered to be something infinite. At some level there must be an objective measure, where it is reasonable to judge that the amount people in society are consuming constitutes "enough" and so thereby the concept "scarcity" loses it force.
The "enough" also exists in Capitalism, that's called a demand and supply equilibrium. Of course though since Capitalism is nothing but the unorganized, unsupervised, anarchy of production rather than the organized, supervised, and planned production, the factories will not cease production or produce less until demand outweighs supply, but continue production until they reach a crisis of overproduction. Nevertheless, "enough" is there, but the bourgeoisie have no reason to follow it in the case of Capitalism. Until we reach a state of superabundance then and only then can you speak of a system "according to need", but until then you need a means to achieve that. Nevertheless, what do you propose this "objective measure" to be?


If people are working extra hard to gain power and influence over the organisation, this can have detrimental effects on the organisation and have an oppressive effect on those who merely work as hard as they believe is necessary and is expected of them
People shouldn't work for a specific amount because they believe only that much is necessary or that much is expected of them, but they should work as much as they can to receive as much as they can. Society will determine when that is "enough" through an equilibrium.Oh and if working extra hard and contributing more to society is something "detrimental" and "oppressive" then so be it. Let those who are left behind actually work as hard or contribute as much to their society. This would give them an incentive to outperform.


Ah yes, a perfectly circular definition. Spoken like a true economist.
Uh, yes, it is what it is. See my emphasis on this point in my reply to ckaihatsu.


There will be a question of neglect so long as there is a distinction between work life and social life. I don't think recognising that someone has obligations to loved ones is "individualistic".
Obligations to loved ones take place after work, not during work. Work and social life will always be distinct, especially if you plan on achieving superabundance and superproductivity to meet the needs of everyone on Earth. Society is his family and the extension of it, isn't that what Marx and Engels spoke of?


Well, who makes planning decisions within your economy?
The government.


You have the same problem don’t you? Or does the market decide these things for you?
Remuneration according to contribution means that if you overachieve, you receive more, if you underachieve, you receive less. It's solved as simple as that.


How can he have an exit strategy when he only receive goods by working in the factory, doing whatever work society has deemed appropriate? (Or have I missed something?)
He can work anywhere that he wants as long as society deems it socially valuable. The exit strategy would be to produce goods, pay back the costs, and keep the goods himself (the value he embedded within the goods). The exit strategy is that he can keep the fruits of his labor as opposed to not being able to do so under your system where all production is appropriated by society regardless of the desires of the worker.


I'm assuming you are just irritated at my usage of these terms in this context and not the terms itself. Otherwise I would be puzzled as to why you would ever call yourself a socialist.
There is no one form of Socialism.


I don't consider this to have much to do with democracy. The US political system is not democratic and neither is the US music industry, which is controlled by just 4 corporate groups.
Money is means of voting in the economy. In the case of the music industry, whenever you buy a music disc, you are voting with your money, essentially saying that you value the product that much and wish to support the continued production of that disc. It's a feedback mechanism essentially. As for the US political system it is a form of democracy, representative democracy to be specific. People are still voting for the US politicians. The decisions those two fields and millions of others elsewhere show that the most popular decision isn't always the best decision. In fact, go join a religious grouping, start a vote on abortion, stem cell research, or contraception. There you go. And yes, I used a biased group in an attempt to show you the extreme, google "argumentum ad absurdum". Now imagine this on the social level where you cannot ensure that bias does not exist (it will exist) and that such bias may be as stupid or ignorant based on faith as religion.


I have heard of them but don't know much about them. But I know just enough about the basic theory to say that your opinion that these theorems prove democracy to be unviable is utterly moronic and absurd.
Not really. From another post:

"Democracy can actually discard the majority will in favor of minority will based on the Condorcet paradox. Arrow and Condorcet demonstrate democracy cannot obtain majority will. Selection processes that have more than 3 options are intransitive and thus A>B>C>A. What democracy can say about societies preferences when selection of 3 outcomes are presented is that A is better than B and B will always beat C but C beats A, this is analogous to me saying that I like chocolate ice-cream more than vanilla and vanilla more than strawberry but strawberry is better then chocolate. I cannot have two favorites, but paradoxically I do so which is better? It’s impossible to determine. Society cannot really have a will if it's will is in direct conflict with itself and mathematical mutilation is necessary to resolve this paradox which just means the architect of the aggregation is either deliberately or arbitrarily deciding present and future outcomes. No distinction between pure, direct or representative democracy can resolve this paradox. Depending on how we hold run-offs we can alter the majorities. It can be easily demonstrated with matrix math and illustrates that society truly doesn’t have a will, individuals possesses will. Depending on how we hold run-offs we can represent the majorities will as either preferring C or preferring A."

In other words, direct democracy or democracy in generally cannot reflect the majority's will nor the minority's will.


Is any formalised voting procedure perfect? Of course not. Does that mean democracy is worthless? Of course not. You are committing the all-or-nothing fallacy.
If they are not perfect and yet we have other alternatives then we need to use those alternatives. So yes, either democracy is better or it's not.


Democracy is a fluid and holistic process, which involves discussion, persuasion, horse-trading, compromises and consensus-building, fighting and making-up: the ranking of preferences is at best just one small part of it.
Imaging having to do all that over every single decision. Completely problematic, undesirable, extremely slow and time consuming, and will inevitably lead to individuals stepping down purely to get the process going. Imagine you have to do that for the entire economy which you proposed to solve through democratic discussion, cooperation, talking, and whatnot. It is unviable and ridiculous.


Consensus is an important ideal (not always possible, I grant you) because every person is sovereign, and ultimately society is never just an aggregation of individual wills but a coming-together of sovereign equals. Notice that at no point in my answer do I concern myself with "productivity".
That's because at no point are you concerned with feasibility and reality but instead are concerned with what you imagine your ideal Utopian society to be. Every person is sovereign, but no every person is right or should have his opinion approved and legitimized through a form of consensus. People are not equal, but they are sovereign. Individuals differ on the basis of intelligence, opinions, beliefs, and ideals, and that is exactly why our claim that "society" is "coming-together of sovereign equals". People are not equals, some will be wrong, some will be correct, some will offer a third, fourth, or fifth atlernative, while others will completely opt out and that is exactly why the decisions, the aggregation of individual wills, is never the proper representation nor reflection of the individual wills that constitute them or that are represented by those decision. Consensus is ridiculous and rarely, if ever, possible. And no, we must not strive to achieve it, especially not if you want to base your economy on democracy, talks, and discussions.


I can't begin to imagine what was going through your mind when you wrote the above. Truly shocking :scared:
Contradictions exist. Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Contradictions lead to conflict. What is the best and most free framework for contradictions to exist together? Freedom. What happens when contradictions exist together? Conflict. As simple as it gets.


No real arguments here, just restatements of your position.
Not really, I do not think I was justifying rational choice theory amongst other things previously, but I do recall calling your system "mythical" and whatnot before.


If by "maximizing their own individual utility" you mean something like "people will usually try and act in such a way that they can achieve what they want to achieve" then yes, fine. But this is an entirely circular, entirely vacuous statement; it is common sense.
And that common sense is what you are denying. If you call that common sense then I do not need to justify anything when I speak of an "according to contribution" system being better and much more preferable than an "according to need" system. Maximization of utility and all.


If by "maximizing their own individual utility" you mean something like "people will always work to become rich so they can receive company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables" then no, this is capitalist culture, not a universal truth about human beings. It is neoliberal dogma.
Not really. "Achieving what they want to achieve" is the same as "people will always work to become rich so they can receive company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables", that is of course if they "want to achieve" richness, company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables. You claim those are solely existing for Capitalism? They don't exist for other system in such a specific form, but they are similar to other system in a generalized form. What are the "richness", "company bonuses", "increased profits", and "expensive consumables" in Capitalist if anything but what people "want to achieve", i.e. what is it but the maximization of their own individual utility? This can be observed in an "according to contribution" system where individuals contribute according to how many goods they want, how many returns, to achieve what they want? If what they want to achieve in Capitalism is "increased profits", "company bonuses", becoming "rich", etc. then we can safely depend on that axiom for any future system to work as this is nothing but "common sense" (in your own words) but for Capitalism. If we are able to replicate these desires for other systems then we are ensured such desires and the proper action on behalf of the individuals to receive them take place. Under Capitalism, the attempt to achieve those goals is what the maximization of individual utility is which you called common sense. I do not see the problem here at all. Yes, different forms to achieve the maximization of individual utility differs from system to system, but under Capitalism it is what it is and you justified it as I showed the direct relationship between the second interpretation and the first interpretation which you called "common sense".

Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing with being rich as long you PERSONALLY work for it under a Socialist system. Richness in a Socialist society as the one I support only reflect personal contributions to society and ergo merit and a measure of "thanks" by society. Think of credits given as points for contribution. It is only under class-based systems that richness is vile as it is based off of the labor of others, the exploitation of others, and the enslavement of others rather than the personal contributions and labor of the individual in question. What is wrong with company bonuses when you strove hard to achieve them and deserve them? What is wrong with increased profits if you are increasing your contribution to society as well? What's wrong with being able to afford expensive consumables if you have accumulated enough credits in exchange for your contributions to society? After all, "maximizing their own individual utility" is common sense, right?


The problem is obviously that the guy with a 90 IQ is probably going to struggle to look after himself and live an independent life, so will need more resources than someone more capable. This is precisely not to treat everyone like a clone, but to have a social system that attempts to cater to every individual's unique needs.
How? By treating them all the same? By allowing a person with an IQ of 90 to receive as much as a person with an IQ of 170 and forcing and encouraging the latter to work less as he receives no more if he works more? Ridiculous nonsense. The guy with an IQ of 90 can apply for social support and welfare, but in no way must all society bend down and make all the unique individuals equal. Since they are inequal, they must be treated according to that inequality, those down the scale would be aided but those high on the scale must never be punished for being what they are.


Working for the benefit of one's society is obviously a praiseworthy act, and so I wouldn't say I'm against rewarding this type of behaviour. But there is another concern that rewarding people for doing good actually risks demeaning the act, especially if resources are finite.
Demeans the act? Really now? If I pay you $1000 to aid a homeless person with my own money then the act is being demeaned? No. In fact, if you desire more $1000, you can repeat the same act and you would be proud of it both for helping others and for receiving a reward for doing so. Resources are finite, but that is why they are rationed to acts that are socially positive.


As I’ve said, yes I agree that this type of socialism would be an improvement over what we have. But to me socialism is not just a more rational – “rational” in this hypertrophied, reified sense - but also a more human system. Do you simply disregard the earlier Marx’s writings on alienation? I think they are important.
Yes, I disregard what Marx wrote on alienation. I also disregard what he said on the question of the division of labor. I also do not oppose commodity fetishism, or at least I see no reason not to, you may convince me otherwise. This is a more human system, but not the same as what Marx envisioned to be a Utopian "according to need" society.


Capitalism is, yes, a class system based on accruing economic benefits to the bourgeoisie and the owners of capital. But it is also a reified system whereby social processes seem to happen “behind the backs” of people, and where strict instrumental, functional rationality rides roughshod over people’s personal autonomy. I am worried that you have recognised the former but failed to recognise the latter.
People's personal autonomy is in achieving what they want to achieve, which you called common sense. Under Capitalism and such systems, strict instrumental, functional rationality does not thus ride over anything but in fact goes hand in hand with people's own autonomy. Of course, Capitalism breaches autonomy through other means, but not through this form, through the act of resorting to rational decision-making or basing actions and ideas upon rationality. Social process happen behind people's backs indeed, but they can never happen in front of them in clear view due to the numerous complexities of today's world.


Again I find myself in a “yes that’s fine, but then on the other hand…” position when reading this. Socialism can be seen as a progressive social system that comes after capitalism in time, but also about launching a remorseless criticism of the ideas of progress, modernity and history themselves. As Walter Benjamin put it, it is also about “exploding the continuum of history”.
Well in that case you can join the Anarcho-Primmies in their wild, wild adventures. :lol:


So when you read Marx on the Gotha Programme, and he cried out that we should inscribe on our banners “From each according to his ability…” - you thought - “ah yes, this conforms with the latest dogmatism my economics teacher told me! Now I wonder how we can beat this out of all these lazy slacking yokels!”
I used to agree with Marx on this back when I was a fledgling Anarcho-Communist, but taking courses in economics, having lengthy debates with properly knowledgeable and advanced Capitalists has shown me that it's not viable at all, though still desirable. As for the claim of dogmatism, that is quite ironic to be honest. Economics does not base itself on dogmatism, but specific heterodox school of thought do, including those that base themselves on "according to need" just because Marx "cried out that we should inscribe on your banners 'From each according to his ability..."" whilst entirely missing the rhetoric of it all. Oh well.


Marx wrote:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

The “enslaving subordination of the individual” will end, work will “become not only a means of life but life’s prime want” and “all the springs of co-operative wealth [will] flow more abundantly”. This is a profoundly moral vision as much as anything.

And you can keep your “narrow horizon of bourgeois right” because I don’t believe it will be necessary.
And all of that made absolutely no sense in the terms of an argument. What that was just what you supposedly criticized me for - dogmatism. I'm surprised you don't see the irony. Do you see the irony? Do tell me. As for Marx's quotation, I don't agree with that passage, in fact it's full of Utopian rhetoric that belongs in the 19th century where entertainment was nothing but digging a hole in the ground, where something enjoyable and fulfilling for life was work. Today we have computers, we are more than capable of doing without work if given the chance.


The socialisation of production is as much a political condition for socialism as much as an economic condition. Large factories that capitalism creates will be the most important focal points of agitation and organisation.

To the extent that Marxists have praised productivist approaches, I see that as an aspect of their thought which is now somewhat outdated: they were talking about Russia, China, etc; desperately poor countries where scarcity was absolute. The same emphasis on relentless production is out of date in 2013.
Not really. "Relentless" production is needed to meet the "relentless" demands ("needs") of the world's population which you imagine to do with butter churners and hand knitting on the local level. I can't believe that you think of Marxists' praising of productivity approached to e "somewhat outdated" but do not think the same of the other various claims by Marx such as the quotation you presented me above.


It is true that there are benefits to centralisation, but I was simply saying that this isn’t the full story. What of Hayek and the Austrian school’s critique of state planning, for instance? Knowledge is also tacit and formed through habit, and cannot simply be read into a computer.
Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell were more than capable of addressing that issue. Same goes for knowledge and information. Knowledge need not be entered into a computer, there is no reason to do so, but can simply be utilized, observed, and put to use by the state.


It is just not true that bigger is always better.
Is that what she said? :lol:


And is it really true that a productive economy is an utterly standardized, identikit economy? Where would the renegade entrepreneur stand in your plans?
He'd be the state and demand. Individiduals with new inventions would present their inventions to the state, the state pays them in exchange for their inventions and then puts them into effect. The state is also more than capable of funding technology, innovation, etc.


This almost sounds like Stalinism (“no communist should care about freedom” - a statement Uncle Joe would surely have approved of?) and is at any rate a perspective that disregards the entire historical experience of the Soviet economy.
So what if "Uncle Joe" would have approved of it? Does that make it inherently bad? "Uncle Joe" approved of a lot of things including Marxism, Socialism, Communism, and so on. As for the historical experience of the Soviet economy, do tell.


And to the extent that orthodox Marxism is blind to all crushing political oppression that doesn’t strictly involve a class receiving surplus value for its private use, then that is a failure of the theory and not a defence of your position
How so? Do tell.


This presumes that technical innovation is handed down to factories from upon up high, which is the opposite of my point. What if a local community centre or something invents some new technology to deal with its own unique problems? Then there is an opportunity for others to learn and implement similar changes. This avenue for individual creativity could be lost under a system of extreme centralisation.
Not really. Why would the local community even need specific technology to deal with its own unique problems IN PRODUCTION when it can receive the same products from elsewhere produced in less constly and more convenient and appropriate areas? What is the point of building a river in a desert just as what is the point of spending extra thousands of dollars just to implement a technology that would allow production in god knows where when the same at a much lower cost can be done elsewhere? Nevertheless, I get your point, local committees can fix the problem themselves, request funds from the state, or the people in the area can organize and fund the project themselves. Thousands of possibilities that can exist without being hampered unless the state prevents them from doing so. Remember here that we are speaking of the centralization of production.


International trade is crowding out localized production, not making it thrive. How could you think it is?
Today's world. Factories abroad produce what is not available locally. Local shops open up, import the widgets, manufacture the widgets and assemble them into something else, sell them for profit. What's not to get? International trade allows for products which are not available locally to be imported from abroad. Are they destroying the local businesses? If the local businesses cannot compete with the more expensive imported goods then they need to make way for the international competition and adopt that method of production or risk going out of business. This means that people prefer the imported goods and vote for the imported goods through the utilization of money and exchange. If they do go out of business that is not something as bad as in the case of Capitalism, they are not left unemployed. Society itself is benefiting from this by keeping out the inefficient, inflexible, unproductive, and expenses goods and methods of production out of society while keeping the best in.


No, I don’t think it takes an economics PhD to work out that such practices are inefficient. I find your analysis of why we need price mechanisms to work out that such uses of energy are inefficient slightly amusing, because I don’t see how it isn’t painfully obvious.
You'd be surprised to meet the people I encounter when discussing "according to need" gift economies who base their entire theories on false assumptions whilst entirely rejecting any price mechanism. ;)1


Anyway, the point is that this is happening now, where we already have price mechanisms. Multinational corporations can drive down the cost of labour and of capital to such a degree that it is cheaper for them to import vegetables from different continents, than to pay famers from across the street to grow them. It cannot be just cost accounting that ends these practices; we need different social priorities too.
Yes, which is why "my" system is Socialist, not Capitalist. A lot of changes exist ranging from the end of private property to state planning. The reason why this is happening now is not because of the price mechanism, it would be much worse without it, but that the price mechanism alleviates such problems and instead leads to the fact that imported goods are better than local goods. Unless you mean this in any other way, of course, because your statement was quite vague. You don't think it was? "Multinational corporations can drive down the cost of labour and of capital to such a degree that it is cheaper for them to import vegetables from different continents, than to pay famers from across the street to grow them. "

They drive down the cost of labor where?
Capital defined by what terms, Marxist or mainstream "dogmatic" "economism"?
Cheaper for "them"? Who's "them"
Why would it be cheaper to import from other countries rather than pay for the farmer from accross the street?

Now after all of this, what's the problem here? Cheaper goods being imported from abroad is a GOOD THING as long as these goods are equal or better than the locally produced goods. It is better for society to adopt more efficient means than to stay with "traditional", "old", and inefficient means of production just for the sake of it. After all, you want superabundance to achieve "according to need", no?


I hear you loud and clear on suburban sprawl - the ugliest and most wasteful social form ever to emerge from human civilisation,

Lol? And why is that? Shall we begin the extermination process? Those human scum are killing Mother Earth with their concrete jungles they call homes, schools, daycares, factories, farms, and stuff! ANARCHY! BREAK WINDOWS! Ugg ohh uhg ah ah, agaaaa! [Anarcho-Primitivism, stick it to man, duuuude!]

[Jimmie Higgins]

@Jimmie Higgins:

People in water-rich areas will inevitably consume more water than others in less abundant areas.But unless I am misunderstanding you, this is not true. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Israel all import the vasy majority of their water - and these are just the examples off the top of my head. For business and agriculture, systemic water-waste/pollution is driven by competativeness and that for each firm it's more profitable to pass the costs of pollution and waste into "public responcibility". For cities like Los Angeles or Las Vegas, there is a lot of induvidual water-waste from consumers, but I would argue this is due to structural reasons far more than it is due to, say, people running the tap all day because they just can. But again the structural issues such as suburban development are guided by the profit-motive. It's much more profitable to create suburban developments in land with little other profitable value - so the deserts outside of Las Vegas or east of Los Angeles are profitable places to develop.


Now, water is easy to make abundant as it falls from the sky, try applying the same issue to the million types of food and you will fail. The Soviet Union was not capable of supplying even the most basic of types of food (even though now that can be solved). We must always monitor consumption even if a good is abundant. Hell, we could have one single individual leaving the water open just in spite of it, how would you know then? Every act of consumption must be monitored, if not to decrease waste then to calculate demand and supply. I think monitioring production/consumption will simply be an organic necessity due to people wanting to know how much time, resources, and effort are desired to meet absolute wants. But I also think that, just knowing if demand in general is too high to actually be met sustainably or just knowing how much should be produced without putting more labor and energy than is needed (or not enough), is totally different than some kind of specific account of induvidual consumption. By and large I don't think there would be any need for this let alone much of a desire for it.


In fact, if California's problem is the use of water for agriculture it just goes to show that local production is not always preferable over international production. California agriculture is mostly for INTERNATIONAL trade! California alone is the world's 5th largest food exporter.


Nevertheless, you cannot say "new methods in production", you cannot magically come up with such a statement that you will solve it somehow. Pollution is not efficient for Capitalism, that's an absurd claim, pollution is a side-effect of efficiency in all systems. Communism will not solve it, no matter how many magical assumptions you make. To deal with pollution, you have to cut corners when it comes to efficiency, productivity, and costs. No, it is efficient for capitalist firms to pollute because they don't have to deal with the economic costs in their bottom line.

Technology as it is, is often geared towards saving labor in production. So "magical technology" is not needed, what's needed is to shape technology around making our lives better, not squeezing out a little more exploitation to overcome competators. This is why "accounting" for labor doesn't make sense in a socialist context to me: if we control the surplusses we make, then we might choose to re-invest it towards things we want, or we may decide that since we can produce enough, that we can stabilize or reduce working hours and give ourselves more free-time.

The goal as I see it is not worker's power for the purpose of worker's managing their own exploitation, but worker's power so that the wealth and value we produce collectivly is controlled collectivly.


Profits in this case are nothing more than the effective objective measurement of efficiency.No it's not! What is efficiency? How do you determine that--by how profitable something is? So in other words, profits are and objective measurement of profits!?

Socialist production in my view would be evaluated for efficiency by how well our needs our met, how well we can stabilize and make production easy and not wasteful. Profitability, on the other hand, is just a measure of how well surplus value has been accumulated (in the hands of the capitalist) and so not only can a firm profit without meeting absolute needs (think housing), while depleting a resource to the point of clear-cutting forrests or overfishing lakes (since capitalists can then just suck up the wealth and move on - rather than trying to find a balance where logging and fishing can be done in the long term)... but they are often now profitable BECAUSE they don't do these things!


If you use less expensive materials, you make more profits. If you decrease the cost of production, you make more profits. This is what a moneyless communism does not have and cannot ever have - cost accountability. Your new type of "efficiency" would be a disaster and cannot be solved as easily you make it out to be. It would be more "efficient" in the long-run to aim for sustainability? Not really, no. In fact, it would be much, much more expensive, less effective, and less efficient.See above, if the goal of a logging operation is to make needed lumber, it makes more sense to "farm" lumber in a way where the industry and lumber-town just have to be built once, rather than uprooted repeatedly. But if the goal is next quarter's profits in capitalism, then it makes more sense to log as much as possible as quickly as possible, and then move to a more abundant area, moving facilities but making labor pay for reloacting themselves (or just picking up new labor in the new area).


The reason why Capitalism is capable of meeting the demands of billionsIt does? Where's my house? There are more forclosed homes in Oakland than there are homeless people, so I don't think capitalism helps meet needs, it creates production, but it doesn't meet need - it's one of the contradictions: wealth is created alongside poverty.

is because it does not aim for sustainability but for meeting demand.
Yes, the demand for profits. It's reasonably good at that. It's really bad at meeting absolute demand though - in fact if absolute demand for basic necissities was met, it would hurt the capitalist economy. Food prices would plummet and so on.


That's how communism will inevitably end up in order to satisfy the "needs" of billions. When iron runs out of a mine, they will need to look for other areas for mines and that would most likely lead to massive environmental destruction. You will need to feed every single person on Earth, even the Africans, you will have to resort to the extreme and massive destruction of the environment. That's how it's going to happen, stop imagining that your case will be different with false axioms and assumptions. It would not be more efficient to aim for sustainability, it would be sustainable in the long-run to aim for sustainability, but even then you would have to cut short on fulfilling needs.

You accuse me of resorting to arguments about "magic" and yet you treat the market as if it's magically efficient and magically able to satisfy anything other than profit. This is not true, the market is a framework in which people take stock of productive capital and make decisions (based on market considerations) about what will give them the best returns. It's just people making decisions, but these decisions have to meet the demands of profit, or else capitalist competition ensures that those people or firms will be overcome by competators. Now, because people make decisions based on the profit-motive, all sorts of problems and - I think - inefficiencies take place.

Organizing production through democratic and cooperative methods however, not on a profit-motive, but on a production for use motive, holds the possibility of totally reorganizing the ways we produce - just given current production levels and technology... later "magic" technology is just an educated guess based on the idea that people would want to continue to create devices that make labor easier and give us free-time while helping us produce what we want. So we would still have to take stock of what's materially possible to produce. So say that more iron is wanted than can be produced in the long-run, or hell, maybe it's just a pain in the ass to produce. At that point people would have to make decisions - do they find alternative substances, do they invest to create a synthetic material that can fit the bill, etc. They are still making a decision, but this time it's not based on what creates the most profit, but what can satisfy the want/need the best given the material options.



Actually that's not silly, this is what you said yourself:
"Aside from absolute scarcity of some resource, assuming that it is possible to relativity easily produce, say a certain medicine, then this can be done simply on a "need" basis"
Production for use does not mean immediate production for induvidual use. It would mean, for example, hospitals around a region figure out how much of X medicine they used the year before and estimate what the demand would be this year. Capitalists do this, but only based on how much they think they can sell profitably, not how much is demanded in an absolute sense.


The vanguard party, the central planning agency, whatever it may be on the basis of various issues relative to those specific issues. If it's something concerning economics, the decisions will be made by either organization on the basis of best solving that issue regarding economics. These are all abstractions - decisions made on what basis? What economic considerations are those?

I'm in favor of central planning in a general sense or where there is the need to do wide-scale coordination. But the central planning IMO has to be a subbordinate organization, they have to be facilitators of a broader democraticly-based set of priorities for production. I am not in favor of top-down planning based on some abstract economic considerations which in your formulation seem to be profit-making i.e. exploitation. So as far as I can tell you are calling for a top-down state-capitalist regime to guide the economy... maybe technocrats?


Not possible only in your imaginations, this is real-life, it must be considered and addressed whether you like it or not. The Bolsheviks expected people all to work harmoniously together, without question, like a "well-oiled machine", and look what happened.I don't know about that - if you mean in full communism, yeah, the idea is that without classes and that sort of competion, then the goals of "work" would be the same for everyone. In the crisis period in their attempts to make a transition from capitalism to socialism, yes they tried many things but it failed for reasons they generally knew were problems: an unevendly developed industrial basis, a majority pesant population and majority farming production economy, a small working class, famine, war, invasion, civil war. What they didn't see was that their scaffolding so to speak, the new government and the Bolshevik party itself was hardening into something totally different. In fact, many of the things you suggest for a post-revolution economy had parallels in Russia at that time and a lot of it helped usher in a volunter/careerist force inside the party that began to see their mobility based in the continued domance of the party. The time-managment that was argued for early on because of economic crisis and absolute shortages in production due to the nature of their economy as well as the hardships of war and reaction, came back later as a way to ensure "efficient production for the economy" by "party experts" but it wasn't efficient socialism, but efficiency in accumulating surplus, exploiting, the working class.


They do not at all have to work longer to finish anything because they are not receiving "according to contribution" but "according to need" and the Socialist adage that "he who does not work, neither shall he it" does not apply under communism. It would only be rational to maximize profits and slacking is one way to do it. Under communism you already are alienated from the productions of your "labor-effort" (new word?) as you surrender your products to your commune and others. I'm not sure what you are arguing here at all. He who does not work (and is able), shall not eat" is fine in a general sense. To take part in a community requires at least some participation in that community. Maybe in full communism, even this will not be necissary, but I think while people are still transitioning away from capitalism, this makes a general sort of sense. What doesn't make sense from a socialist perspective is to try and specifically monitor this and account for labor-value and consumption value on an induvidual basis. In the early years, where there are shortages, some sort of more specific acconting may be needed to a degree, but the goal would be to "rationalize" production in a socialist sense - so if we can produce enough food to feed everyone, then as we perfect production and distribution we can produce to meet that need and then "price" has little meaning. Maybe you just show that you are a resident in good standing of the community, maybe you show some proof that you work and so are entitled to eat in the co-op etc. Any credit scheme or whatnot would mearly be a way to try and balance production and consumption, not some kind of induvidual reward or punishment to ration what does not need to be rationed.

Let's take an analogy: if a family cooks a big meal, maybe the family expects everyone to pitch in to pull it off. But if Uncle Bob cooks the meal but Aunt Jo only sets the plates on the table, does the family ensure that Bob gets more food than he can eat and only allows Jo to eat a bread-roll because she didn't work as hard? Or is it that everyone chips in so that everything gets done, what matters? If Nephew Pete sits on his ass after being asked to help, well then they may tell him to go to KFC for dinner.

Capitalism is a system of "abundance". It creates conditions and industrial methods which allow each laborer to produce more value than he/she needs to or could consume. Capitalism couldn't exist if it didn't do this because where would the surplus come from, where would the profits arise? So controlling this collective surplus collectivly would mean that we could re-direct resources, raise standards of living, and find more long-term plans and sustanability for production... and new "magic" tech could be oriented to help us do this even more and make our lives materially richer, or just reduce required levels of labor.


This is why I support a system of credits, it allows you to receive the full products of your labor if you so desire.Again, as a sort of transitionary measure used to balance prodution and consumption while levels are low or capacity is uneven, is not something I'm totally opposed to, but I think people might deal with these issues in other ways too.


People in "most of human existence" were exploited, had their products taken away from them, did not have decision-making in their hands, had supervisors, managers, the bourgeoisie, and had the profit motive to ensure that they did what they did.No, the profit-motive has been the dominat basis for productive relations for maybe a couple hundred years... unless you are a creationist, that's not very much of human existance. While some markets and capitalist relations existed before then, not as the dominant forms in society though, for most of recent history, the profit-motive was actually seen as sort of taboo. Islam and Christianity long had rules against "money-changing" and charging interest and so on. Classes and class-exploitation have been around longer, but still only for a fraction of human existance.


Under your system, they have absolutely nothing to make them work, work efficiently, or even not slack.Do people want products, do people like the things we can potentially create through modern methods -- good, well that's a motivation right there. Do people like to waste their own time? Well, there's a motivation for not slacking and for applying peer-pressure on fellow workers who aren't giving it and honest try.


If you're referring to Primitive Communism, then lol, no. Primitive Communism is not by any means a model to look up to or even follow ranging from the very primitive needs of such a society, the existence of small numbers of people, the lack of advanced means of production, etc.Yes, this is a scarsity society where communism was enforced through the basic necissity of everyone pitching in or mutual starvation.

But given the ability to now produce more than just basic self-subsistance, it is possible to have the increased production along with collective control over the collective surplus.


Ask that to those that support the LTV. As for my answer, under your system it would impossible to calculate such a thing. Under a credits system it could be calculated just as it is calculated under Capitalism, how much is the labor of that individual worth to the state or the coop? Prices could be adjusted to attract laborers. Even then, shares of profits can be assigned, supervisors receive 15% more than normal workers, managers receive 20% more, etc. as can be found in the case of cooperatives today. Your system of "according to need" will pay them all the same with as much as they want to extract from society even though they won't be able to do that as you cannot by any means ensure abundance or super-productivity.So who controls the surplus, who decides what to do with it - what if people create more value and they want to use that extra value to "slack" and reduce labor requirements?


Lol? Most of all production for exchange is production for use.Not quite - in order to have exchange value, something must have a use vale. But production for exchange value does not inherently meet "use-value", only exchange value... otherwise there'd be a lot of affordable homes right now in California. During the housing bubble, the use-value of homes didn't suddenly dissappear, the exchange-value declined to a point where banks just decided to sit on the empty property until prices went back up.


Even under your system production for exchange will exist as different communes exchange resources as needed. If your system has no "surplus value" but only "value" then the workers would have to receive the full value of their labor as you will have no "surplus value" to give to society. That is, of course, not the case as you will forcibly take away the products of labor of the workers and give them to the commune. This is not the case with a credits system. Exchange is necessary and inevitable. Capital accumulation for the sake of capital accumulation can be done away with.It's impossible in modern production to induvidualize the value given specifically. Production is a collective effort which produces a collective value (that in capitalism is then controlled by capitalists or state-beurocrats).


As if your form of communism won't have labor exploitation where you take away the products of their labor, you force them to work to be fed, where the commune controls the means of production, where the commune reigns above all, where the majority decisions reign over the desires of the minority (do not speak of consensus), etc. etc. Yes I fully support the "tyranny of the majority" over what we have, the tyranny of a minority over the majority.

People will be alienated because the commune will control the means of production... but who is "the commune" in a democratically run system from below... people. So people will be alienated from the means of production because they will control the means of production..?

[ckaihatsu]

Show me how you can renew iron, coal, oil, etc. For the renewable resources we need not discuss them as they are not the issue here, they would not run out. What we are discussing since this thread started is the issue of non-renewable resources and their effect on luxury goods and the "according to need" model. Nevertheless, you can call this line of mine whatever you want to, I do not really take labels by other Communists as anything serious when they support Utopian societies that are in an of themselves "unrealistic, fatalistic, and defeatest on the whole" that base themselves on false assumptions. Nevertheless, this is not an argument and I have treated it as such.




Not really as I am quite capable of offering a solution to this problem which your system or any other system that bases itself on 'according to need" cannot. This is a valid argument, be it used by anti-Communists or by Communists critiquing others. I do not, at all, get your problem here unless you think you're above criticism. My line, let it be so, is a disservice to any revolution which seeks to follow flawed lines in order to kill itself. If you point to a person that his airplane cannot fly and will crash, that is a disservice to him on the basis of saving his life, dignity, and explaining to him exactly how his airplane will not fly.




Oh please. Less Utopian rhetoric pipedream vagueness and more actual arguments. I really do not care about a "more-involved", "more-flexible", "give-and-take" (I do not get the point of the hyphens, really) within a "self-liberated dynamic political economy" because there is no such thing as what you describe. You are attempting to resort to a cop-out in order to keep your Utopian system above any criticisms with the simple fallacious argument of "it will solve itself". That is not the case at all. All systems can solve themselves one way or another, but if they're broken from the bottom-up then they cannot by any means function to be repaired, you're just setting the ground for a counter-revolution. My conventional line of thinking has worked and works, it is conventional for a reason. I use economic arguments to critique my system and base theories around that, I do not resort to wishful thinking and adventurist nonsense as the ones you speak of. A "master blueprint" is necessary as a form of theory or prediction of what can or may take place just as other individuals imagine communism and socialism to be in their various forms.

Again, no argument here, just you wasting time.




Which is why we have debates. You need to contest the validity of a pricing mechanism and offer a better workable alternative. Hint: An "according to need" system or gift economy isn't.


Since you're not addressing points and are just dogmatically repeating the assertions of your line over and over, it would be most appropriate to treat you as a right-winger since you are constantly harkening back to the market mechanism.





The "mass-conscious" (the hyphens again) can very well be reflected through "market-type bidding mechanistics" (you know if you spent less time creating words and more time putting arguments, we'd be getting somewhere) as that is the basis of any "market-type bidding mechanistics", that is to properly determine demand, determine supply, determine prices, remunerate those who contribute more to society, and satisfy that demand by doing so. This "mass-conscious" Utopian nonsense is as vague as claiming that "people will fix stuff". The best way the "mass-conscious" can determine and control anything is through "market-type bidding mechanistics".


Your line forces you to increasingly exclude any possibility of a political civil society, or mass consciousness that could serve as a beneficial co-administration over everything.

In essence you are disallowing any kind of a conscious, hands-on approach to social production, prefering to use the throw-back of the 'invisible hand'. This is too objectionable to let pass since we are all-too-familiar with market-based crises under the current regime of capitalism.





Lol? This is the most ridiculous contribution I have ever heard. Not only are you now giving "according to need" but you call a lottery to give out rewards and luxuries to be a "better-reasoned" (those hyphens) approach? Are you kidding me? Not only do you want to give out everything to anyone who wants them with complete disregard and inability to deal with scarcity, abundance, control demand, control consumption, create incentives, and so on but you also want us to give out rewards and luxuries at COMPLETE RANDOM? I just... No, just no. A lottery would be much worse than the "according to need" gift economy. It completely randomly selects a handful of winners out of millions regardless of contribution, regardless of need, and regardless of relevance of the reward to the winner. I could enter a lottery for a wheelchair when I do not need it. Here you'll claim that you cannot enter such a lottery if you're not handicapped, in which case I'll change the lottery reward to something much different such as the case of a racing car when I cannot race, a large television when I have no place to put it, a truck when I am not in need of one, a gaming console when I already have one, etc. etc. This causes numerous problems. We need to also take into consideration the chance of even winning the lottery, the mentality of a person who enters the lottery ("I'll just try my luck") even if he does necessarily "need" the reward, the possibility of corruption, the possibility of certain individuals getting lucky multiple time, or even the frustration of those who keep losing. Such a system would be atrocious and unacceptable. Instead of rewarding individuals according to their contributions to society and other such socially beneficial actions, they are instead left unrewarded with a system of rationing that takes nothing into consideration. If you claim that you want to add a restriction to enter the lottery only to those who contributed over the social average or contributed the most to society then you are doing nothing but following an "according to contribution" system but you simply refuse to acknowledge this and simply want a ridiculous joke instead.


Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a lottery method, except for the most intractable situations, where no other approach would be any less controversial.

Here's a guideline:


[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://s6.postimage.org/9rs8r3lkd/10_Supply_prioritization_in_a_socialist_transi.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/9rs8r3lkd/)





Then here I do not get why you quoted yourself, but I already addressed those




Actually, it's a good thing they weren't, otherwise they would have fell on day 1 unable to produce anything but on the small disconnected scale after numerous attempts at organization failed. The Soviets were a legislative organization, they left the execution to the an executive organization such as the Central Executive Committee. Such a system was inevitable as long as the peoples' delegates, i.e. representatives, could not meet instantaneously. This is much more supporting of the point I'm trying to make than you seem to understand. There have been many experiments that based themselves on "popular will" and mobilizations that utterly failed forcing the governing bodies to fall back to the Soviet-style Socialism. Almost every revolution, in fact, based itself on popular will and mass mobilizations but they all failed ranging from the Americas to Africa to Europe to Asia. If we are to learn anything from history it is that such "mass will", "mass consciousness", "mass mobilizations", and whatnot CANNOT be counted on in theory, and empirically, in real life. Oh and yes, those system had at one time quite popular and democratically controlled system with the Soviets in the USSR, the popular committees and organizations during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, the committees in Korea, the labor mass organizations in Cuba, etc. None of those countries started a Blanquist revolution, they all based themselves on mass mobilizations and utilized them. The thing was that they didn't work out so well. In case you ask, I get this information from "The Red Flag: A History of Communism" should you need a source.


Yeah, this is all moot in today's context since communications technology allows everyone to represent themselves precisely on *all* issues, without any logistical need to resort to ratioed political representation whatsoever. Here's a sketch:


[17] Prioritization Chart

http://s6.postimage.org/jy5fntvcd/17_Prioritization_Chart.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/jy5fntvcd/)





So much for organization in an "according to need" free-for-all, but yes, even then we have seen what took place in China, which was the conquest of the part you quoted.


It's downright adorable how you think that you've somehow 'dismissed' the validity of my position just by waving your hand and endlessly repeating your contentions.

Since we're just talking past each other at this point I'll just add as I can to illustrate my own position.





No argument here, yet again.





The thing is what you are proposing is not at all feasible. What you are putting forward is no something that can by any means increase the potential for success but minimize them and destroy the Earth with it. Nevertheless, this is admission from you that you "cannot by any means ensure or guarantee that you will be able to create that "political will" or even what you assume would ever come to fruition." This would also become a much, much worse problem as we consider the fact that your "feasible" approaches are based on false assumptions of superproductivity, mass organization, everyone actually caring, abundance, each working his best, and so on. These cannot happen in real-life, and if they do not then you just sent the whole revolution down the drain. The reason why I use economics and vast criticism to try to form a theoretical system is that I attempt my best to not depend on such fallacious false assumptions but attempt to take the worst possible scenario or even the models and concepts used today. This way, if things do not go according to plan and instead people organize, achieve superproductivity, etc. etc. then that is by everything something better but which I did not base anything upon that if does not take place I would destroy everything.


Sheer hyperbole.





[quoet]Glad you asked -- I have a model that I developed a few years ago for just such an occasion as this. I will be excerpting from it in order to respond to specific theoretical points in a consistent way.
I didn't understand anything from that, could you explain or at least use a simple layout? The English used is very abstract, vague, and choppy... Are you essentially stating the needs would be determined by pre-planned demand and requests? If so then that is a disaster if based on an "according to need" system rather than an "according to contribution" system which already solves this if it has a pricing mechanism or market. Nevertheless, I see a lot of assumptions in that model's text such as "all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status"
You cannot ensure that anyone will be liberated from all "coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status" because you cannot even ensure that you can fulfill some or all their basic human living needs.


Yeah, materially the prospect of a superabundance is quite realistic.





You also state "no surplus value (subsistence living)" but then you claim that "no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property". That is essentially the extraction of surplus value and the taking away of it from the worker by the commune and others. There's still surplus value and that surplus value is being forcibly taking away from the worker. This simply is surplus value that is being taken away.


No, there would be no exploitation since the workers would be part of the planning over their own liberated labor. And, by definition, 'liberated' means that they would have final veto power over their own capacity to supply labor.





You also claim that:
"Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want with the privisio [sic] that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only - after a certain period of disuse any personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property."
And how do you determine if the material is in disuse? Do you perform regular visit and home searches to look for any "disused" products?


Ultimately the implementation wouldn't be up to me since I'm only one person -- the making of the policy would transcend my own individual, limited sphere of influence.

Perhaps this guideline would only be invoked if some realtime issue cropped up that necessitated resolving.





You also make yet another false assumption that can send your whole chart down the drain, you claim that "individuals may posses and consume as much material as they want" so long as the actually use them. You cannot by ANY MEANS ensure that individuals can consume as much material as they want because you cannot ensure that you have a superabundance of resources. If you cannot ensure that superabundance then consumers will need to have the goods they desire rationed at which point that entire point would fall apart as they will not be able to consume "as much as they want" but "as much as they are given". Hell, even if a ration system is implemented in your system it would be completely unable to operate on the basis of "according to need" but would have to resort to an "according to contribution" system in order to not only ration the goods but also relieve the scarcity by encouraging people to work harder to receive more thus boosting the economy.


Rather than resorting to a defeatist, fallback practice of rationing, the outstanding demand should be viewed *positively*, as an impetus to increasing production to fulfill it.





"every person in a locality has a standard one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily"

Political demands? You mean consumer demands?


In a post-capitalist political context these two kinds of demands would be synonymous.





This system is ridiculous. What if people put diamonds as their first priority? What if they put the largest size of plasma TV? What if they fill 1-10 with luxury goods? What if they fill the entire list with luxuries? Good luck then with that ridiculous system. These individuals would be receiving all the luxury goods while the rest who did not have a higher priority do not. There is absolutely no limitation on what goods you can add to the list, no restrictions on entry, and absolutely no reason to be modest in your demands. Any car that would be produced would not be based on who ACTUALLY needs it, but based on who has it high on his priority list. The thing is, you cannot by any means ensure that the list would be created with others in mind rather than the maximization of personal needs, desires, and utility. If I add a car to the top of the list, I may already have a car or may not need one as much as others but I did so just to obtain a car. I would be completely justified in doing so and there's no stopping me as I can come up with many reasons as to why I need another car if I already have one or no reasons at all if I have no car but do not "need" one. This system is prone to abuse, does not reflect actual demand, has no restrictions on entry, does not properly show prioritization as there is no sacrifice in the form of money paid or otherwise, and does not even account for contribution to give out goods but on what's numbered where on the list by anyone regardless of his impact and contribution on society.


You insist on viewing this alternative in the worst possible way, unfortunately.

It wouldn't matter how outlandish popular demands for luxury goods might get, since the liberated laborers would simply be able to refuse to *work* to produce such things if they felt those efforts would be inappropriate.





Such as computers? 22 inch or 24 inch screens? 16:9 or 16:10? Black or white? Desktops or laptops? Televisions? Plasma? LCD? LED? TFT LCD? Matte or shiny finish? No? Then clothing? Cotton or wool? Polystyrene? Short or long sleeves? Polo shirts or ordinary T-shirts? Hamburgers or steaks? Eggs or salads? Caffeine or tea? Chocolate or chocolates with peanuts? HOW do you determine which is more important? Your 1-to-infinity list won't solve this as it cannot properly account for all the possibilities. I can't say "I want a red, polo shirt, size M" for example nor can I say "I want a 200" Television (or the largest), plasma, black". You need to impose restrictions on what individuals can demand, and that's best done through a pricing mechanism which properly shows how much people actually need something as they are forced to exchange their hard earned money in exchange for the goods they so eagerly want. If they do not want the goods that much then they do not front the cost. However, if the goods were free and based on "need" as determined by a petty list then I'll just add every luxury good as a priority at the top of the list with no reason to back off and then add the basic needs at the bottom. That way if the luxury goods cannot be found or produced, which is very likely, they jump directly down to food, but if these luxury goods are found they are brought to me as a priority above all else and probably above all others if the actually manage to list their needs properly without "cheating" or abusing the system in place.


Specifics would not be any kind of a barrier to functioning.

Since any of us is only one individual ourselves, we *could* prioritize whatever ostentatious things we might like for our *own* personal requests / demands, but that would hardly make a dent when that personal demand list is combined cumulatively with all others from a locality.

The conclusion is that the production of luxury goods would have to be *organized* for, as a matter of numbers, if it were to have any chance of being realized. Either that or else one would be left to put in the requisite labor *themselves* to make it happen.





Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





Read the context. The USSR was a real-life example. Production of what was considered "most important" (bread) was focused on at the cost of the other goods which were considered "less important" (butter, meat, etc.) but still in demand thus causing the large lines for these goods. I'm not even necessarily talking about the last days of the USSR.

"What determines "most important needs and desires"? Someone's most important needs and desires could be computers, the other games, the other food, the other vacations, the other books, the other cars, the other electronics, etc. how can you determine who needs what most and which of these billions of demands are to be "most important" since you have no market nor even a pricing mechanism? Even then, these "most important" needs and desires being fulfilled at the expense of other needs and desires which are not "most important" would lead to problems as many people see their needs and desires not being fulfilled. The USSR et al. determined that bread and other such "most important" products were to be prioritized over other goods such as butter and meat. Consumer products were almost entirely neglected until the late years of the USSR and even then they failed."





Material function

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]




Infrastructure / overhead

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process





Those hyphens... They never cease. Must be a Marx syndrome.




Yes, an ad hominem logical fallacy. Attempting to prove the argument wrong by fallaciously attacking the one making the claim as using the same claim as a right-winger. You are not arguing against the claim, but against the one making the claim. You have not even touched the claim itself nor argued against it. As for that statement above by you, I seriously do not understand why you are resorting to an "argument by verbosity" logical fallacy as well. You are very capable of keeping things in English rather than vague nonsense that barely anyone understand. Nevertheless, that "characterization" is an actual ad hominem logical fallacy as you are attacking the one making the claim or the "origin" of the claim rather than the claim itself. Still a logical fallacy.


No, I've been addressing your points, and not your person.





First of all, it does by any means matter if something is vital or not or if it is exaggerated or not as it is still a claim.
Secondly, more argument from verbosity.
Thirdly, you cannot by any means dismiss any claim without properly arguing against it. Claiming that something is a "scare tactic" and thus avoiding it is a cop-out and a logical fallacy. I do not need to keep repeating this in the future.
Fourthly, I do not "wildly extrapolate" anything, there IS a FINITE amount of goods on Earth, many of which that we depend on are NON-RENEWABLE such as oil, coal, iron, etc. ANY system that wants to function and keep humanity from killing itself off has to take this into consideration. Unless you have an infinite amount of resources then and only then can you speak of fulfilling all demand without costs or worries, but you do not, you have a finite amount of resources that must be rationed properly. This "rationed properly" is also necessary as it is necessary to reward those who contribute to their society rather than reward those who do nothing or contribute little.


Plenty of energy resources are fully renewable (solar, etc.), so their supply is effectively infinite. Metals and other materials can be recycled and reused.

You bring up the spectre of rationing only within the artifice of a runaway, infinite demand for consumables.





Fifthly, you still did not use an argument there.





Bullshit. You cannot by any means, as Slavoj Zizek explained, take the results of today's society and put them in your imaginary society with a different mode of production as your own results. The results of today's society are due to the superexploitation of Third World labor, markets, the rationing of goods, the price mechanism, capital accumulation, inequal wealth distribution, militaristic and economic imperialism, entrepreneurship and risk investment, the financial market and speculation, boom and bust cycles, and so on. You want to do away with all of those and yet claim that you will have not only the same results but even better results because this can be done today with the current technology and capacity? :laugh: You cannot have the same results in your same as we have in the current system, especially if you're trying to give everyone as much as they "need". Seriously, less Utopian daydreams and fallacies, they're only leading you to the destruction of your own system. You need to take everything into consideration, this is exactly why I stopped supporting an "according to need" system as it bases itself on nothing but false assumptions.


Of course I *can* look to present-day tools as being usable beyond tomorrow. The remaining issue then is how society would be *organized* to make use of these tools, if not under the control of capital -- hence these discussions.





The thing is, you can't and are not making arguments. What about your signature? Your signature has nothing at all with guaranteeing anything. You cannot guarantee that your system has any of which you speak of, whether you sign an appropriate document or otherwise. The only means by which you can make such assumptions is if you have a magical crystal ball with the ability to see the future. Since, of course, that is not the case and you previously claimed that you are not an omnipotent being then you CANNOT guarantee nor ensure anything. Guaranteeing means ensuring that it will exist and take place, your signature has little to not value in that direction.


Right -- we are going over political *topics*, which transcend *any* one of us as individuals.





The "synbiotic interest" of yours is nonsense. If that were the case then people today would already operate on that basis rather than requiring markets and priving mechanisms.


People *do* cooperate out of mutual benefit, even *despite* capital's unremitting mandate to mercilessly privatize.





In fact, symbiotic interest would only be relevant if the system were based on survival and threat of extinction where everyone depends on another living in small communities such as tribes. In a fully-fledged economy this symbiotic interest is done away as altruism and memory no longer exist as they did in kin-based societies. You cannot count on any other, others are not basing their existence on you, and you have little to no direct contact to know and judge if they are working properly or not as in the case of tribal and kin-based societies. You need an accounting mechanism,


I happen to agree with the generality that an accounting mechanism is required, but I *don't* agree that a per-item, tit-for-tat tight reciprocity is required.





such as a pricing mechanism with or without a market (Market Socialist or even State-owned and created), to ensure that other individuals are actually contributing to society in that "symbiotic interest" of yours to ensure that others will do the same. Money, pricing mechanisms, and the market are capable of doing so through the remuneration of work and labor with the appropriate credits. In other words, I fundamentally believe that a significantly high enough populations you need something approximating markets to have cooperation. Benefits must be proportional to aid given or cooperation breaks down.


No, benefits must be *satisfying*, not necessarily proportional to aid given.





At small enough or simple enough scales cooperation can be maintained though altruism because memory is an effective accounting mechanism. Memory keeps tabs on who helped me and who didn't. When the size of society exceeds a certain threshold and the complexity along with the complexity of production there are limits to the memories capacity to police who is producing value and who isn't. Something must stand in for memory in a "meta conscious", that is, "beyond a singular consciousness". This is a price system. The market serves as an extended mind aggregating information because no "one person" possesses all the necessary information to organize society and then position us like pawns to engage in these tasks, there are no human gods. Your assumptions based on cooperation which you claim to be "symbiotic interest" are ridiculous as soon as you surpass the human limitation of the number of active human relationships you have known as Dunbar's number.




Nonsense. Private property can only arise if the state and society allow for it to arise. The state acts as an organization ensuring that Capitalism cannot and does not return, that private property does not and cannot return, and that the bourgeoisie cannot and do not return. The party and the state ensure that this does not happen through their political intervention and even economic intervention through various means such as only allowing state-owned means of production, cooperatives and state-owned means of production, or solely cooperatives as in the case of Market Socialism. The markets, furthermore, need not at all be free but can very well be simulated through the state acting and managing a "virtual economy" as we find today in the case of retail websites, Amazon, ebay, etc.


I understand and find this aspect to be non-objectionable.





Should any financial markets and speculation that would prove to be harmful to society, they would be shutdown. Capitalism can only come back to fruition if it is not inhibited, if private property exists, and if the state refuses to suppress it or redirect it. As for the question of capital you will need to clarify in what sense do you use "capital", is it in the Marxist sense as being a social relation unique to Capitalism or as in the mainstream economic sense of being an asset of production?

The unit of value is not actually price in an economy with a disequilibrium amongst other conditions. Value only equals price under the conditions that Marx took into consideration of a perfect theoretical market economy with a supply-demand equilibrium, no competition, closed markets, etc. Nevertheless, the price of commodities would be determined by supply and demand, cost of production, cost of labor, and so on as they are today minus any influence of a financial market, speculation, commodity dumping, and so on.


Any controversies over resource usage that might arise could be resolved with increased bidding, under this model of yours -- this means there would be inherent incentive to aggregate wealth as much as possible, so as to enjoy better-leveraged economic positions versus others.

This interest towards accumulation would cause friction in relation to the state's role of neutral arbiter, just as in today's reality.





And I find this to be false. For a pricing mechanism to exist, it alone acts as a driving force, not moralism. The political approach present in it would be objectified and found with the existence of a state and party that run, manage, and plan society. I do not believe communism to be viable without a state, party, or any planning organization whatsoever.


Your state / party / planning organization would be at odds with local interests that represent themselves with increased-bidding economic practices.





There is no better driving force than the profit motive, not one that arises from passive lack of action but one that is directly proportional to contribution and production. I do not base anything on morals, you do so with your "political approach" that is nothing other than claims of solidarity, symbiotic interests and relationships, cooperation based on mutual needs and interests, etc. without the framework of a market or pricing mechanism. To maintain solidarity, symbiotic interests and relationships, etc. morality is a strict necessity as is altruism, both of which are disastrous in such a case.


Nope.





Actually, no. Need, given no restrictions, is demand. Demand would solely be possible given your contribution to society. If one indiividual were to aspire to fulfill his actual demand rather than notional demand then his is to contribute more to society. That individual is not restricted from achieving the ability to call for actual demand unless by his physical and material limitations. The more the individual contributes, the more his demand is fulfilled. That is to say, if an individual desires products worth $200, he by himself seeks a way to obtain $200. The only means to obtain these $200 is through contribution, ergo the worker has every incentive and reason to contribute until he reached $200 worth of goods. Contribution would thus attempt by every means to equate demand, if not then demand would be adjusted to the finalized contribution. Either way the answer is, yes, need and demand can actually be reflected in contribution.


Yes, I understand your position, but you still haven't specified what the value of a market-socialist "dollar" would actually represent in your hybrid state-and-pricing framework.





Because the Capitalist mode of production is problematic when it comes to issues of contribution, accumulation, financial markets, speculation, exploitation, private property, passive "contribution" and remuneration for that, etc. etc. Of course you ignored what I said previously and did not even reply, but alas...




Economism is at the core of my position as long as economism exists today and is depended upon. We need to use what we have today at our disposal and base our theories upon that. They currently work better than what we have ever created throughout history and as such if we use such economism and proceed on that basis then our society cannot possible become worse off, but if it appropriates "mass consciousness" then all the merrier, but we did not base anything on that point and would not fail entirely should that "mass consciousness" not take place. Nevertheless, yes, "as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness" because there is absolutely no guarantee, assurance, nor proof that it will have anything such as that mythical dream of yours. Again, Dunbar's number, lack of accountability, lack of contribution equaling or surpassing remuneration, lack of personal relationships with the rest of society, etc. etc. This "mass consciousness" of yours is what you previously referred to as moralism. You expect mass altruism and morality to dominate where everyone would contribute for the betterment of society and each other and all that Utopian shit. That will not happen and you have absolutely no proof, evidence, or guarantees that it will happen. The only instance where such a "mass consciousness" ever took place was during emotionally tense periods of strife and conflict on one side against another such as in the case of revolutions or in small-scale societies where memory and personal relationships solve the issue. The directions and outcomes of society cannot be reflected without a pricing mechanism or market. In large-scale societies memory is objectified and crystallized through money. See "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota.


No, you misunderstand -- by 'mass consciousness' I simply mean 'civil society' or 'present-day common understandings'.

The body politic (of liberated labor and popular demands) could readily preclude any dependence on sheerly mechanistic methods, like markets or market socialism.





Which is exactly why if they do not occur the system is not affected negatively, but if they do happen to occur the system is affected positively. I reduce the system to something that is ensured, manageable, empirically tried and tested, and effective. People are capable of ensuring that they work properly and thus can reward themselves properly for their own actions and sanction themselves for any negative actions, however individuals are not capable of doing the same for numbers in the millions surpassing Dunbar's number and the capabilities of memory accounting. I can count on myself that I work hard, but I cannot ensure that others will do the same because I cannot control them, read their minds, nor observe their actions and hold them accountable.


Then we may as well favor the more-conscious approach.





Yes and demand is actually the "need" in your system. Production would thus be "spurred" to satisfying demand (need). Of course if you consider need not to be demand but to be a part of demand then all the better! Claiming that wants and needs are represented by demand is even better.


Okay.





Propose another that doesn't involve a mythical hivemind of "mass consciousness". I'll be waiting. Economic pricing is the best that we have to calculate and transfer information, fairly and effectively ration finite goods, send and receive information about production methods, send and receive feedback information on efficiency and productivity, and send and receive information about the material quantities.


All of this information can be provided journalistically, without resorting to abstract pricing realms.





Not really, all I'm saying is that the individual is a part of society that needs to be given signals to contribute and be rewarded properly, nowhere did I speak of an "mass social conscience". If you consider a pricing mechanism to be a "mass social conscience", then yes and no. Yes that is directs, moves, transforms, signals, and spurs society into the right direction, no that it does not require, base itself upon, nor necessity any means of mass organizations, "mass social consciousness" (whatever that vague clump of terms you want it to mean) outside of the economic sphere. The contributions by the individuals would not be motivated by social contribution, but by individual contribution which in turn INDIRECTLY benefits society as a whole. I never said otherwise. In fact, what I have said is not by any means at odd with anything. In the case of material motivation and personal aggrandizement through societal contributions, this is what had been said "labor is a part of society that needs to be given an incentive to contribute more to society which in turn benefits every single other individual."


You just happen to advocate the primacy of the individual as the primary economic and political unit -- I see this as a misguided approach and prefer to see a liberated production defined in terms of *policy*.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Yes, they will by every means be a threat to Socialism. When individuals receive as any other despite little to no contribution at all then this breeds an infectious disease that spreads like wildfire. There would be no direct accountability nor assurance for the rest that they can count on others working their best. Individuals who observe that others receive as much as they do despite the lack of effort as being something legal, they would then seek to emulate with the claim that "he's doing it, why should I not? I'm doing all the work while he's doing nothing, why should I do all the work while he does nothing"? The workers would be unable to do anything about it as it is completely legal. Slacking in the case of labor would act as a disincentive to labor. If such an action is completely legal with remuneration according to need rather than contribution then individuals would seek to maximize their profits and benefits at the lowest cost, they would follow suit through slacking. I cannot by any means see how you would consider this anything "minor". Efficiency, productivity, production, and so on would slow down or even cease to function unless forced and coerced otherwise.

Well, again, I can only restate what I've said previously. Yes, there will be slackers. Yes, they will be a problem. No, they would not be such a threat that the entire system has to be based around providing incentives and coaxing people into working. I simply don't accept your premise that people are ultimately selfish.



It isn't at all "just because", it is in order to advance society, progress it, and allow it to grow by fulfilling DEMAND (need + wants). You cannot imagine a society to meet the needs of its billions of people if it is based on slacking, lack of productivity, lack of efficiency, and yet still somehow imagine that it will continue functioning! The USSR was not able to meet the many demands of its citizens, observe what happened. If you are to ever satisfy the demands of people, you are to increase productivity in order to increase supply. Again, I don to understand how you can have an issue with this or a problem with this. How do you honestly expect us to meet the needs of society and its demands if we cannot even produce enough goods to meet those demands? Hell, how do you even imagine a situation of superabundance if you cannot even ensure the bare minimum of efficiency and productivity? Exactly. You can imagine a society to be "given" as superabundant, extremely productive, and satisfying all demand, but you cannot have it so without first making it so.

The world already produces enough stuff. That is me making an objective judgement. It may not produce enough to satisfy "demand", but then demand is infinite so its never will, and that is an uninteresting observation.

I concede your point that we cannot assume current levels of productivity and efficiency will simply continue under a new economic system. But I still don't see why this therefore means that we need to keep much of this infrastructure intact to ensure it is. If we are having a revolution, then we may as well have one.



And you forget that I may also be in constant debate with economics students and Capitalists that know what they're arguing about to such an extent as to pressure me into a crystallization of my form of Socialism? I am presented with issues that I cannot answer with traditional Socialism and Communism that I have to look for alternatives. Over time, the criticism and reading develops into a system that can very much work and answer many criticisms levied against Socialism and Communism.

That's great, and more socialists need to engage with these arguments just as you have. However is also seems to be the case that you are accepting too many of their beginning assumptions uncritically. The early Karl Marx's motto was "doubt everything"


Nevertheless, back to the point. "Effort" alone need not ensure increased production, indeed, such as in the case of trying to bash your head into a boulder in an attempt to break it. Increasing effort in such a case would not yield any positive effects in breaking the boulder, but may very well lead to you wasting your effort and bashing your head open. But, if one is to increase his effort in a mode of production that would act relative to effort put in, be it in the case of remuneration or production, then it would lead actually result in producing more stuff. If you put in more effort at finishing more accounting papers, you produce more of those papers or better quality papers. If you put more effort in assembling widgets, you produce better quality or numerically superior widgets, depending on what you utilize your efforts upon and what the system in place is. Effort which is productive is, indeed, productive. If that effort is productive then it produces better or more goods. Such effort must then properly be remunerated depending on the system in place, a point which I can expand upon a lot.

So the term effort is just "moralism" as you've put it previously,and what we are really still talking about is productivity. No matter how much effort someone put into completing hand-written accounting forms (or whatever) they will still be less productive that someone who has an automated system and only works 2 hours a day.

So the most productive factory will be one that is entirely automated, manned only by one engineer, and lays off all its workers who were still doing things manually. They then get nothing because they contribute nothing. Welcome to capitalism.



"Enough" would only exist if demand is "enough". We need to continue driving up productivity to satisfy demand and be able to satisfy future demand if necessary. The thing is, we never have enough stuff, but if we do then there isn't much of a reason to increase productivity until it becomes necessary again to do so.

I'm guessing that under economic theory, demand is the aggregation of individual's pursuing their own utility by exchanging labour for money/credits to purchase consumables. This is circular and based on the liberal moral assumption (or straight libertarianism) that what someone demands is an exogenous "given" for the system, because it is actually none of anyone else's damn business what I want to buy.

Instead, in a democratic system, social priorities need to be set that necessarily restrict what people demand. If everyone is demanding a product in such quantities that the system cannot cope, or if the demand is causing serious ecological damage (too many "externalities" is the euphemism I believe economists use) then alternatives have to be found.

Now yes, I can imagine what you'd say to this: it may be that the dictatorial government planner can achieve what is best for society here by raising the price and making these things too expensive, so it would now be "rational" not to buy them, etc. Or... you could just have a discussion and make an agreement.

The highfalutin, pseudo-sophisticated technical fixes of the economists are only necessary because they/you refuse to accept agreement-in-solidarity as a concept. It can't be quantified and it won't fit neatly into a mathematical function. I am arguing that this is exclusion is simply ideological and nothing much more.

And it is also the case, as Rousseau famously argued, that some demands are only historical and social: you might only want a new car because you saw your neighbour cleaning his one on a Sunday afternoon, and you're jealous of the attention he gets from women when he does it. These kinds of demands can never really be taken as simply "given" without a certain resulting dogmatism.


Part of it does not exist in my "vision", and for good reason. Productive labor that is tiring, boring, and alienating would be paid more than other forms of labor. Why? Firstly, it depends really, such a job would not have enough demand, to create demand the state or the cooperative would increase pay to attract more labor. Secondly, productive labor, being productive, receives more in terms of remuneration as it sends more in terms of contribution. Labor is never enjoyable and must be never enjoyable, labor is work, one does not enjoy "work". If you are to enjoy work then you can do so in your free time with anything you find enjoyable. And yes, when you have reached the optimum amount of labor productivity to satisfy all demand then it is quite possible to cut back on working hours and increase leisure time.

Actually yes here I can agree, we can use an incentive structure to get people to do really unpleasant and disgusting work. Must this necessarily take the form of paying them more? Of course not.

And where there is no real skill involved, as is the case with a lot of so-called unpleasant work, then the work can simply be rotated.



Why would it be bureaucratic in the above sense? I don't get it. Please explain how distribution according to contribution would be "bureaucratic" as I do not get your point. I know that you gave me the definition of how you used the term "bureaucracy" but I do not see on what basis would "according to contribution" be "just as 'bureaucratic'".

I am assuming my previous point that "effort" is as much a metaphysical value that has no fixed meaning as "need" is.

You solve the problem by defining effort away into just meaning how much someone produces as against what others produce, in an unsatisfying technical fix. But then you still consider "need" as something wild-eyed and philosophical.

If we were really to fairly reward "effort", we'd need to look at how psychologically capable people are of concentrating at a task, for example, or how anxious people get over meeting deadlines, their intelligence and how quickly they learn skills, or how physically capable they are (a disabled person might be trying a lot harder than an able person to perform the same task). It may be that someone cannot be the same time into the factory as someone else because they have other obligations.

A really comprehensive system rewarding effort would be just as complicated as one meeting needs. Only by simply ignoring people's differences and treating everyone as a clone - as you bizarrely, groundlessly, excuse me of doing - can you consider effort and/or contribution as something defined merely by "productivity"


Superexploitation decreases costs of production which means that it can utilize an increased amount of labor hired which leads to decreased prices. Decreased prices allows for higher consumption and use of those cheaper goods in larger quantities or simply being able to access them. The larger access to these goods allows for a vaster array of information and knowledge being dispersed to each and every individual. Each of the consumers can then use the goods to produce other goods, such as if they're raw materials for instance. With a lower cost of living and lower cost of production, prices would also decrease and still maintain the same or even an increased profit. If price do or do not increase relative to a lower cost of production then profits will either way increase allowing the entrepreneurs and bourgeoisie more money to invest elsewhere and in new technology to win over the competition. Imperialist wars ensure that foreign competition is low and allows for the expansion of the local national market to the international market. As you can see, it matters. A lot.

I concede the point; it isn’t really something I’ve thought about and I obviously need to.


You can have all of that, but you would be approaching "my" system until you get to the "yet" part. You need to have a behemoth government for proper planning, you idea of people taking to each other is quite ridiculous and completely ineffective. People cannot go outside and discuss billions of commodities, billions of production processes, with billions of people in thousands of communities all over the damned world. You need something to simplify that and this comes in the form of money or credits. A behemoth government is preferable over what you suggest as that behemoth government has everything it needs at its disposal, manages everything in a centralized form, and utilizes the pricing mechanism and a market if need be for its information and calculations. A behemoth government knows what is being produced, with what materials, where it is being sent, how it is being sent, where the goods are needed, where the goods are being sold the most, which types of goods are in demand, etc. etc. Think of it as playing a complicated Sim City or Total War game, would it be preferable that each block or community had its own autonomous decision-making system trying to talk to each other and teaching each other or a central figure (yourself) knowing exactly what's happening and managing that society accordingly? Teaching people skills in their own workplace is not by any means similar nor an alternative to central planning by a behemoth government. I don't even see how teaching someone skills in a workplace is even planning in the first place. Even then, you claim that you can help each other and cooperate, how are you planning to do so with billions of decentralized information being only connected through word of mouth by billions of people?

As I understand it, it is the virtue of the market that this huge amount of information can reach the people who need it precisely without the need for a centralised planner who has to know everything. So why would you need a strong behemoth government when - given the information available to all through a pricing mechanism - people at all levels can make decisions?

Under socialism, a central planner can have the fundamental but basic information about the economy in order to, if you like, set overall social priorities; but it wouldn’t need to be making all the decisions. Planning decisions should be made at the lowest viable scale, and be concerned with the economic activity it is involved in and not much else.

The principle of subsidiarity means that people precisely do not need to “go outside and discuss billions of commodities, billions of production processes, with billions of people in thousands of communities all over the damned world”. It strikes me that such a thing is impossible, and no less so for a massive centralised government than a local commune.


The "enough" also exists in Capitalism, that's called a demand and supply equilibrium. Of course though since Capitalism is nothing but the unorganized, unsupervised, anarchy of production rather than the organized, supervised, and planned production, the factories will not cease production or produce less until demand outweighs supply, but continue production until they reach a crisis of overproduction. Nevertheless, "enough" is there, but the bourgeoisie have no reason to follow it in the case of Capitalism. Until we reach a state of superabundance then and only then can you speak of a system "according to need", but until then you need a means to achieve that. Nevertheless, what do you propose this "objective measure" to be?

I don’t mean demand in terms of a demand and supply curve which maps the demand for a particular commodity. I’m talking about total demand, the demand for “more stuff” on top of what people already have. At some point surely, there is just enough stuff out there for people to live happy lives. I’m talking about a kind of existential state of mind whereby people no longer see being a consumer as their purpose of being. There is “enough”



People shouldn't work for a specific amount because they believe only that much is necessary or that much is expected of them, but they should work as much as they can to receive as much as they can. Society will determine when that is "enough" through an equilibrium. Oh and if working extra hard and contributing more to society is something "detrimental" and "oppressive" then so be it. Let those who are left behind actually work as hard or contribute as much to their society. This would give them an incentive to outperform.


I don’t see “working hard” as necessarily a virtue. It depends on too many different factors.

And no, if someone is working hard just to receive rewards, then they aren’t doing so with a mind to what society actually needs. But some people may have what society needs as their motivation for working (as long as they receive adequate personal compensation). Thus, the conflict. Unless you are prepared to say that altruistic-minded people do not exist, but that is a mighty stretch even for rational choice theory.


Obligations to loved ones take place after work, not during work. Work and social life will always be distinct, especially if you plan on achieving superabundance and superproductivity to meet the needs of everyone on Earth. Society is his family and the extension of it, isn't that what Marx and Engels spoke of?

But if the time taken up at work isn’t set in stone, then some people will naturally do less work at the factory than others because they have other social obligations. Making society function is about much more than simply producing stuff. So thereby, because of their altruism toward personal friends and loved ones instead of their productivist loyality to The State, they would receive less. I think this unfair.


He can work anywhere that he wants as long as society deems it socially valuable. The exit strategy would be to produce goods, pay back the costs, and keep the goods himself (the value he embedded within the goods). The exit strategy is that he can keep the fruits of his labor as opposed to not being able to do so under your system where all production is appropriated by society regardless of the desires of the worker.

If you have a strict regime of incentives to get people to work, and to work in the correct jobs society deems important at this time, then isn’t this sort of contradictory to the idea that a worker can decide to do whatever he wants? He still has to work in the designated factory in order to get goods in order to live; his options to do his own thing are still restricted.


Money is means of voting in the economy. In the case of the music industry, whenever you buy a music disc, you are voting with your money, essentially saying that you value the product that much and wish to support the continued production of that disc. It's a feedback mechanism essentially. As for the US political system it is a form of democracy, representative democracy to be specific. People are still voting for the US politicians. The decisions those two fields and millions of others elsewhere show that the most popular decision isn't always the best decision. In fact, go join a religious grouping, start a vote on abortion, stem cell research, or contraception. There you go. And yes, I used a biased group in an attempt to show you the extreme, google "argumentum ad absurdum". Now imagine this on the social level where you cannot ensure that bias does not exist (it will exist) and that such bias may be as stupid or ignorant based on faith as religion.

If money is a form of voting, then some people have vastly more votes than others. The idea of a democracy that isn’t equitable is nonsense.


Not really. From another post:

"Democracy can actually discard the majority will in favor of minority will based on the Condorcet paradox. Arrow and Condorcet demonstrate democracy cannot obtain majority will. Selection processes that have more than 3 options are intransitive and thus A>B>C>A. What democracy can say about societies preferences when selection of 3 outcomes are presented is that A is better than B and B will always beat C but C beats A, this is analogous to me saying that I like chocolate ice-cream more than vanilla and vanilla more than strawberry but strawberry is better then chocolate. I cannot have two favorites, but paradoxically I do so which is better? It’s impossible to determine. Society cannot really have a will if it's will is in direct conflict with itself and mathematical mutilation is necessary to resolve this paradox which just means the architect of the aggregation is either deliberately or arbitrarily deciding present and future outcomes. No distinction between pure, direct or representative democracy can resolve this paradox. Depending on how we hold run-offs we can alter the majorities. It can be easily demonstrated with matrix math and illustrates that society truly doesn’t have a will, individuals possesses will. Depending on how we hold run-offs we can represent the majorities will as either preferring C or preferring A."

In other words, direct democracy or democracy in generally cannot reflect the majority's will nor the minority's will.

It proves, at best, that the General Will of society cannot be simply an aggregation of the will of individuals. But actually no one thinks of democracy in this sense, so it is a bit of a bizarre argument.

The will of society is the society coming together to will something, but this is something excluded a priori from a rational choice system and game theory since it only considers individuals as capable of willing or choosing something.

And anyway, many of the premises of the theorem are unreasonable because – again – they exclude a priori the “stuff” of democracy from ever being included within the game. Preferences are only transitive if people cannot be persuaded by others to have a different view and to change their mind. Or, there may be new options to vote for as people propose new ideas, or as compromises between old ideas are hammered out.

The fundamental point about direct democracy (which I can’t recognise anywhere in your quoted argument on this) is that it means people are running things by-and-for themselves: there is no distinction between legislative and executive functions. The idea of democracy as “ranking preferences” doesn’t take this adequately into account: under Arrow’s theorem, as I vaguely understand it, democracy becomes a passive, apathetic, lifeless process whereby people tick boxes to express themselves and these choices somehow then get implemented by experts elsewhere. This in itself seems anti-democratic.


If they are not perfect and yet we have other alternatives then we need to use those alternatives. So yes, either democracy is better or it's not.

No, that is a non sequitur. If democracy is not perfect than we should choose an alternative if that alternative is better than democracy. But there is no such alternative.

In fact, all that can be said is that I can freely choose between advocating democracy and advocating an alternative, and if I’m convinced I can ditch democracy and opt for dictatorship as something I believe in. If I want society to be run this way I have to persuade others of my opinion, and this presupposes democracy anyway. If you think of it like this, democracy is actually an inescapable premise.


That's because at no point are you concerned with feasibility and reality but instead are concerned with what you imagine your ideal Utopian society to be. Every person is sovereign, but no every person is right or should have his opinion approved and legitimized through a form of consensus. People are not equal, but they are sovereign. Individuals differ on the basis of intelligence, opinions, beliefs, and ideals, and that is exactly why our claim that "society" is "coming-together of sovereign equals". People are not equals, some will be wrong, some will be correct, some will offer a third, fourth, or fifth atlernative, while others will completely opt out and that is exactly why the decisions, the aggregation of individual wills, is never the proper representation nor reflection of the individual wills that constitute them or that are represented by those decision. Consensus is ridiculous and rarely, if ever, possible. And no, we must not strive to achieve it, especially not if you want to base your economy on democracy, talks, and discussions.

You seem to be arguing on the basis of a kind of prehistoric, unreconstructed metaphysic: that because democracy as an absolute, perfect, Platonic form is not possible, then that therefore means it is entirely impossible. This is the kind of binary thinking that philosophers have remorselessly criticised for many centuries, and I frankly find your arguments here ridiculous, ignorant and impossible to sympathise with.



Contradictions exist. Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Contradictions lead to conflict. What is the best and most free framework for contradictions to exist together? Freedom. What happens when contradictions exist together? Conflict. As simple as it gets.


I have no idea what you’re talking about. It appears to be some kind of garbled dialectical language but I can’t make sense of it.


And that common sense is what you are denying. If you call that common sense then I do not need to justify anything when I speak of an "according to contribution" system being better and much more preferable than an "according to need" system. Maximization of utility and all.

Not really. "Achieving what they want to achieve" is the same as "people will always work to become rich so they can receive company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables", that is of course if they "want to achieve" richness, company bonuses, increased profits, and be able to afford expensive consumables. You claim those are solely existing for Capitalism? They don't exist for other system in such a specific form, but they are similar to other system in a generalized form. What are the "richness", "company bonuses", "increased profits", and "expensive consumables" in Capitalist if anything but what people "want to achieve", i.e. what is it but the maximization of their own individual utility? This can be observed in an "according to contribution" system where individuals contribute according to how many goods they want, how many returns, to achieve what they want? If what they want to achieve in Capitalism is "increased profits", "company bonuses", becoming "rich", etc. then we can safely depend on that axiom for any future system to work as this is nothing but "common sense" (in your own words) but for Capitalism. If we are able to replicate these desires for other systems then we are ensured such desires and the proper action on behalf of the individuals to receive them take place. Under Capitalism, the attempt to achieve those goals is what the maximization of individual utility is which you called common sense. I do not see the problem here at all. Yes, different forms to achieve the maximization of individual utility differs from system to system, but under Capitalism it is what it is and you justified it as I showed the direct relationship between the second interpretation and the first interpretation which you called "common sense".

I wasn’t clear: by “common sense” I meant something like, “true virtually by definition” or “an uninterestingly trivial observation”. Yes, someone acting rationally is someone who considers all options and possible alternative actions, and then decides on the most efficient and plausible etc. course of action in order to achieve what he wants. He will plan for what he wants, make short term sacrifices for long term gain, and will stop doing something if it is preventing him for achieving what he wants.

However, what constitutes his “utility” could be anything at all. It ultimately just means that which makes him happy and satisfied, or what he finds pleasurable, whatever that may be. The idea that “maximizing his individual utility” means “getting more material goods for personal consumption” is then taking an obvious point about rationality and switching it to justify selfishness as something inevitable, which is capitalist ideology.


Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing with being rich as long you PERSONALLY work for it under a Socialist system. Richness in a Socialist society as the one I support only reflect personal contributions to society and ergo merit and a measure of "thanks" by society. Think of credits given as points for contribution. It is only under class-based systems that richness is vile as it is based off of the labor of others, the exploitation of others, and the enslavement of others rather than the personal contributions and labor of the individual in question. What is wrong with company bonuses when you strove hard to achieve them and deserve them? What is wrong with increased profits if you are increasing your contribution to society as well? What's wrong with being able to afford expensive consumables if you have accumulated enough credits in exchange for your contributions to society? After all, "maximizing their own individual utility" is common sense, right?

In a sense your system is only a perfected capitalism, not socialism. You seem to champion capitalist moral ideals but argue that capitalism itself cannot meet them. I’ll explain.

Capitalism is based on wage-labour, and labour-power which is bought and sold on the market. There is a physical, moral, intellectual and legal separation between the worker (most of us) and the means of his subsistence (a wage to be exchanged for goods). Isn’t the moral concept of “desert” – that is, that I deserve to be given goods in reward for my efforts – the natural corollary of such a system? Isn’t it the ideological lifeblood of capitalism? Isn’t it the ethic that justifies the system, in spite of its failures to ever actually live up to the ideal?

For me, socialism would first and foremost have to abolish wage labour. The point is not so much that you have a formal right to “get back” what you “put in”, but that we are living-together in mutual aid, and what is mine is already yours, and yours mine. It is not really about claim and counter-claim. This is why I feel distribution according to need is important, because it presupposes mutual obligation: things don’t have to be “earned” in the sense of “prove to me that you’ve been a good boy!”, or the patronizing sense of “do you deserve it?” That presupposes a power relationship.

Yeh I know, your eyes probably glazed right over all that utopian sounding bullshit. But since we are now just talking about moral judgements and nothing more (you want to know “what is wrong with…?” such and such, etc.) I see no reason why my sense of fairness is inferior to yours.

Even under a full blown market socialism there would have to be a minimum guaranteed income for all, so that people are never forced to sell their labour power, but can contribute to society as a contractual partner and never as a mere minion of the state.


How? By treating them all the same? By allowing a person with an IQ of 90 to receive as much as a person with an IQ of 170 and forcing and encouraging the latter to work less as he receives no more if he works more? Ridiculous nonsense. The guy with an IQ of 90 can apply for social support and welfare, but in no way must all society bend down and make all the unique individuals equal. Since they are inequal, they must be treated according to that inequality, those down the scale would be aided but those high on the scale must never be punished for being what they are.

You may argue that treating unequal people in accordance with that unequalness is rational, or fair, but it would still constitute unequal treatment (at least in the communist sense). If people are of equal moral worth, then that equality means we treat them according to their moral worth and not according to their utility to us or their utility to “society”


Demeans the act? Really now? If I pay you $1000 to aid a homeless person with my own money then the act is being demeaned? No. In fact, if you desire more $1000, you can repeat the same act and you would be proud of it both for helping others and for receiving a reward for doing so. Resources are finite, but that is why they are rationed to acts that are socially positive.

I was making a slightly different point. People need to be paid regardless of whether what they are doing is altruistic and done simply out of love for another, because people still need to live and take care of themselves. However I find the idea that people need to be coaxed through cash incentives and reward structures to do the right thing slightly demeaning, yes.

And actually there is a famous practical example of giving such incentives being counter-productive. There was once an experiment where people were paid to give blood at a local clinic, and the fact of that they were going to be paid was widely advertised beforehand. The number of people giving blood fell.

Why? The drop came about because people did not want their peers to think they had only given blood, “done the right thing”, because they had calculated that it was also to their personal financial gain. The social stigma against such behaviour was/is so great that people would rather refrain from doing the right thing in such circumstances (and also forgo economic gain).

This is a good example of people rebelling against the kind of self-interested behaviour (which you so uncritically champion) that contrasts so violently with the morality that ultimately holds society together.


Yes, I disregard what Marx wrote on alienation. I also disregard what he said on the question of the division of labor. I also do not oppose commodity fetishism, or at least I see no reason not to, you may convince me otherwise. This is a more human system, but not the same as what Marx envisioned to be a Utopian "according to need" society.

I appreciate your forthright response.


People's personal autonomy is in achieving what they want to achieve, which you called common sense. Under Capitalism and such systems, strict instrumental, functional rationality does not thus ride over anything but in fact goes hand in hand with people's own autonomy. Of course, Capitalism breaches autonomy through other means, but not through this form, through the act of resorting to rational decision-making or basing actions and ideas upon rationality. Social process happen behind people's backs indeed, but they can never happen in front of them in clear view due to the numerous complexities of today's world.

This is utterly ludicrous. Capitalism is a system geared solely toward profit, and so as a system it values only that functional rationality which allows it to produce profit more readily. This has nothing much to do with personal autonomy.

It is the economic rationality of profit which means (say) that many thousands of the poorest people in the world have to work for next-to-nothing to extract diamonds from the ground, so that these can be sold to people as jewellery, which is extremely valueable but entirely useless. In this sense, productivist rationality takes over all, crushing mere people in its wake.


And all of that made absolutely no sense in the terms of an argument. What that was just what you supposedly criticized me for - dogmatism. I'm surprised you don't see the irony. Do you see the irony? Do tell me. As for Marx's quotation, I don't agree with that passage, in fact it's full of Utopian rhetoric that belongs in the 19th century where entertainment was nothing but digging a hole in the ground, where something enjoyable and fulfilling for life was work. Today we have computers, we are more than capable of doing without work if given the chance.

I was simply reminding you that communism has been conceived, by Marx as much as by me, as a more moral and humane system as much as a more rational one.

If you wish to strip all this moralistic fervour out of socialism and turn it into something concerned solely with what will function most efficiency, then of course that is your right and prerogative. But I also reserve the right in kind to find this unwelcome.


Not really. "Relentless" production is needed to meet the "relentless" demands ("needs") of the world's population which you imagine to do with butter churners and hand knitting on the local level. I can't believe that you think of Marxists' praising of productivity approached to e "somewhat outdated" but do not think the same of the other various claims by Marx such as the quotation you presented me above.

Why is wanting work to be more enjoyable and not-alienating an outdated concern?


Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell were more than capable of addressing that issue. Same goes for knowledge and information. Knowledge need not be entered into a computer, there is no reason to do so, but can simply be utilized, observed, and put to use by the state.

I’m not familiar with their work.


He'd be the state and demand. Individiduals with new inventions would present their inventions to the state, the state pays them in exchange for their inventions and then puts them into effect. The state is also more than capable of funding technology, innovation, etc.

This assumes the infinite wisdom and benevolence of state planners. But officialdom can be a hindrance on innovation as much as a help.



So what if "Uncle Joe" would have approved of it? Does that make it inherently bad? "Uncle Joe" approved of a lot of things including Marxism, Socialism, Communism, and so on. As for the historical experience of the Soviet economy, do tell.

It is my understanding that one of the major problems of the Soviet economy was that the bureaucracy was incapable of absorbing new technology and making all the vast calculations required to run a strictly top-down centralised economy.


Not really. Why would the local community even need specific technology to deal with its own unique problems IN PRODUCTION when it can receive the same products from elsewhere produced in less constly and more convenient and appropriate areas? What is the point of building a river in a desert just as what is the point of spending extra thousands of dollars just to implement a technology that would allow production in god knows where when the same at a much lower cost can be done elsewhere? Nevertheless, I get your point, local committees can fix the problem themselves, request funds from the state, or the people in the area can organize and fund the project themselves. Thousands of possibilities that can exist without being hampered unless the state prevents them from doing so. Remember here that we are speaking of the centralization of production.

I am only arguing the other side of the coin. Production can be more efficiently imported into a local community from a centralised factory, or it might be more efficiently made locally using local expertise. I’m not willing to see a society that neglects the former as a healthy one.


Today's world. Factories abroad produce what is not available locally. Local shops open up, import the widgets, manufacture the widgets and assemble them into something else, sell them for profit. What's not to get? International trade allows for products which are not available locally to be imported from abroad. Are they destroying the local businesses? If the local businesses cannot compete with the more expensive imported goods then they need to make way for the international competition and adopt that method of production or risk going out of business. This means that people prefer the imported goods and vote for the imported goods through the utilization of money and exchange. If they do go out of business that is not something as bad as in the case of Capitalism, they are not left unemployed. Society itself is benefiting from this by keeping out the inefficient, inflexible, unproductive, and expenses goods and methods of production out of society while keeping the best in.

Just because it is cost-effective or efficient for some, or for “Society” as some top-down monolithic entity, doesn’t mean it is a benefit to everyone. In fact, as you yourself point out, such efficiency gains will often destroy people’s lives.

In a world economy, it may be more efficient for an entire country to concentrate on producing one commodity for sale and then import all everything else it needs to feed itself from abroad. But then, say, imagine another country starts doing the same for the same commodity – world supply doubles, the price plummets, and both countries are left utterly destitute. Each country is left with no money and devalued assets, and so cannot afford to switch tack. Now they can’t feed themselves. Are you saying that under your system such a result is impossible, because the central planner always has all the information, all the necessary power and never makes mistakes? I would be extremely skeptical. When you are but a cog in the wheel, there is always the danger that one day you will become superfluous.

As an aside: The history of the integration of third-world countries into the world economy on similar lines - whereby local economies were ripped up, de-industrialised, and turned back into rural agricultural monoculture economies supplying the world economy with raw materials – is a very bleak one. The history of such practices in India in the 19th century, for example, when coupled with catastrophic colonial mismanagement by British authorities and disastrous droughts, resulted in the deaths of countless millions of people.


Yes, which is why "my" system is Socialist, not Capitalist. A lot of changes exist ranging from the end of private property to state planning. The reason why this is happening now is not because of the price mechanism, it would be much worse without it, but that the price mechanism alleviates such problems and instead leads to the fact that imported goods are better than local goods. Unless you mean this in any other way, of course, because your statement was quite vague. You don't think it was? "Multinational corporations can drive down the cost of labour and of capital to such a degree that it is cheaper for them to import vegetables from different continents, than to pay famers from across the street to grow them. "

They drive down the cost of labor where?
Capital defined by what terms, Marxist or mainstream "dogmatic" "economism"?
Cheaper for "them"? Who's "them"
Why would it be cheaper to import from other countries rather than pay for the farmer from accross the street?

Imagine a US supermarket: it might contract out to a supplier in a country where wages are lower (say where there are no minimum wage laws), then use its power to blackmail the supplier into signing an exclusive contract with it, so it can extract further concessions from the supplier with relative impunity. It might then strike a deal with an oil company for discounted fuel if it buys in bulk, an option unavailable to smaller businesses.

So now, from the perspective of the customer in Wyoming in the store itself trying to buy something to eat, the product is cheaper. But a Wyoming farmer could have produced that same commodity, but he has to pay a decent wage to employees, can’t make use of economies of scale, has to meet his own delivery costs, etc. He is now out of business.

Where are the economic benefits of such a situation, really? And who is benefiting?


Now after all of this, what's the problem here? Cheaper goods being imported from abroad is a GOOD THING as long as these goods are equal or better than the locally produced goods. It is better for society to adopt more efficient means than to stay with "traditional", "old", and inefficient means of production just for the sake of it. After all, you want superabundance to achieve "according to need", no?

It depends on why the goods are cheaper.

If they are cheaper because workers were paid less, or because regulations were ignored, or because a cheaper but more environmentally damaging production technique was used, then no being cheaper isn’t a good thing.

If the good is cheaper because it is some boring standardised identikit model produced en masse, which required no skill to make and so the producers of it were probably bored out of their mind, then there are still considerable social drawbacks to it being cheaper.


Lol? And why is that? Shall we begin the extermination process? Those human scum are killing Mother Earth with their concrete jungles they call homes, schools, daycares, factories, farms, and stuff! ANARCHY! BREAK WINDOWS! Ugg ohh uhg ah ah, agaaaa! [Anarcho-Primitivism, stick it to man, duuuude!]

Er… WTF? You yourself called American suburban homes “destructive, wasteful, and isolationist” and I’m agreeing with you. I didn’t raise the issue, you did :lol:

[Lord Hargreaves]

FYI Theophys, I'd interested to hear more of your thoughts on Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. I'm still very surprised that a socialist could doubt that democracy is the best system of government.

[Theophys]

I'm surprised how you guys are ignoring the point of the OP and the answer. You CANNOT eliminate scarcity for luxury goods, but we're debating "according to need" gift economies. Oh well...


But unless I am misunderstanding you, this is not true. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Israel all import the vasy majority of their water - and these are just the examples off the top of my head. For business and agriculture, systemic water-waste/pollution is driven by competativeness and that for each firm it's more profitable to pass the costs of pollution and waste into "public responcibility". For cities like Los Angeles or Las Vegas, there is a lot of induvidual water-waste from consumers, but I would argue this is due to structural reasons far more than it is due to, say, people running the tap all day because they just can. But again the structural issues such as suburban development are guided by the profit-motive. It's much more profitable to create suburban developments in land with little other profitable value - so the deserts outside of Las Vegas or east of Los Angeles are profitable places to develop.
You're ignoring the fact that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Israel are not water-rich, they do not have local means to purify or collect water to make them water-rich and as such they import their water. Without a means to import their water, my statement would stand true. Since these countries have an unlimited supply of water due to imports, they have a quasi-abundance of that resource and are not forced to use less water. Water waste would be detrimental to competitiveness as these firms buy the water and each liter of water wasted is wasted money. I don't see how firms past the cost of water waste and pollution into "public responsibility" as they're the ones who are paying the carbon taxes and water expenditure costs. They do not receive their water for free, they pay for it from their own money. Running the tap all day just because they can is evident in societies that are abundant in water, be it imported or local. Societies going through a drought do not perform such actions. Now imagine this waste of water here today with cost accounting and imagine it whilst being completely free. If there's waste today even with a pricing mechanism that forces individuals to pay for their water, imagine how disastrous it would be if water were completely free. That is the crucial point which you are not taking into consideration. It's better to develop in deserts and turn them into cities if they can pay for it (profitable) rather than leaving them as is. They're paying for it, let them do it.


I think monitioring production/consumption will simply be an organic necessity due to people wanting to know how much time, resources, and effort are desired to meet absolute wants. But I also think that, just knowing if demand in general is too high to actually be met sustainably or just knowing how much should be produced without putting more labor and energy than is needed (or not enough), is totally different than some kind of specific account of induvidual consumption. By and large I don't think there would be any need for this let alone much of a desire for it.
Demand "in general" is not enough to calculate actual demand of an economy. You need to know the demand and supply of EACH commodity, specific accoutns of individual consumption, etc. in order to be able to plan the economy or efficiently manage that society. But I just don't get how yoru first sentence contradicts your last sentence, first you call it a necessity then you state that there's no need for it nor a desire for it. The thing you need to understand is that it is a necessity because waste will be a large issue without cost accountability with every product you wish to supply being free.


California agriculture is mostly for INTERNATIONAL trade! California alone is the world's 5th largest food exporter.
I do not care if its agricultural outputs are for international trade, that was not the point. The point was that if California consumes so much water in a communist society then it must be closed down and the same farms built somewhere else that is much more efficient and less costly (obviously not overnight). Of course this would not be a problem in the case of Capitalism or any other similar system that has a price mechanism and/or markets due to the simple fact that the agricultural industry in California pays for everything itself. Since California is such a huge exporter of agricultural goods and is already wasting so much water, which it is paying for, imagine what would happen if you give them completely free and unaccountable access to water. The only solution to this is to either ration the water (then it is no longer according to need) or move all the agricultural industry to somewhere else.


No, it is efficient for capitalist firms to pollute because they don't have to deal with the economic costs in their bottom line.
Actually Capitalist firms in many areas do pay a cost for polluting and are regulated.


Technology as it is, is often geared towards saving labor in production. So "magical technology" is not needed, what's needed is to shape technology around making our lives better, not squeezing out a little more exploitation to overcome competators. This is why "accounting" for labor doesn't make sense in a socialist context to me: if we control the surplusses we make, then we might choose to re-invest it towards things we want, or we may decide that since we can produce enough, that we can stabilize or reduce working hours and give ourselves more free-time.
Technology is already shaped around making our lives better BY squeezing out a little more exploitation to overcome competitiors. This is what you do not seem to realzie. When these technologies are implemented and increase productivity, they decrease the cost of goods, increase the supply of goods, decrease the cost of production, and thus make it easier for people to access the produced goods. Technology rarely leads to the squeezing out of more exploitation as it tends to lay off workers and replace them with technolocial innovations. Actually accounting for labor makes a lot of sense in a Socialist context. In your "analysis" you are skipping a crucial step and that is ensuring that surplus is created in the first place. Your workers have absolutely no guarantee or even incentive to work harder, more efficiently, or with a higher productivity. You speak as if you will "magically" (again) have surplus and thus can decide whatever you want on that basis. That is not the case. You cannot ensure that you will have any surplus and thus MUST implement accounting for labor.


The goal as I see it is not worker's power for the purpose of worker's managing their own exploitation, but worker's power so that the wealth and value we produce collectivly is controlled collectivly.[/quoet]
Managing their own exploitation IS collectively controlling what is collectively produced! It is far better for workers to manage their own exploitation and be paid for it than having external forces not involved in the workplace such as the commune or the collective not only managing the workers' exploitation FOR THEM but also exploiting them for its own interests. In the case of an "according to need" system without superabundance, which will be the case, workers will be underpaid, have no reason to work, and the commune will stay take away their products which the workers cannot buy back due to scarcity. The workers are not even paid for their products, only promised the fulfillment of their needs "in the future" when they have an "abundance" to satisfy the needs of billions of people on Earth. Your system without the false assumption of superabundance is a disaster.

[quote]No it's not! What is efficiency? How do you determine that--by how profitable something is? So in other words, profits are and objective measurement of profits!?
I already explained this to the other posters in this thread.

"We determine efficiency by how much goods and services are provided by comparison with other communes or factories, by how much is done with a given amount of resources, etc. Here you go as I see that you have no taken a single course in economics and have never come up on the topic of efficiency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_efficiency

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_efficiency"

We can determine efficiency effectively by how profitable something is, yes. Yes, profits are actually an objective measurement of a load of things including themselves if you consider the former "profit" as referring to the surplus (in the form of money) left after sale and the latter as "efficiency". Money from profit can objectively measure the profitability (money-making potential), efficiency, and productivity of a firm. The more money you make, the more profitable, efficient, and productive a firm is. Of course we can only determine the specific quality if we take a specific firm and compare it to another, their productive methods, their use of labor, etc.


Socialist production in my view would be evaluated for efficiency by how well our needs our met, how well we can stabilize and make production easy and not wasteful. Profitability, on the other hand, is just a measure of how well surplus value has been accumulated (in the hands of the capitalist) and so not only can a firm profit without meeting absolute needs (think housing), while depleting a resource to the point of clear-cutting forrests or overfishing lakes (since capitalists can then just suck up the wealth and move on - rather than trying to find a balance where logging and fishing can be done in the long term)... but they are often now profitable BECAUSE they don't do these things!
You cannot quantify how well your needs are met because you cannot lead to any rational decision-making nor any disincentives for an individual to consume as much as he can "over his needs" whilst claiming that "is his needs". A pricing mechanism forces individuals to rationally utilize and allocate their hard-earned credits in exchange for goods which they actually need. To determine stability and ease of production, lack of wastefulness, etc. then you by every means REQUIRE a pricing mechanism to calculate such things and restrict individual and collective consumption to their actual needs instead of overconsuming. It is impossible to prevent wastefulness in a society with free goods and no entry costs. Nevertheless, you again take the magical step forward whilst entirely ignoring the step that you actually need to take before taking the step forward and that is to ensure that first of all you can actually have proper production BEFORE you start speaking of how to manage your production. The problem with your system is that you cannot in the first place ensure proper satisfaction of anyone's needs and yet you claim that you will EVALUATE the system for that very specific feature. The thing is that you need to first properly ensure that production will take place to meet demands before you speak of evaluation. The same applies for stability, ease of production, and wastefulness. You are committing the same sin the Bolsheviks made when they first started on their road to Socialism where they thought that workers will suddenly become superproductive and their will reach superabundance in no time because they "magically" assumed, just as you do now, that their society will be as such. Then look what happened. By measuring how well surplus value has been accumulated we can thus know how well they organized production, how well they used resources, how well they sold their production, how high demand was, how well they used their labor, and so on and so forth. These are crucial measurements which your system CANNOT have because it does NOT have a pricing mechanism. Actually it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a profit without meeting absolute needs as needs are objectified in the form of demand. If there is demand, especially absolute needs, then there will be someone somewhere that will supply them. In the case of housing, if there is demand for housing then supply will exist. If the people cannot pay for the houses then no demand exists but actual demand exists, in which case they would look for other means available to them such as shelters or temporary housing until they get back on their feet. Of course this would be an issue solved under a Socialism that ensures employment as it controls the means of production and that pays workers according to contribution rather than anything else. Depleting a resource takes place in an attempt to SATISFY DEMAND AND NEEDS. If this is taking place today with a pricing mechanism, notional demand, without everyone having his needs met, etc. imagine how many thousands of resource pools would be depleted in an "according to need" society such as yours without those restrictions where you attempt to extract, deplete, and destroy everything just to TRY to fulfill the needs of EVERYONE without ANY RESTRICTIONS. If you claim that your system will "magically" (again) find a balance whilst extracting resources then good luck dreaming as that is not possible. You cannot replace the coal you are extracting, any means at restoring trees that you chop down would take decades, any attempt at restoring the fish you kill would cost you much more than it would to fish them, etc. They are profitable now because they do not look for sustainability, exactly, imagine if they looked for sustainable means, prices would rise, the cost of production would rise, demand will be unsatisfied, competition would collapse, and firms will become unprofitable and thus close down. This process shows that the sustainability of the environment conflicts with the meeting of the needs of everyone. Profitability is a direct measure of how efficiently, effectively, and so on the resources available to a firm are used.


See above, if the goal of a logging operation is to make needed lumber, it makes more sense to "farm" lumber in a way where the industry and lumber-town just have to be built once, rather than uprooted repeatedly. But if the goal is next quarter's profits in capitalism, then it makes more sense to log as much as possible as quickly as possible, and then move to a more abundant area, moving facilities but making labor pay for reloacting themselves (or just picking up new labor in the new area).
Yes and until you "farm" lumber, you will have billions (6,000,000,000) of people all over the world crying for lumber. Trees take decades to grow. The cost of regrowing the trees would be enormous, but of course in your system you would "magically" plant trees by praying to god. The goal of a logging operation is to satisfy the demands of billions of people on Earth in your society, this cannot happen without reaching the maximum amount of efficiency, productivity, etc. at the cost of sustainability. To resort to a sustainable method you would need to waste crucial and precious time replanting, water, and taking care of the fledgling plants. If the goal is next quarter's profits in Capitalism? What about the goal of satisfying next quarters' needs in your system? You would log as much as possible and as quickly as possible. In fact, if you have quotas based on need to be fulfilled you will have much severe problems than those faced and observed in the USSR. And yes, making labor pay for relocating themselves or picking up new labor is something good, that ensures that costs are low and thus that they are making the best and most efficient of what they have at their disposal. Rather than trucking, feeding, paying the tickets, etc. of the laborers (which sometimes happens), they make the laborers do this themselves or they look for others. This is less socially costly. Any increased expenses in the case of the logging operation would lead to less profits and/or increased prices.


It does? Where's my house? There are more forclosed homes in Oakland than there are homeless people, so I don't think capitalism helps meet needs, it creates production, but it doesn't meet need - it's one of the contradictions: wealth is created alongside poverty.
The homeless people do not have the means to pay for homes. There is a difference between actual and notional demand, look it up. The foreclosed homes were foreclosed for a reason and that was due to these people taking out loans which they were unable to pay. They can always look for cheaper or even free permanent or temporary homes. Capitalism helps meet needs as long as people can pay for those needs. By creating production you help meet the needs of those who can pay for their needs. Under Capitalism ability to pay for needs =/= social contribution, which is the main issue. Wealth is created alongside poverty, exactly, and how the hell can you imagine your magical system to create immense wealth to meet the needs of every SINGLE individual on Earth including those who are currently using very little resources (the poor)?


Yes, the demand for profits. It's reasonably good at that. It's really bad at meeting absolute demand though - in fact if absolute demand for basic necissities was met, it would hurt the capitalist economy. Food prices would plummet and so on.
Actually, it would not hurt it and there is no "conspiracy" to not meet demand. In fact due to the anarchy of production firms attempt to meet demand regardless of the ability for people to pay for them. Even if food prices would plummet should basic needs be met, until they reach that point all forms would produce as much as they can to sell as much as possible. They have every reason and incentive to do this, and that's why we have done away with a lot of scarcities today, it's not because of your "according to need" system but due to a form of an "according to contribution" system. Nevertheless, is it something bad that food prices plummet? You speak of it as it is something bad, should food prices plummet and surplus products exist, production would decrease in order not to overproduce and accrue more losses while people would benefit from the decrease prices of food.


You accuse me of resorting to arguments about "magic" and yet you treat the market as if it's magically efficient and magically able to satisfy anything other than profit. This is not true, the market is a framework in which people take stock of productive capital and make decisions (based on market considerations) about what will give them the best returns. It's just people making decisions, but these decisions have to meet the demands of profit, or else capitalist competition ensures that those people or firms will be overcome by competators. Now, because people make decisions based on the profit-motive, all sorts of problems and - I think - inefficiencies take place.
Actually, empirically and theoretically, a market is indeed efficiency and able to satisfy demand based on profit. There is no need to satisfy anything other than profit because profit includes any form of demand with the ability to pay for it. It is exactly because people attempt to achieve the best returns that they are efficient. You just contradicted yourself. Actually, no, economic decisions-making based on the profit motive does not lead to inefficiencies as that would be acting against the profit motive by leading to LESS motives, not the other way around. You need to freshen up on your economics there.


Organizing production through democratic and cooperative methods however, not on a profit-motive, but on a production for use motive, holds the possibility of totally reorganizing the ways we produce - just given current production levels and technology... later "magic" technology is just an educated guess based on the idea that people would want to continue to create devices that make labor easier and give us free-time while helping us produce what we want. So we would still have to take stock of what's materially possible to produce. So say that more iron is wanted than can be produced in the long-run, or hell, maybe it's just a pain in the ass to produce. At that point people would have to make decisions - do they find alternative substances, do they invest to create a synthetic material that can fit the bill, etc. They are still making a decision, but this time it's not based on what creates the most profit, but what can satisfy the want/need the best given the material options.
Again, and again, you keep making false assumptions and resorting to magic. YOU CANNOT say "given current production levels" when you propose an ENTIRELY different system that does not have ANYTHING to do with the current system. Capitalist currently can ensure the "given current production levels" because of numerous factors that include markets, a pricing mechanism, competition, private property, superexploitation, the profit motive, and so on which you have nothing to do with. You cannot speak of any "given current production levels" and attempt to add that as a "given" for your own society. That is ridiculous, absurd, and fallacious. You call "later magic technology" an educated guess? Are you kidding me? You have no basis to make that guess to even call it educated, it is an IGNORANT GUESS and nothing more where you fallacious and falsely assume that your system will be as productive and as technologically advanced as the current system. People that would want to continue to create devices that increase labor efficiency and whatnot? Why the hell do you think that we had the fastest technological progress in the entire history of our species? It wasn't due to Feudalism nor Primitive Communism, it was due to Capitalism's pricing mechanism, profit motive, and markets that allowed creators and inventors to be properly remunerated for their contributions and inventions. My "according to contribution" system utilizes those aspects of Capitalism and leaves out the bad, yours does not, yours abandons everything and you still take everything today as given in your society. WHY would people in your system want to look for an alternative substance to iron if it's a pain in the ass? They have absolutely no reason to do so. In fact, they would not even be rewarded as it is not an "according to contribution" system, they would instead prefer to continue in their boring way as normal. You claim that they will out of their kind heart just on the assumption that "people would want to continue create" for absolutely NO REASON and NO REWARDS? This is getting ridiculous. As for your last ridiculous sentence there, wrong. Giving out the best/most material with completely disregard to what makes the most profit would only lead to disaster. I can make the most widgets with methods X, but method X would cost A LOT of resources, labor, calculation, and rare resources. This cannot be counted in your system because you have no means to calculate the costs except "in kind". With an "in kind" system, you cannot calculate the costs of shipping methods, production methods, the actual costs of goods, the actual supply of goods, the actual demand of the goods, or the efficiency of such methods. You want to make decisions based on what satisfies want/need the best whilst entirely ignoring price signals, the cost of production, and so on. Hell, we all want superadvanced factories and machinery, that cannot happen because their COST which you CANNOT measure are too high.


Production for use does not mean immediate production for induvidual use. It would mean, for example, hospitals around a region figure out how much of X medicine they used the year before and estimate what the demand would be this year. Capitalists do this, but only based on how much they think they can sell profitably, not how much is demanded in an absolute sense.
And thus we have the "quarter" production you were previously criticizing and we now have the quota production. Nice. Replace the hospital with demand on lumber and reuse your logging example. The logging operation would cut down as much trees as it can to ensure that next quarter's quota is fulfilled. The quota here being not just who are able to pay for logs, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON who wants logs ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR FREE. We can never fulfill absolute demand because we have FINITE resources. What of this are you simply not getting that I have to keep repeating? If we were to satisfy actual demand then see the destruction today? Imagine that but thousands of times worse. Capitalism is still manageable today because it doesn't meet every single need of everyone. Hell, if I want salmon and caviar, how are you planning to get them for me? They already cost a lot under Capitalism for very good reasons, whilst your system has no means of directly calculation the EXACT cost nor does it give me the ability to pay for the goods I want and have them shipped over to me. This has the important point to do as being the entire point of the OP which you are still ignoring. You system cannot eliminate the scarcity of luxury goods.


These are all abstractions - decisions made on what basis? What economic considerations are those?
Depends, give me a specific example and I shall reply properly. Economic considerations that range from how to best allocate labor by increasing pay in the required sectors, how best to modify prices, how best to subsize production, how to deal with crises, how to deal with unemployment, etc. etc. In the case of a centrally planned economy it would be how to represent prices according to supply and demand, where to allocate labor, if there is a need for new factories or technologies, and so on.


I'm in favor of central planning in a general sense or where there is the need to do wide-scale coordination. But the central planning IMO has to be a subbordinate organization, they have to be facilitators of a broader democraticly-based set of priorities for production. I am not in favor of top-down planning based on some abstract economic considerations which in your formulation seem to be profit-making i.e. exploitation. So as far as I can tell you are calling for a top-down state-capitalist regime to guide the economy... maybe technocrats?
You cannot run an economy based on democratic decision-making. An economy is an economy, it cannot wait for any democracy whatsoever. Exploitation is unavoidable unless workers INDIVIDUALLY run their own means of production and produce their own goods. In your system, exploitation will remain as the commune takes away the products of their labor. It is not a question of the existence of exploitation or the lack thereof, but the material context of exploitation, i.e. how are they being exploited, for what reasons are they being exploited, who is profiting from their exploitation, what are they receiving in return for their exploitation, and so on. Now, there are no "abstract economic considerations" because they are all grounded in material reality and based themselves on such rather than the ACTUAL abstract economic considerations that would arise from your "democratically-based set of priorities for production". Your system would be much, much more exploitative than the one I am proposing as you give workers no exit strategy at all but force them to give up their production to the commune with no remuneration whatsoever except a promise of the fulfillment of their needs when the products are available (if ever). The question thus arises how best to manage the products that arise from the exploitation of those workers, profit-making based on direct remuneration according to contribution is the answer. A top-down State Capitalist regime, yes kinda, technocrats are not out of the question.


I don't know about that - if you mean in full communism, yeah, the idea is that without classes and that sort of competion, then the goals of "work" would be the same for everyone.
Which would not by any means prove your point or their point as you cannot guarantee what will happen. If we are to learn anything from the Socialistic experiment in the USSR is that their dreams were false just as yours.


In the crisis period in their attempts to make a transition from capitalism to socialism, yes they tried many things but it failed for reasons they generally knew were problems: an unevendly developed industrial basis, a majority pesant population and majority farming production economy, a small working class, famine, war, invasion, civil war.
That is not a reason. Those problems only existed prior to the first few years after the Bolsheviks assumed power. Stalin created a huge industrial base, the majority peasant population became much smaller, the majority farming production economy became much smaller, the small working class became much larger, famines almost ended after the famines of the 30s, wars ended after the Second World War, invasions ended after the Second World War, civil wars ended after the single instance of civil war that ended in the 20s. So really, with all that we still didn't observe your nor their dreams, you have no excuse as any further from this point would be cop-outs or No True Scotsman logical fallacies. Famines, wars, invasions, and civil wars are to be expected in every revolutionary scenario.


What they didn't see was that their scaffolding so to speak, the new government and the Bolshevik party itself was hardening into something totally different.
They still remained the same.


In fact, many of the things you suggest for a post-revolution economy had parallels in Russia at that time and a lot of it helped usher in a volunter/careerist force inside the party that began to see their mobility based in the continued domance of the party. The time-managment that was argued for early on because of economic crisis and absolute shortages in production due to the nature of their economy as well as the hardships of war and reaction, came back later as a way to ensure "efficient production for the economy" by "party experts" but it wasn't efficient socialism, but efficiency in accumulating surplus, exploiting, the working class.
And do you even realize why they moved from Utopian radical dreams to pragmatic reality? Exactly, because those Utopian radical dreams did not take place. The problem with the USSR's economy was the lack of technology which is available today which would significantly aid in economic calculation and planning, they had no simulated markets at all, they had fixed prices, they did not have economic self-management and closures due to economic failures, they spent a huge chunk of their GDP on the military, they spent huge amounts on foreign aid, and so on. What am I suggest had little to do with Russia at that time. In fact the system in Russia at that time was a retreat from the unworkable radical Utopian dreams that you now. The time-management that was implemented was already too late after the harm was already done. Efficiency in accumulating surplus, exploitation, and (somehow) the working class is something good as efficiency in such aspects ensures that they are used in the best way to yield the best results.


I'm not sure what you are arguing here at all. He who does not work (and is able), shall not eat" is fine in a general sense. To take part in a community requires at least some participation in that community. Maybe in full communism, even this will not be necissary, but I think while people are still transitioning away from capitalism, this makes a general sort of sense. What doesn't make sense from a socialist perspective is to try and specifically monitor this and account for labor-value and consumption value on an induvidual basis. In the early years, where there are shortages, some sort of more specific acconting may be needed to a degree, but the goal would be to "rationalize" production in a socialist sense - so if we can produce enough food to feed everyone, then as we perfect production and distribution we can produce to meet that need and then "price" has little meaning. Maybe you just show that you are a resident in good standing of the community, maybe you show some proof that you work and so are entitled to eat in the co-op etc. Any credit scheme or whatnot would mearly be a way to try and balance production and consumption, not some kind of induvidual reward or punishment to ration what does not need to be rationed.
"He who does not work, neither shall he eat" is a SOCIALIST principle, not an "according to need" principle. Actually attempting to monitor this is not necessary if workers are being paid according to contribution, but if they are being paid according to need then they are and must be monitored to ensure loyalty and faithfulness in production. Consumption need not be monitored in an "according to contribution" system as people pay for what they consume but they need to, by every means, be monitored in an "according to need" system because they receive everything for free without any limits despite finite resources. You cannot by any means state that "in the early years, where there are shortages" because you CANNOT ensure that you will no longer have shortages! What of this do you simply not understand after all this time wasted? To rationalize production would be to implement an accounting method and that best takes the form of a pricing mechanism. Again more magic "if we can produce enough food to everyone", no, you need to speak of the process that leads to such a conclusion BEFORE you speak of the conclusion and what comes AFTER it. More magic... "as we perfect production and distribution". Seriously stop this fucking bullshit. You cannot perfect production and distribution UNTIL YOU ACTUALLY DO SO, and until then you cannot speak of any events that would arise after such a result which you have not achieved until you actually are capable of achieving it! Price would have little meaning in and only if you have infinite resources and superabundance, since you have neither price has every meaning and price is a necessity. To reward individual contribution and to ration are the means by which you try to balance production and consumption in the most efficient, fair, and effective means possible. When you give everyone the same rewards for different contribution that are inequal then you are resorting to an inefficient, unfair, and ineffective means. You need to reward those who give the most, who are efficient, who are effective, etc. not the other way around. EVERYTHING needs to be rationed as long as they are finite resources and scarce resources.


Let's take an analogy: if a family cooks a big meal, maybe the family expects everyone to pitch in to pull it off. But if Uncle Bob cooks the meal but Aunt Jo only sets the plates on the table, does the family ensure that Bob gets more food than he can eat and only allows Jo to eat a bread-roll because she didn't work as hard? Or is it that everyone chips in so that everything gets done, what matters? If Nephew Pete sits on his ass after being asked to help, well then they may tell him to go to KFC for dinner.
False analogy logical fallacy. You cannot by any means compare a family and a simple cooking process to an entire economy or even just the relations between workers in a workforce and their production. A family meal IS A FAMILY MEAL, you cannot leave anyone out of it even if they did not contribute. In the case of work and labor, that can be done because no kin relationships and bonds exist. In the case of a normal production process according to contribution, yes, bob gets more food than he can eat in which case he stores them for the future (money) while Jo barely gets anything because she barely did anything. If everyone were to be rewarded in a workplace regardless of production then the janitor receives as much, if not more, than the scientist, the highly skilled worker, a very slow and slacking worker would be rewarded the same if not more than a very fast and active worker. This is not a family meal. Such a system is completely unfair, gives every incentive to maximize utility and profits, and gives absolutely no reason to produce. In the case of the family meal it would be rational to not do anything and yet force the labor on someone else, but that doesn't take place because all of the family wants to eat. In the case of the factory workforce in an according to need system the workers are not eating the direct products of their labor, they are being given rewards despite what they do in the workplace. That is to say, the workers would not be given what they produce as the family eats what they cook, but he product of their labor goes to someone else in the commune. The family is cooking the meal to feed itself and reward itself, it is not sending shitloads of those meals to random people somewhere in the world. The family has a kin relationship which includes kin altruism and so on. Thus the analogy is by EVERY MEANS a false analogy.


From another post:
" I disagree with the conception those with the greatest ability will serve those with the greatest need. Humans and organisms in general tend to engage in risk-offsetting, money and property has not relevance to this, that is they will perform certain behaviors with higher frequency that have adverse outcomes when the cost of those outcomes are diminished by technology, the environmental conditions or by socializing the cost to other parties. This is a good enough reason for one to reject the concept of communism.

Most families operate based on socialism, but this sort of arrangement is stabilized by kin altruism and the gains are indirect fitness in the case of sibling altruism or direct in the case of parent offspring directed altruism. kin altruism is not a viable means of directing cooperation at a GLOBAL scale or national scale and the more genetically diverse the social system is the more we should expect altruism to break down unless, as game theory predicts, interactions are repeated but then your operating off a "reciprocal altruism" (Trivers 71) which requires small scale, high exit costs, and social evaluation to be handled by individual brains directly via trust, honor , respect and other such social constructs that serve as an archaic analogue of the price system. Since scale, exit and cognitive limitations cannot be grafted onto a global exchange system some other social enforcement structure needs to exist to ensure benefits are proportion to contributions and sanctions are proportional to lack of contributions."



Capitalism is a system of "abundance". It creates conditions and industrial methods which allow each laborer to produce more value than he/she needs to or could consume. Capitalism couldn't exist if it didn't do this because where would the surplus come from, where would the profits arise? So controlling this collective surplus collectivly would mean that we could re-direct resources, raise standards of living, and find more long-term plans and sustanability for production... and new "magic" tech could be oriented to help us do this even more and make our lives materially richer, or just reduce required levels of labor.
Woah, woah, woah, and who is to say that the worker produces more value than he needs or could consume? You? Another magical false assumption by you. A worker need not at all produce much more than he can use, need, or consume. If you claim otherwise then the burden of proof is already on the one who asserted the positive (you) and I'll be thus waiting for your proof. Actually Capitalism has nothing to do with this and this has nothing to do with the Labor Theory of Value. The Labor Theory of Value and Capitalism do not hold that surplus value is extracted because workers cannot consume those goods and their value that they produce because they're more than they can consume, but that workers are paid a subsistence wage and that the surplus value is extracted by the bourgeoisie to create profit REGARDLESS of whether or not the workers can consume. Again more false magical assumptions, controlling this "collective surplus" would NOT mean that you can do anything because you cannot ensure that a collective SURPLUS even exists in the first place! God damn, when will he ever understand? He speaks of raising standards of living, sustainability, redirecting resources, etc. when he cannot and does not even bother to get a means by which to ensure that he has the means to do so, i.e. to get the surplus in the first place. So many fallacies...



Again, as a sort of transitionary measure used to balance prodution and consumption while levels are low or capacity is uneven, is not something I'm totally opposed to, but I think people might deal with these issues in other ways too.
Yes and if they deal with those issues differently then that is always for the better as we have already taken what is empirically and in reality not dependent on the "other ways" but on what we have available today USING the exact means that led to what we have today instead of completely disregarding them as in your system.



No, the profit-motive has been the dominat basis for productive relations for maybe a couple hundred years... unless you are a creationist, that's not very much of human existance. While some markets and capitalist relations existed before then, not as the dominant forms in society though, for most of recent history, the profit-motive was actually seen as sort of taboo. Islam and Christianity long had rules against "money-changing" and charging interest and so on. Classes and class-exploitation have been around longer, but still only for a fraction of human existance.
Have you really so easily forgotten Feudalism, Warlordism, class systems, etc. before Capitalism? All of those had systems of exploitation or do you only think that exploitation = profit-motive? I wouldn't be surprised after what I have read so far. Nevertheless I did not speak of the profit motive in the part you quoted me, but I spoke of exploitation. Here's what I had said:


"People in "most of human existence" were exploited, had their products taken away from them, did not have decision-making in their hands, had supervisors, managers, the bourgeoisie, and had the profit motive to ensure that they did what they did."


I said that people in most human existence have been exploited, nowhere did I mean profit. Seriously, you based that entire section on you misinterpreting what I said... I just... Until you in the last sentence realize that I was speaking of classes and exploitation, and yes they have been around longer, very longer even before recorded human history.



Do people want products, do people like the things we can potentially create through modern methods -- good, well that's a motivation right there. Do people like to waste their own time? Well, there's a motivation for not slacking and for applying peer-pressure on fellow workers who aren't giving it and honest try.
Oh my... Is that your economic theory? I just... People may want the products we have today, but that does not by any means lead to the conclusion that people currently producing iPhones who want iPhones will be in any way bothered to produce iPhones for anyone else without pay. That is not by any means a motivation other than a motivation for people to produce their own products to reward themselves, something which is solved in "my" system. People already waste their time, it's called work. That is not a motiviation for not slacking, in fact, it is every reason why they do slack, to spend their time relaxing rather than breaking their ass working. As for applying peer-pressure, you are forcing people to work and coercing them, forcing them to work against their will. Giving it an honest try? They do not need to give anything an honest try, they only need to work and receive what they need, they are not working for to receive according to their contribution but according to their need.



Yes, this is a scarsity society where communism was enforced through the basic necissity of everyone pitching in or mutual starvation.
That would only apply if you are actually on the brink of starvation on a purely small-scale level, not on the world level. That, as well, does not even end there, you have the problem of producing luxury goods which are not necessary for survival. Hell even productive to stave off starvation would only lead to people working to feed themselves with no reason to feed others if it does not interest them as was the case with the peasants in Russia hoarding grain due to unfavorable prices during the Civil War, collectivization, etc. until it was forcibly requisitioned.



But given the ability to now produce more than just basic self-subsistance, it is possible to have the increased production along with collective control over the collective surplus.
NOW does NOT apply to the FUTURE, especially if you have a completely untried and untested system that even fails in theory and has little to nothing to do with what we have now! This guy thinks he can have "increased production" from "now", a system based on "private control over the individual/private/collective surplus" to apply to a completely different system of "collective control over the collective surplus". I just... What can I even say?



So who controls the surplus, who decides what to do with it - what if people create more value and they want to use that extra value to "slack" and reduce labor requirements?
They sell the surplus value themselves or to the state, depending on the system.



Not quite - in order to have exchange value, something must have a use vale. But production for exchange value does not inherently meet "use-value", only exchange value... otherwise there'd be a lot of affordable homes right now in California. During the housing bubble, the use-value of homes didn't suddenly dissappear, the exchange-value declined to a point where banks just decided to sit on the empty property until prices went back up.
Actually yes quite. All production for exchange, i.e. for exchange-value, IS production for use, i.e. use-value. I do not care if it meets it, I only care that exchange-value production is based on the production of use-values. Hell, if you produce exchange-values, you are attempting to meet the use-values of the consumers. This, however, does not mean that those who have a use-value for the products have the means to pay for the products, this is the assumption you are making which i myself did not make.



It's impossible in modern production to induvidualize the value given specifically. Production is a collective effort which produces a collective value (that in capitalism is then controlled by capitalists or state-beurocrats).
Actually it is, that's why all workers are not paid the same today. Oh and you cannot have state bureaucrats controlling the means of production in a Capitalist mode of production because state-owned means of production are NOT privately-owned means of production.



Yes I fully support the "tyranny of the majority" over what we have, the tyranny of a minority over the majority.
And with all that, I was speaking of the tyranny over the worker and the force and coercion over the worker. So unless you consider the worker a part of the majority, he is being oppressed by the tyranny of a majority, the majority being based on democracy, the democracy which cannot ensure that the most popular decision is always the best decision especially with its uneducated guessing.



People will be alienated because the commune will control the means of production... but who is "the commune" in a democratically run system from below... people. So people will be alienated from the means of production because they will control the means of production..?
Oh please, are you serious? Adam, John, and Peter work in a factory that is a part of a society that has thousands of other people such as Tom, Robert, Sam, Eve, Claud, Claudette, Andrew, Miguel, etc. Now do tell me how the FUCK are Adam, John, and Peter the SAME as "Tom, Robert, Same, Eve, etc. etc."? Go ahead and try. They are not the same. It is thus as such: "So people will be alienated from the means of production because OTHER PEOPLE will control the means of production". Still alienated, and this time ever worse than that under the bourgeoisie which they have a personal relationship with.



Since you're not addressing points and are just dogmatically repeating the assertions of your line over and over, it would be most appropriate to treat you as a right-winger since you are constantly harkening back to the market mechanism.

You ignored FOUR chunks of my post just to reply with this shit? Very well. So be it. I am not the dogmatic one, you are. You are basing your entire system on dogmatic nonsense from a 200 year old book whilst I am using modern methods to rejuvenate and fix the problems with that system. You are following such system purely because of dogmatism, not me. I constantly hearken back to the market because the market is what exists today, the market is what you get all your givens and false assumptions from, and the market is what we need to learn from to improve and change.


Your line forces you to increasingly exclude any possibility of a political civil society, or mass consciousness that could serve as a beneficial co-administration over everything.
In essence you are disallowing any kind of a conscious, hands-on approach to social production, prefering to use the throw-back of the 'invisible hand'. This is too objectionable to let pass since we are all-too-familiar with market-based crises under the current regime of capitalism.

Less nonsense, more arguments. "Political civil society", "mass consciousness", are you kidding me? Are we dabbling with magic here or economic and political theories? What I am excluding are abstract moralistic notions that do not base themselves in material reality whatsoever, notion which you cannot prove, guarantee, or show will exist and reach fruition in your system. I do not care about a political civil society or mass consciousness as much as I care about meeting the demands of people BEFORE speaking of a political civil society or mass consciousness which very well may end up being impossibilities as the Bolsheviks found out with their Utopian expectations of a Socialist revolution/society. Actually my system would include a hand-on approach and every incentive to get the best hand-on approach to social production, your system does not and cannot ensure this. Allowing an entire commune or world to take part in individual management of the means of production over the workers in that workplace is the worst possible "conscious, hands-on approach" and is antithetical to it. Those who work in a specific workplace are ENTIRELY different from those who reside in a commune or the world. The market-based crises arise out of the trash of Capitalism that would be done away with such as the financial system, speculation, and so on.



Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a lottery method, except for the most intractable situations, where no other approach would be any less controversial.
At least there's something I'm glad to hear.



Here's a guideline:

[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy
You know, it would much more simpler and easier if you would put the explanation and point of your chart in words than having me to look at the chart and wonder what your point is in relation to the above (the lottery). What does supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy have to do with the lottery system which you proposed for an 'according to need' system and then said you wouldn't recommend (the lottery) except for extreme cases? Your chart merely states that vital needs (according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs) would be supplied for luxury goods...? What does that have to do with anything? That is as obvious as it can be and has nothing to do with a lottery system as a means of distribution of billions of goods.



Yeah, this is all moot in today's context since communications technology allows everyone to represent themselves precisely on *all* issues, without any logistical need to resort to ratioed political representation whatsoever. Here's a sketch:

The proposed system in the chart would be a disaster. Those with the least amount of votes (which can be THOUSANDS) would be amongst the last to be supplied and products to be produced. What if I urgently need a product? Do I have to wait until everything up high on the list is supplied and produced? What if I want something low on the results list? Why do I have to wait months or years for them to arrive when I could have bought them whenever I needed with my wage? This is not the representation of themselves as themselves but as a collective which does not take into consideration individual aspiration, needs, time, urgency, or other such factors. I'd prefer to allow people to buy whatever they want at whatever time they deem necessary if they have the money for it then have them to wait in a list of billions (world-scale) or thousands (local scale) before their needs are met. What scored a 105 on the list may have been scored a 100 by one individual. That is not by any means taken into account by that chart and the proposition that you make and would prove to be a much more severe problem in the case of thousands if not millions of individuals and their own points on the list. Hell, it would make much more sense to give these points as a form of money to be exchanged for goods! It would much much more effective, rational, efficient, representative of their actual needs, less time consuming, and satisfy their needs on an individual level. The needs of the individual are not the same as the needs of the collective.



It's downright adorable how you think that you've somehow 'dismissed' the validity of my position just by waving your hand and endlessly repeating your contentions.


Since we're just talking past each other at this point I'll just add as I can to illustrate my own position.
I'm not the one waving any hands nor anything, that is you doing so with your ignoring of my argument and the use of one-liners and charts which have little relation to anything. Less time wasted on you, more on others.



Sheer hyperbole.
He ignores more sections of my post with one-liners, nice.



Yeah, materially the prospect of a superabundance is quite realistic.
As I have already explained and shown, no it's not with your system because you cannot assume what exists due to the current mode of production has anything to do with your mode of production.



No, there would be no exploitation since the workers would be part of the planning over their own liberated labor. And, by definition, 'liberated' means that they would have final veto power over their own capacity to supply labor.
Bullshit, is that what you will tell them? PART of the planning over their "liberated" labor does not mean owning their own "liberated" labor. The other people involved in that planning, such as society, are not the same individuals taking part in the labor. Liberated with veto power over their own capacity to labor? In other words they can just quit their jobs if they are unsatisfied? How lovely. If not then the community essentially own them. If veto to work as much as they want then down goes your entire system. Pick your poison.



Ultimately the implementation wouldn't be up to me since I'm only one person -- the making of the policy would transcend my own individual, limited sphere of influence.
erhaps this guideline would only be invoked if some realtime issue cropped up that necessitated resolving.
I do not care about implementation yet because we are discussing theories. Your theories said that, and that's what I quoted which you need to back up.



Rather than resorting to a defeatist, fallback practice of rationing, the outstanding demand should be viewed *positively*, as an impetus to increasing production to fulfill it.
Oh really? Like the unfulfilled quotas of the USSR? The outstanding demand in the USSR were the quotas, which remained unfulfilled. A defeatist label needs to be made to what is a failure through and through, which is exactly what and "according to need" system is. Rationing is not a fallback practice, it is a vital practice which if ignored will lead to disaster such as the example of your system.



In a post-capitalist political context these two kinds of demands would be synonymous.
What? So the economy would be political? Oh my the disasters... Might as well see you justify Anarcho-Capitalism while you're at it claiming that political demand is economic demand!



You insist on viewing this alternative in the worst possible way, unfortunately.
While you insist on viewing everything in the most adventurist, Utopian, and fallacious way possible. Yes, I'd prefer my way rather than trying to create heaven on Earth and end up as the Bolsheviks did with the NEP and what followed.



It wouldn't matter how outlandish popular demands for luxury goods might get, since the liberated laborers would simply be able to refuse to *work* to produce such things if they felt those efforts would be inappropriate.
And hear, hear as the workers will refuse to do anything whenever they want in a system that gives them absolutely no incentive to work but moralistic godly nonsense of "mass consciousness"! We shall also see the workers refusing to work in risky, hard, or labor-intensive jobs and instead working in low-risk and easy jobs! Let's see your streets fill with garbage, your sewers flooding to the streets with shit, your luxuries unproduced, your coal not extracted, your oil not extracted, your tunnels digging the holes themselves, the buildings building themselves, and your trees chopping themselves.



Specifics would not be any kind of a barrier to functioning.
Actually they would, which is exactly why customized and off-the-shelve non-standard goods cost more than others. It is easier, less costly, faster, and more efficient to produce a standard product (such as the commodities in the USSR and cars) than unique and diverse products every single time.



Since any of us is only one individual ourselves, we *could* prioritize whatever ostentatious things we might like for our *own* personal requests / demands, but that would hardly make a dent when that personal demand list is combined cumulatively with all others from a locality.


The conclusion is that the production of luxury goods would have to be *organized* for, as a matter of numbers, if it were to have any chance of being realized. Either that or else one would be left to put in the requisite labor *themselves* to make it happen.
Which is exactly why the personal demand list being combined with all others is a fucking disaster. Our priorities and demands would mean nothing in the larger way of things. What is the problem today with democratic voting would be a daily problem for people in the future when try to get their own products.



No, I've been addressing your points, and not your person.
*facepalm*



Plenty of energy resources are fully renewable (solar, etc.), so their supply is effectively infinite. Metals and other materials can be recycled and reused.
And yet very expensive to build, maintain, and are less productive than the alternative, but they are still infinite, yes. Metals and other materials cannot be recycled faithfully, but lower quality goods are produced and in lower amounts, hell some materials cannot even be recycled. Even moreso, not all products and resources are sent to be recycled.



You bring up the spectre of rationing only within the artifice of a runaway, infinite demand for consumables.
We do not need infinite demand for consumables to justify rationing, we only need a constant demand with finite resources and over time those resources WILL run out and ergo we need a means of rationing to ensure that they do not run out rapidly and be given to those who utilize them best or contributed the most.



Of course I *can* look to present-day tools as being usable beyond tomorrow. The remaining issue then is how society would be *organized* to make use of these tools, if not under the control of capital -- hence these discussions.
No. You cannot because you cannot ensure the present-day tools will exist tomorrow and these present-day tools include superexploitation, imperialism, markets, profit-motive, etc. that ensure that these present-day tools are used, created, and so on. It is not only how society is to be organized, but that you cannot by any means make any false assumption of abundance or anything being constant if you have an entirely different mode of production different than the one that lead to the abundance. In all your "theories" you are taking it as a rule of thumb that you have abundance, which is not the case.



Right -- we are going over political *topics*, which transcend *any* one of us as individuals.
That made absolutely no sense at all.



People *do* cooperate out of mutual benefit, even *despite* capital's unremitting mandate to mercilessly privatize.
They only cooperate on the local scale, where memory allows for accountability, where information asymmetry does not exist, where mutual benefits are directly observable and given, and so on. Altruism only exists with those conditions, specifically only proper in the case of kin altruism. From another post:


"I disagree with the conception those with the greatest ability will serve those with the greatest need. Humans and organisms in general tend to engage in risk-offsetting, money and property has not relevance to this, that is they will perform certain behaviors with higher frequency that have adverse outcomes when the cost of those outcomes are diminished by technology, the environmental conditions or by socializing the cost to other parties. This is a good enough reason for one to reject the concept of communism.


Most families operate based on socialism, but this sort of arrangement is stabilized by kin altruism and the gains are indirect fitness in the case of sibling altruism or direct in the case of parent offspring directed altruism. kin altruism is not a viable means of directing cooperation at a GLOBAL scale or national scale and the more genetically diverse the social system is the more we should expect altruism to break down unless, as game theory predicts, interactions are repeated but then your operating off a "reciprocal altruism" (Trivers 71) which requires small scale, high exit costs, and social evaluation to be handled by individual brains directly via trust, honor , respect and other such social constructs that serve as an archaic analogue of the price system. Since scale, exit and cognitive limitations cannot be grafted onto a global exchange system some other social enforcement structure needs to exist to ensure benefits are proportion to contributions and sanctions are proportional to lack of contributions."



I happen to agree with the generality that an accounting mechanism is required, but I *don't* agree that a per-item, tit-for-tat tight reciprocity is required.
Because you imagine that you will magically have a magical society with magical superabundance to meet everyone's need without worry about how to create abundance, sustain that abundance with constant or growing productivity, or lead to abundance in the first place because you "magically" already and will always have it.



No, benefits must be *satisfying*, not necessarily proportional to aid given.
Actually if they are proportional to aid given then they ARE satisfying and thus cooperation remains due to two sides mutually benefiting from the relationship. That only applies on the local scale or on the large-scale through a pricing system. You cannot keep track of any such relationship if your products go to random destinations whilst you do not receive anything in return from those destinations. You cannot ensure that the person your product goes to is benefiting you or society. A pricing system allows you to do so by ensuring that when your products are bought, you receive a reward directly proportional to what was given. Thus, the point remains which you entirely ignored.



I understand and find this aspect to be non-objectionable.
At least you understand that.



Any controversies over resource usage that might arise could be resolved with increased bidding, under this model of yours -- this means there would be inherent incentive to aggregate wealth as much as possible, so as to enjoy better-leveraged economic positions versus others.
There is absolutely no issue with the aggregation of wealth as long as that aggregate wealth refers to the individual's wealth that he obtained through his own labor. Better-leveraged economic positions are to be looked upon in a favorable light so long as people achieve such position through their own direct labor thus leading to the conclusion that such wealth is a direct return on actual contribution to society by that individual.



This interest towards accumulation would cause friction in relation to the state's role of neutral arbiter, just as in today's reality.
The state is never neutral, this is the most basic of Marxist tenets.



Your state / party / planning organization would be at odds with local interests that represent themselves with increased-bidding economic practices.
At which point the differences would be managed properly depending on the situation. Specify a situation and we shall discuss possilbilities. How would a state be at odds with local interests that "represent themselves with increased-bidding economic practices" (whatever that even means, never stumbled upon such vague and abstract clogging up of words as I have on this forum).



Nope.
Are you kidding me? THAT is your reply to an ENTIRE paragraph? A god damned one word?



Yes, I understand your position, but you still haven't specified what the value of a market-socialist "dollar" would actually represent in your hybrid state-and-pricing framework.
Money would be remuneration for direct contribution and nothing else. The value of such a "dollar" would represent the social value of that dollar represented by labor, supply, demand, and exchange. In the case of a planned economy, the "dollar" would be nothing more than a credit, a points system, rewarded in exchange for contribution to the state. In the case of a market economy, the "dollar" would be a means of exchange, a credit, to be used to purchase and exchange goods within the market. So in other words, in the former example it would represent labor, affected by demand and supply, and the latter example it would represent the numerous factors of the market that determine it as is the case today minus the financial market.



No, you misunderstand -- by 'mass consciousness' I simply mean 'civil society' or 'present-day common understandings'.
Which you cannot by any means determine and are as abstract as the "general will" when not determined by material measurements.



The body politic (of liberated labor and popular demands) could readily preclude any dependence on sheerly mechanistic methods, like markets or market socialism.
Sure it can, first you will need to prove it and secondly even then you will not be able to come anywhere near markets or market socialism because "liberated labor" cannot be ensured to do anything and "popular demand" is not enough to measure anything as Mises showed.



Then we may as well favor the more-conscious approach.
My explanation was the explanation why you can't have a "more-conscious approach" which you cannot even determine, guarantee, nor create anywhere.



Okay.
...



All of this information can be provided journalistically, without resorting to abstract pricing realms.
Pricing realms are not by any means abstract, but concrete. Journalistically attempting to provide information is as abstract as you can get. It is impossible. Nevertheless, still waiting for you to propose one that doesn't involve a "hivemind" that won't exist.


You just happen to advocate the primacy of the individual as the primary economic and political unit -- I see this as a misguided approach and prefer to see a liberated production defined in terms of *policy*.
That is because we are all unique individuals with unique demands, unique beliefs, unique actions, unique effort, unique dedication, etc. rather than blank clones with everything being the same. We need to take the individual into everything.



Well, again, I can only restate what I've said previously. Yes, there will be slackers. Yes, they will be a problem. No, they would not be such a threat that the entire system has to be based around providing incentives and coaxing people into working. I simply don't accept your premise that people are ultimately selfish.

I have to go through this reply rapidly because I'm wasting too much time taking part in multiple long debates on here and other forums.

Actually if they are a problem and they exist then the entire system needs to accomodate itself on that basis to prevent them from spreading like a viral disease. There would be no basis for mutual benefits if that is the case, as I have already explained to the others above:


"The "symbiotic interest" of yours is nonsense. If that were the case then people today would already operate on that basis rather than requiring markets and pricing mechanisms. In fact, symbiotic interest would only be relevant if the system were based on survival and threat of extinction where everyone depends on another living in small communities such as tribes. In a fully-fledged economy this symbiotic interest is done away as altruism and memory no longer exist as they did in kin-based societies. You cannot count on any other, others are not basing their existence on you, and you have little to no direct contact to know and judge if they are working properly or not as in the case of tribal and kin-based societies. You need an accounting mechanism, such as a pricing mechanism with or without a market (Market Socialist or even State-owned and created), to ensure that other individuals are actually contributing to society in that "symbiotic interest" of yours to ensure that others will do the same. Money, pricing mechanisms, and the market are capable of doing so through the remuneration of work and labor with the appropriate credits. In other words, I fundamentally believe that a significantly high enough populations you need something approximating markets to have cooperation. Benefits must be proportional to aid given or cooperation breaks down. At small enough or simple enough scales cooperation can be maintained though altruism because memory is an effective accounting mechanism. Memory keeps tabs on who helped me and who didn't. When the size of society exceeds a certain threshold and the complexity along with the complexity of production there are limits to the memories capacity to police who is producing value and who isn't. Something must stand in for memory in a "meta conscious", that is, "beyond a singular consciousness". This is a price system. The market serves as an extended mind aggregating information because no "one person" possesses all the necessary information to organize society and then position us like pawns to engage in these tasks, there are no human gods. Your assumptions based on cooperation which you claim to be "symbiotic interest" are ridiculous as soon as you surpass the human limitation of the number of active human relationships you have known as Dunbar's number. "


The world already produces enough stuff. That is me making an objective judgement. It may not produce enough to satisfy "demand", but then demand is infinite so its never will, and that is an uninteresting observation.

I concede your point that we cannot assume current levels of productivity and efficiency will simply continue under a new economic system. But I still don't see why this therefore means that we need to keep much of this infrastructure intact to ensure it is. If we are having a revolution, then we may as well have one.
Because if you do not keep much of this infrastructure then you cannot only not speak of today's results as a given for your system but you will have absolutely nothing at all to even speak of a possibility of achieving today's results or more. Hell, you would have to start rebuilding everything all over again.


That's great, and more socialists need to engage with these arguments just as you have. However is also seems to be the case that you are accepting too many of their beginning assumptions uncritically. The early Karl Marx's motto was "doubt everything"
Because I have observed that their beginnign assumptions work well, if not then the entire system today would collapse. I use such things and then base my theories upon them. If it turns out that Socialism is more productive and better with more cooperation then all the better, if not then the revolution would not be all for naught.


So the term effort is just "moralism" as you've put it previously,and what we are really still talking about is productivity. No matter how much effort someone put into completing hand-written accounting forms (or whatever) they will still be less productive that someone who has an automated system and only works 2 hours a day.
Which is exactly why they have every incentive to adopt that automated system and waste less effort.


So the most productive factory will be one that is entirely automated, manned only by one engineer, and lays off all its workers who were still doing things manually. They then get nothing because they contribute nothing. Welcome to capitalism.
That isn't a problem at all, in fact that is something superb, as that is what we want to acheive. Super-productivity and super-abundance. You just acheived those. Workers were laid off? But so be it! We don't need those workers anymore as everything would be automated! At such a moment and only at such a moment can we speak of an "according to need" system and a gift economy! Do you see the beauty of it all? The entire point is to no longer utilize labor after extreme productivity in order to achieve an "according to need" system. You, however, and the others, wish to automatically achieve such a system without the proper material conditions relying solely on what Capitalism has achieved and attempt to falsly and magically have the same reuslts but with different methods by simply taking the super-abundance as a given without even bothering to offer any proper system or otherwise as to how you are going to achieve that super-abundance in the first place.


I'm guessing that under economic theory, demand is the aggregation of individual's pursuing their own utility by exchanging labour for money/credits to purchase consumables. This is circular and based on the liberal moral assumption (or straight libertarianism) that what someone demands is an exogenous "given" for the system, because it is actually none of anyone else's damn business what I want to buy.
Right, and what's the problem here?


Instead, in a democratic system, social priorities need to be set that necessarily restrict what people demand. If everyone is demanding a product in such quantities that the system cannot cope, or if the demand is causing serious ecological damage (too many "externalities" is the euphemism I believe economists use) then alternatives have to be found.
Then raise prices or go out of stock. Why would you even want to limit what people demand in a democratic system? Isn't a democratic system essentially an aggregation, in turn, of what people demand? If the system cannot cope for such quantities then it is not productive, inefficienct, and thus alternatives need to be found to solve the crisis. What are these alternatives, then? We cannot be sure in your system just as we cannot be sure they can be solved, but under a Market Socialist system they can be solved with ease as people come up to answer the demand as demand outweighing supply means people will pay dearly for those goods. If too much ecological damage is being done then the issue is not here but in the entire system in your case as you need to meet the demands of every single individual on Earth and cannot do so without severe and serious ecological damage.


Now yes, I can imagine what you'd say to this: it may be that the dictatorial government planner can achieve what is best for society here by raising the price and making these things too expensive, so it would now be "rational" not to buy them, etc. Or... you could just have a discussion and make an agreement.
A discussion? Are you serious? A discussion trying to convince BILLIONS of people all over the world that they should not buy this product? What if they do not agree with you? What if they still want the product? Have you ever tried convincing someone to do something they do not want to do? Have you ever convinced someone in a debate? One person? Two? Out of billions? These things rarely ever take place. Now you can always take part in grassroots campaigning but in that case it would generally fail or slightly reduce demand for the slogan would be "Stop killing our whales!" or something like that. It is far easier, simpler, and effective for prices to increase rather than do what your alternative suggests.


The highfalutin, pseudo-sophisticated technical fixes of the economists are only necessary because they/you refuse to accept agreement-in-solidarity as a concept. It can't be quantified and it won't fit neatly into a mathematical function. I am arguing that this is exclusion is simply ideological and nothing much more.
Go ahead and start an "agreement-in-solidarity" right now, I'll be waiting. Even PETA failed, so do the vegans, so does every mass campaign concerning awareness. You cannot convince every single person out of billions, but if you place a pricing system then only the most desperate would be highly and at which point they ARE paying dearly and highly. You are arguing that solidarity's exclusion is ideological? What about the exclusion of everything from a pricing mechanism to markets, is that not ideological? People ignore solidarity as a concept because it is unreliable and non-existent in anything but the large-scale. See the part concerning kin altruism and memory.


And it is also the case, as Rousseau famously argued, that some demands are only historical and social: you might only want a new car because you saw your neighbour cleaning his one on a Sunday afternoon, and you're jealous of the attention he gets from women when he does it. These kinds of demands can never really be taken as simply "given" without a certain resulting dogmatism.
I'm sorry but what is the issue if one wants a new car because he's jealous? We all create demand based on personal experience and information from society, such as the neighbor's car. The "given" that we use, the "dogmatism" which you speak of, is tried and tested, you can observe yourself what has been achieved today based on that axiom. Now show me where that solidarity of yours is and what it has achieved.


Actually yes here I can agree, we can use an incentive structure to get people to do really unpleasant and disgusting work. Must this necessarily take the form of paying them more? Of course not.
What are the incentives then that do not breach "accoridng to need" and remain away from "according to contribution"?


And where there is no real skill involved, as is the case with a lot of so-called unpleasant work, then the work can simply be rotated.
A lot of the unpleasant work actually demand skill, unless you're - I can't think of an example that wouldn't require skill where skill would lead to improvement in that field. Hell, throwing a damned ball and kicking it require skill. I just do not see a rota-based system as viable.


I am assuming my previous point that "effort" is as much a metaphysical value that has no fixed meaning as "need" is.

You solve the problem by defining effort away into just meaning how much someone produces as against what others produce, in an unsatisfying technical fix. But then you still consider "need" as something wild-eyed and philosophical.

If we were really to fairly reward "effort", we'd need to look at how psychologically capable people are of concentrating at a task, for example, or how anxious people get over meeting deadlines, their intelligence and how quickly they learn skills, or how physically capable they are (a disabled person might be trying a lot harder than an able person to perform the same task). It may be that someone cannot be the same time into the factory as someone else because they have other obligations.

A really comprehensive system rewarding effort would be just as complicated as one meeting needs. Only by simply ignoring people's differences and treating everyone as a clone - as you bizarrely, groundlessly, excuse me of doing - can you consider effort and/or contribution as something defined merely by "productivity"
Not quite. Effort can be objectified and crystallized in the form out output. If an individual increases his effort, he naturally "contributes" more than an individual who puts in little to no effort. We can observe the direct output of effort but we cannot measure "need", its requirements, its output, or whatever. Effort does not matter if it does not lead to increased contribution. Hell, even on the local scale within the factory effort can be directly observed by others and rewarded properly with increased shares, money, bonuses, or whatnot. The questions that you ask which should determine aren't that valid unless they contribute to society. I do not care if they get anxious, cannot or can concentrate, how they learn skills, or how phyiscally capable, I only care that they contribute to society quantitavely and qualitatively. So yes, as you can see effort is completely different from the issue with need. That "unsastisfying technical fix" is a technical fix that YOU do not find satisfying for personal reasons, such as personal distaste.

A comprehensive syste rewarding effort is by every means more realizable and easier than one attempting to define and meet needs. You do not need to treat people as clones but treat them as different people with different levels of contribution. Clones only contribute the exact same output.


I concede the point; it isn’t really something I’ve thought about and I obviously need to.
Alright.


As I understand it, it is the virtue of the market that this huge amount of information can reach the people who need it precisely without the need for a centralised planner who has to know everything. So why would you need a strong behemoth government when - given the information available to all through a pricing mechanism - people at all levels can make decisions?
Because "my" system can take the form of including markets and basing itself on that (cooperatives and Market Economy) or include artificial virtual "markets" (think of shops in games) created and maintained by the state. The state buys goods from workers based on which products sold how much and other feedback. It's quite complicated but I do not have the time to explain as I had said at the beginning of my reply to you, sorry.


Under socialism, a central planner can have the fundamental but basic information about the economy in order to, if you like, set overall social priorities; but it wouldn’t need to be making all the decisions. Planning decisions should be made at the lowest viable scale, and be concerned with the economic activity it is involved in and not much else.
Imagine you're in Sim City. Would you prefer to be planning in the player's chair or be one of many pops in that city trying to plan an entire economy? Exactly. Central planning from the state top-side allows for a direct and complete observation of what is taking place taking information from the market and feedback/information from local districts. Planning shouldn't be democratic and shouldn't be at the lowest viable scale (as long as you have inputs from markets and information/feedback from local districts), but the opposite.


The principle of subsidiarity means that people precisely do not need to “go outside and discuss billions of commodities, billions of production processes, with billions of people in thousands of communities all over the damned world”. It strikes me that such a thing is impossible, and no less so for a massive centralised government than a local commune.
A massive centralized government is capable of doing so because all information flows through it and it can control everything. A local commune cannot do the same for exactly the opposite reason. If you claim that you want multiple local communes communicating together than what is that but a very primitive and inefficient massive centralized government? It would be worse, much slower, and decentralized for the sake of decentralization.


I don’t mean demand in terms of a demand and supply curve which maps the demand for a particular commodity. I’m talking about total demand, the demand for “more stuff” on top of what people already have. At some point surely, there is just enough stuff out there for people to live happy lives. I’m talking about a kind of existential state of mind whereby people no longer see being a consumer as their purpose of being. There is “enough”
I doubt that will ever happened. Every time something new is created, there will be more to experience and enjoy. So I'd say no, there isn't ever "enough" nor should there be. Life would become stagnant and dull. I'm not interested in philosophical debates on this question, though.


I don’t see “working hard” as necessarily a virtue. It depends on too many different factors.

And no, if someone is working hard just to receive rewards, then they aren’t doing so with a mind to what society actually needs. But some people may have what society needs as their motivation for working (as long as they receive adequate personal compensation). Thus, the conflict. Unless you are prepared to say that altruistic-minded people do not exist, but that is a mighty stretch even for rational choice theory.
They don't need to do so with a mind to what society actually needs. They only need to satisfy outstanding demand, demand which arises out of needs and in doing so they act in the interests of society as such. If that were the case then people today and the system today would work based on people acting on the interests of what society needs as their motivation. Nevertheless that is completely unnecessary today as the needs of society as their motivation is objectified and crystallized in the form of profits. People generally are not motivated to work for the sake of society, they have no relationship to society nor the ones they are producing goods for. This is not a kin-based altruism nor relationship, as I have previously explained (in the reply to you or someone else, replying to so many and writing so much can get quite confusing), and there are no means by which one can ensure that in this mutual relationship the other is acting symbiotically or parasitically and as such it won't work. Individual can effectively work for society if they are in a close-knit grouping, but not on the communal level nor on the international level. They need a pricing system to act as memory for them (see "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota). As I have also explained, "Economism is at the core of my position as long as economism exists today and is depended upon. We need to use what we have today at our disposal and base our theories upon that. They currently work better than what we have ever created throughout history and as such if we use such economism and proceed on that basis then our society cannot possible become worse off, but if it appropriates "mass consciousness" then all the merrier, but we did not base anything on that point and would not fail entirely should that "mass consciousness" not take place. Nevertheless, yes, "as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness" because there is absolutely no guarantee, assurance, nor proof that it will have anything such as that mythical dream of yours. Again, Dunbar's number, lack of accountability, lack of contribution equaling or surpassing remuneration, lack of personal relationships with the rest of society, etc. etc. This "mass consciousness" of yours is what you previously referred to as moralism. You expect mass altruism and morality to dominate where everyone would contribute for the betterment of society and each other and all that Utopian shit. That will not happen and you have absolutely no proof, evidence, or guarantees that it will happen. The only instance where such a "mass consciousness" ever took place was during emotionally tense periods of strife and conflict on one side against another such as in the case of revolutions or in small-scale societies where memory and personal relationships solve the issue. The directions and outcomes of society cannot be reflected without a pricing mechanism or market. In large-scale societies memory is objectified and crystallized through money. See "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota."

I have spoken a lot of altruism and it doesn't work outside of small-scale communities or kin-based societies.


But if the time taken up at work isn’t set in stone, then some people will naturally do less work at the factory than others because they have other social obligations. Making society function is about much more than simply producing stuff. So thereby, because of their altruism toward personal friends and loved ones instead of their productivist loyality to The State, they would receive less. I think this unfair.
I'm pretty sure work time would be set in stone, but I don't see it as necessary if the individual does not want to. Social obligations would lead to people working less? Possibly, then they are contributing less, but you can argue that they are still doing socially beneficial work, in which case I would have to disagree. To make society function you would be contributing to society. Personal friends and loved ones can be taken care of outside of the working hours. People do not need work more than they need or even attempt to work more than others if they don't want to. But, isn't it an argument by early young Marx, IIRC, that society is to become the new family? Anyway, yes they would receive less because they are contributing less. This isn't unfair because they are still receiving as much as they work. People who shun social life in favor of work get paid more because they worked more. This even happens today and is not by any means unfair. They get paid for work, not how much they want to spend with friends. If your system goes opposite to this and pays people who spend less time working and more time partying then I honestly cannot see how your system would ever work. Productivist loyalty is what ensures increased productivity which you need for you "according to needs" society.


If you have a strict regime of incentives to get people to work, and to work in the correct jobs society deems important at this time, then isn’t this sort of contradictory to the idea that a worker can decide to do whatever he wants? He still has to work in the designated factory in order to get goods in order to live; his options to do his own thing are still restricted.
Actually workers can still choose where they want to work. The state or the workplace can attract labor by increasing payment in order to attract that labor. Incentives merely give reasons for the worker to do something, they do not force him. The incentives are good for him.


If money is a form of voting, then some people have vastly more votes than others. The idea of a democracy that isn’t equitable is nonsense.

It proves, at best, that the General Will of society cannot be simply an aggregation of the will of individuals. But actually no one thinks of democracy in this sense, so it is a bit of a bizarre argument.

Actually the idea of a democracy that is equitable is nonsense. People MUST have more votes than others otherwise their votes, despite them being educated or more valuable than the others'. This brings us to the issue of "rational ignorance" which I have written a lot on:

"This is related to public choice theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory), rational ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance), and the paradox of voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting). They're interesting articles.

Theoretically it's rational to be ignorant on issues where the cost outweighs the investment and effort needed to obtain knowledge (benefit) concerning those issues. As said in the OP, why study politics and so on when your vote equals the vote of anyone else regardless of his knowledge level in politics. Meritocracy could be a solution, but I find the point to be moot in the first place. Why consider this an issue when the voters are not voting for each issue that they invest their time into when they are not voting for single issues but for representatives that do not share all their views? That is to say, even if they obtain weighted votes corresponding to their level of knowledge in politics, economics, or whatnot, there remains the grander issue which lies in the system of political representation. The voter still has a large part of his knowledge inhibited from being exercised through a limited selection of candidates available that can only represent a minority of views which need not even be shared by the voter. Individual voters today for instance resort to aligning themselves with parties that have similar views as theirs as this gives them the ability to have weight to their votes. This applies to coalitions, mergers, splits, and the formation of new parties. Of course this is an utter failure in the case of two party systems as in the case of the United States.

Education in politics and whatnot need not be represented in the form of weighted votes, but education in politics and whatnot can be used for the spreading of knowledge, debate, personal interest, political activism, spreading the word, influencing others, and even taking part in elections, parties, and so on. It doesn't all go to waste. In the case of equal single votes, individuals can use their accumulated knowledge to gain votes by convincing others. That's actually the entire point of political campaigns, attract as many voters as you can in order to indirectly overcome the limit on each individual's voting power. Of course this by itself also causes problems by forcing parties and candidates to appeal to a wide audience and even undesirable sections of society to attract as many votes as possible rather than appealing to those that you actually seek to represent.

A solution to this mess would be weighted votes based on an issue by issue voting process. Although obviously that's not the problem, the problem lies in determining how votes are to be weighted in the first place. "


And then there's this:

[i]"I just said you vote has no value with respect to the possibility that it will result in the possibility that your vote will matter in a political contest. That means that if you do not vote the outcome is still highly likely to be unaltered. From a statistical perspective regarding political outcomes it has no value. This is why wiki has an entry called “the paradox of voting”

When you throw a bag on the ground it harms the environment but not to the same extent that it harms YOU when you throw a bag on the ground in your room. The fundamental issue is cost isolation and this is the basis for understanding the “tragedy of the commons”. When you destroy your room, you eat the full costs of this action and so there is an increased incentive not to destroy your room, because you spend a lot of time there and you suffer the consequences of this action. If you destroy some part of the environment that is collectively owned, everybody eats that cost so costs are socialized and marginal to the polluter or the person that depletes. Without the ability to sanction or transfer costs to those that damage, pollute or induce costs to others the act of destroying collective assets is marginalized.

We should be able to confirm this as a thought experiment. What would cause you more psychological distress, throwing some sorta garbage on a city street that you happen to pass by maybe once a week or throwing some the same type of trash in your room? Ignore sanctions and regulations and answer honestly.

(continued)

[Theophys]

[continued]

Now ignoring this issue of pollution for a second the issue is ignorant voters. If we had super-intelligent voters that would be beneficial to society they would perform better then uneducated voters, additionally if we actually had informed voters they would perform even better then uninformed voters? However the process of becoming informed requires an individual person to sacrifice time to obtain this information. This time requires that potential voter sacrifice his time elsewhere, raising his kids, studying or putting in extra time to advance his career and salary, or just entertaining himself watching TV. At the same time the voter has to consider the costs of not being informed. IF a voter fails to make an informed decision what are the consequences? Well there really aren’t any because if they make a poor decision the outcome is unlikely to change because the probability of your vote being deciding is very low. This is the rational ignorance concept, this is why it’s voters are not-informed, because it is a rational response to the incentive structure of voting.

Now consider the market analogue. You want to buy a washer and dryer but don’t do any research and end up buying a really crappy product because you buy from a non-retail wholesaler who does not have sales associates that give you information about products. What are the costs to society of your ignorance, they do not exist really except on the extreme margin that you might prolong the life expectancy of the company that makes crappy products. However others in society who know what a good product is and research it do not have to purchase these crappy products. This illustrates that cost isolation drives individuals to make more informed decisions because they cannot avoid the costs of THEIR failure as easily, their failure becomes their costs."[/i]


The will of society is the society coming together to will something, but this is something excluded a priori from a rational choice system and game theory since it only considers individuals as capable of willing or choosing something.
Actually in such theories groups can make decisions, but their decisions are generally very problematic and costly because cost is socialized and accountability as well instead of landing them on the shoulders of those who are to be blamed.


And anyway, many of the premises of the theorem are unreasonable because – again – they exclude a priori the “stuff” of democracy from ever being included within the game. Preferences are only transitive if people cannot be persuaded by others to have a different view and to change their mind. Or, there may be new options to vote for as people propose new ideas, or as compromises between old ideas are hammered out.
The problem is that you can never know what is the "best" idea since as you said "new options to vote" can constantly be proposed. You cannot "persuade" people and solve the paradox. In fact, none of those solve the paradox. Persuasion, as well, rarely ever takes place as individuals are hard-pressed to present their ideas over all others.



The fundamental point about direct democracy (which I can’t recognise anywhere in your quoted argument on this) is that it means people are running things by-and-for themselves: there is no distinction between legislative and executive functions. The idea of democracy as “ranking preferences” doesn’t take this adequately into account: under Arrow’s theorem, as I vaguely understand it, democracy becomes a passive, apathetic, lifeless process whereby people tick boxes to express themselves and these choices somehow then get implemented by experts elsewhere. This in itself seems anti-democratic.
People can run things by and for themselves all they want, that is not the issue as the issue is the democratic process that they want to run themselves on that basis. Legislative and executive functions need to be distinct in otherwise the legislative functions would cripple and hinder the executive functions. Even the soviets themselves had legislative and executive functions. You cannot send every single delegate from around the country or world for every single meeting and action then report back time and time again because you have no distinction between the two. Do you even have any idea how crowded, chaotic, and disorganized direct democratic meetings are? Imagine thousands of people stuck in a small room each with issues from their own corner of the country trying to shout over each other and get the chance to speak. This takes days if not weeks or months just to get a few decisions made. Ticking boxes to express themselves and having experts put them into effect is much more preferable than your system where uneducated uninformed people not only make decisions but are EXPECTED (with no guarantee) to put the decisions made into effect. Oh and Arrow's theorem has nothing to do with democracy becoming passive, apathetic, or anything, it merely points out that democracy is flawed and unfair.



No, that is a non sequitur. If democracy is not perfect than we should choose an alternative if that alternative is better than democracy. But there is no such alternative.
Voting by dollars or a dictatorship, yes.



In fact, all that can be said is that I can freely choose between advocating democracy and advocating an alternative, and if I’m convinced I can ditch democracy and opt for dictatorship as something I believe in. If I want society to be run this way I have to persuade others of my opinion, and this presupposes democracy anyway. If you think of it like this, democracy is actually an inescapable premise.
You cannot persuade others. Persuasion does not involve democracy as you are not voting nor are taking part in decision-making to convince anyone.



You seem to be arguing on the basis of a kind of prehistoric, unreconstructed metaphysic: that because democracy as an absolute, perfect, Platonic form is not possible, then that therefore means it is entirely impossible. This is the kind of binary thinking that philosophers have remorselessly criticised for many centuries, and I frankly find your arguments here ridiculous, ignorant and impossible to sympathise with.
I expect democracy to achieve the best decision possible, since it cannot do so then binary thinking on this issue is enough. Democracy is essentially permitting uninformed, ignorant, and wreckless individuals to have equal say and equal votes as super informed, educated, and cautious individuals whilst then being completely unable to ensure the best decision is made.



I have no idea what you’re talking about. It appears to be some kind of garbled dialectical language but I can’t make sense of it.
"Contradictions exist. Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Contradictions lead to conflict. What is the best and most free framework for contradictions to exist together? Freedom. What happens when contradictions exist together? Conflict. As simple as it gets."

Contradictions, you know what those are? I like apples, you like oranges, we can only have one of those in society. You like Capitalism, I like Communism, we can have only one of those in society. You want peace, I want war, we can have only one of those in society.

Contradictions exist. Self-evident.

Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Self-evident given the explanation above; the bourgeoisie cannot coexist with the proletariat without conflict.

Contradictions lead to conflict. As above.

What is the best way to allow contradictions to thrive and clash with each other? By ensuring freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and so on and so forth. Nazis can come to the fore and spread racism. Anti-racists arise to stop them. Communists come to the fore to protest against Capitalism, the bourgeoisie and their guards come forth and try to stop them. Get it? Under a system that is not free, any such contradictions that are unfavorable to the state would be suppressed and thus unable to cause conflict.

Get it now?



I wasn’t clear: by “common sense” I meant something like, “true virtually by definition” or “an uninterestingly trivial observation”. Yes, someone acting rationally is someone who considers all options and possible alternative actions, and then decides on the most efficient and plausible etc. course of action in order to achieve what he wants. He will plan for what he wants, make short term sacrifices for long term gain, and will stop doing something if it is preventing him for achieving what he wants.


However, what constitutes his “utility” could be anything at all. It ultimately just means that which makes him happy and satisfied, or what he finds pleasurable, whatever that may be. The idea that “maximizing his individual utility” means “getting more material goods for personal consumption” is then taking an obvious point about rationality and switching it to justify selfishness as something inevitable, which is capitalist ideology.
That was all good until you said "capitalist ideology". No, just no... It is Capitalist ideology but that is not even an argument. You do not argue and dismiss something by stating that it is "Stalinist", "Capitalist ideology", "Jewish", or whatnot as that is logical fallacy. Nevertheless, since utility means whatever makes him happy and satisfied, this brings us two conclusions, the first that the collective cannot represent and does not represent individual desires and needs and thus any collective decision-making on that end is oppressive of the individual, and secondly that the only means by which the individual can achieve his individual desires that make him happy and satisfied is through individual decision-making. How do we achieve individual decision-making? Pricing mechanism and so on. If the individual decides that he can best satisfy himself and make himself happy by "getting more material goods for personal consumption" then he is maximizing utility. You call this "obvious" and rational thus meaning that my previous conclusion was correct. Selfishness is the individual look after himself by satisfying his needs and happiness. If you define selfishness as something else then no, that does not apply to this case and your reasoning.



In a sense your system is only a perfected capitalism, not socialism. You seem to champion capitalist moral ideals but argue that capitalism itself cannot meet them. I’ll explain.
Alright.



Capitalism is based on wage-labour, and labour-power which is bought and sold on the market. There is a physical, moral, intellectual and legal separation between the worker (most of us) and the means of his subsistence (a wage to be exchanged for goods). Isn’t the moral concept of “desert” – that is, that I deserve to be given goods in reward for my efforts – the natural corollary of such a system? Isn’t it the ideological lifeblood of capitalism? Isn’t it the ethic that justifies the system, in spite of its failures to ever actually live up to the ideal?

For me, socialism would first and foremost have to abolish wage labour. The point is not so much that you have a formal right to “get back” what you “put in”, but that we are living-together in mutual aid, and what is mine is already yours, and yours mine. It is not really about claim and counter-claim. This is why I feel distribution according to need is important, because it presupposes mutual obligation: things don’t have to be “earned” in the sense of “prove to me that you’ve been a good boy!”, or the patronizing sense of “do you deserve it?” That presupposes a power relationship.

Yeh I know, your eyes probably glazed right over all that utopian sounding bullshit. But since we are now just talking about moral judgements and nothing more (you want to know “what is wrong with…?” such and such, etc.) I see no reason why my sense of fairness is inferior to yours.

Even under a full blown market socialism there would have to be a minimum guaranteed income for all, so that people are never forced to sell their labour power, but can contribute to society as a contractual partner and never as a mere minion of the state.
Yes that's fine and all, but no. Capitalism based itself on private property, without which it is no longer Capitalism. Without private ownership of the means of production, without the bourgeoisie exploiting labor for their own interests, and so on then that is no longer Capitalism. If the workers or the state own the means of production and work for themselves decided whether or not they ought to sell their labor to society or the state then they are no longer "exploited". Being rewarded for your labor is not a unique feature of Capitalism; that is what societies must be based upon otherwise they would risk oppression and exploitation of labor OR demand an "according to need" Utopia. If you abolish wage-labor, you have only two available options: oppression and exploiting the workers forcing them to work for you for little or nothing in return (Feudalism) or giving them access to everything regardless of contribution ("according to need" communism with a gift economy). Since obviously we do not desire the former nor can we achieve the latter without a basis for it then we have no other option for a transitional phase or end-goal. We are living together in mutual aid thanks to a market economy and pricing mechanism that forces us to do so. What is yours is not mine and what is mine is not yours, I prefer keeping my things to myself rather than have them taken by others and fall under the consequences of a "tragedy of the commons" scenario. Distribution according to need is important, but we cannot achieve it. Remember the finite resources issue and remember the slacking problem. An according to need scenario is ONLY possible in a fully automated society, I'd tell you it'll work only then. A mutual relationship necessitates mutual obligation which you claim to be a power relationship to ensure that both sides are working for each other in a symbiotic relationship rather than it turning into one working and the other reaping the benefits and free riding turning it into a parasitical relationship.




Yeh I know, your eyes probably glazed right over all that utopian sounding bullshit. But since we are now just talking about moral judgements and nothing more (you want to know “what is wrong with…?” such and such, etc.) I see no reason why my sense of fairness is inferior to yours.
Lol that first sentence. The reason why your sense of fairness is "inferior" (negative connotations associate with it) to "mine" is because you are being more than unfair for those who overachieve and overwork, those who contribute more to society, in favor of those who do little or nothing and yet receive the same. You are unfair because you do not properly reward individuals for better and more socially favorable work. You are unfair because you treat everyone as equals when they're not. You are unfair because you attempt to resolve individual desires with collective desires. You are unfair because you support a "tyranny of the majority". You are unfair because you allow for the existence and foster parasitical relationships with certain people working their best while the others being rewarded for slacking or doing little (deficit between work and reward for each).




You may argue that treating unequal people in accordance with that unequalness is rational, or fair, but it would still constitute unequal treatment (at least in the communist sense). If people are of equal moral worth, then that equality means we treat them according to their moral worth and not according to their utility to us or their utility to “society”
What is inequality in the Communist sense? It is not treating all people the same, unequal people the same, or whatnot, it is merely the guaranteeing of equal opportunity and equal relationship to the means of production. Communism isn't about "equality" in the same of equal wages, same clothing, same cars, same families, same looks, etc. Their moral worth is of no use to society; you do not feed a family with moral worth to society, you feed them by being a utility to society. You want superabundance, how do you even plan on achieving such a state if you cannot even ensure that your own people will work their best or at all in the first place? By counting on charities based on moral worth?



I was making a slightly different point. People need to be paid regardless of whether what they are doing is altruistic and done simply out of love for another, because people still need to live and take care of themselves. However I find the idea that people need to be coaxed through cash incentives and reward structures to do the right thing slightly demeaning, yes.

And actually there is a famous practical example of giving such incentives being counter-productive. There was once an experiment where people were paid to give blood at a local clinic, and the fact of that they were going to be paid was widely advertised beforehand. The number of people giving blood fell.

Why? The drop came about because people did not want their peers to think they had only given blood, “done the right thing”, because they had calculated that it was also to their personal financial gain. The social stigma against such behaviour was/is so great that people would rather refrain from doing the right thing in such circumstances (and also forgo economic gain).

This is a good example of people rebelling against the kind of self-interested behaviour (which you so uncritically champion) that contrasts so violently with the morality that ultimately holds society together.
A wild clinic example appears. Theophys used "Cobra Effect" and "Perverse Incentives", they're super-effective. Clinic example faints.

Boom.


"A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable effect which is opposite to the initial interests. A type of unintended consequences, perverse incentives are the result of an honest good intention. A historical example illustrates the problem: 19th century paleontologists traveling to China used to pay peasants for each piece of dinosaur bone that they presented. It was later found the peasants found bones and then smashed them into many pieces, which significantly reduced their scientific value, to get more payments. More modern examples include paying architects and engineers based on project costs, which leads to excessively costly projects as they overspend unnecessarily to make income."


"This is when the solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse. The term ‘Cobra effect’ comes from an anecdote from colonial India. The British government wanted to decrease the population of venomous cobra snakes, so they offered a reward for every dead snake. However, the Indians began to breed cobras for the income. When the government realized what was going on, the reward was canceled, and the breeders set the snakes free. The snakes consequently multiplied, and increased the cobra population. The term is now used to illustrate the origins of wrong stimulation in politics and economic policy. Unfortunately, some of the crises facing our world are the result of honest attempts to solve problems."


Anyway, your example is extremely rare and I've never heard of such a thing before. Can you show me the source because I'm interested in seeing why the hell would people stop donating blood when done so anonymously?



I appreciate your forthright response.
You're welcome.



This is utterly ludicrous. Capitalism is a system geared solely toward profit, and so as a system it values only that functional rationality which allows it to produce profit more readily. This has nothing much to do with personal autonomy.


It is the economic rationality of profit which means (say) that many thousands of the poorest people in the world have to work for next-to-nothing to extract diamonds from the ground, so that these can be sold to people as jewellery, which is extremely valueable but entirely useless. In this sense, productivist rationality takes over all, crushing mere people in its wake.
Producing more profit means obtaining more money. With more money you get more things to buy and thus satisfy your needs however you wish. Personal autonomy. Those super-exploited workers work for next-to-nothing preferring not to live on nothing. Remember that was the English and Americans a few hundred years ago that earned next-to-nothing, look where they are now. I don't see how people are being crushed here, because they get paid next-to-nothing? They have no alternative there. How do you plan to solve this? Ending Capitalism and replacing it with an "according to need" system? You cannot even feed your own people and yet you want to feed the people of the world? The people in the First World today are living comfortably because workers in other countries, as you show, are being super-exploited. When you implement your system haphazardly the people in the First World would be pissed because they lost so much and the people in the Third World would be pissed because they lost their only means of income. Good job. Nevertheless, I don't see how people lost their autonomy, that would only be shown if they cannot find jobs or have no alternatives (Capitalism cannot ensure otherwise). People have personal autonomy as long as they have money. Under your system even if they can never have personal autonomy and are always under the rule and oppression of the majority/collective.



I was simply reminding you that communism has been conceived, by Marx as much as by me, as a more moral and humane system as much as a more rational one.
And I'm explaining to you that you cannot base an economic system on moral and humane needs but on rational ones.



If you wish to strip all this moralistic fervour out of socialism and turn it into something concerned solely with what will function most efficiency, then of course that is your right and prerogative. But I also reserve the right in kind to find this unwelcome.
Sure you can think of it as unwelcome, but then I'd ask that you defend your system and make it even remotely plausible. You would not be able to do so as we have seen. That is why I came up with "my" system.



Why is wanting work to be more enjoyable and not-alienating an outdated concern?
Because work isn't enjoyable and not alienating. You don't have "fun" mining coal or managing accounting nor is it unalienating to have your products taken away by the collective strangers.



I’m not familiar with their work.
I'm surprised.

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/

I haven't seen a single criticism stand as of yet, even the more scholarly works that destroy democratic planning, parecon, and so on such as "Socialism against markets? A critique of two recent proposals" by Geoffery M. Hodgson.



This assumes the infinite wisdom and benevolence of state planners. But officialdom can be a hindrance on innovation as much as a help.
Governments already offer billions in terms of scholarships, investments, funds, and so on. State planners' limited wisdom and benevolence is much more preferable than the lack of wisdom and benevolence of "democratic planners". State planners are educated, experts, specialized, and directly and publicly accountable. This brings us back to the issue of cost isolation and accountability explained above versus the socialization of costs and accountability.



It is my understanding that one of the major problems of the Soviet economy was that the bureaucracy was incapable of absorbing new technology and making all the vast calculations required to run a strictly top-down centralised economy.
Imagine calculating and managing an entire economy using papers and documents. Now imagine the same with computers, excel, and so on. Exactly. Oh and the bureaucracy was able to utilize new technology, they had created computers themselves which were quite good (if I remember correctly).



I am only arguing the other side of the coin. Production can be more efficiently imported into a local community from a centralised factory, or it might be more efficiently made locally using local expertise. I’m not willing to see a society that neglects the former as a healthy one.
You mean the latter? Why use dispersed local production and local expertise when you can send them to the centralized factories and have their skills maximized? You can never have thousands of local production being much more effective than centralized production. As I have explained, it's easier to update centralized factories, manage them, plan them, etc. than having to do the same with thousands of factories. It's best if you use local expertise in centralized factories with the best technology than in localized production facilities with questionable qualities.



Just because it is cost-effective or efficient for some, or for “Society” as some top-down monolithic entity, doesn’t mean it is a benefit to everyone. In fact, as you yourself point out, such efficiency gains will often destroy people’s lives.

In a world economy, it may be more efficient for an entire country to concentrate on producing one commodity for sale and then import all everything else it needs to feed itself from abroad. But then, say, imagine another country starts doing the same for the same commodity – world supply doubles, the price plummets, and both countries are left utterly destitute. Each country is left with no money and devalued assets, and so cannot afford to switch tack. Now they can’t feed themselves. Are you saying that under your system such a result is impossible, because the central planner always has all the information, all the necessary power and never makes mistakes? I would be extremely skeptical. When you are but a cog in the wheel, there is always the danger that one day you will become superfluous.
That's where the anarchy of production of Capitalism ends and where planning comes in. Another country won't be allowed to do the same and instead be redirected to other forms of production. So yes, the central planners have all the information they can acheive and the necessary power to solve such an issue before it even arises. Suppose that commodity is bread, new bread factories would not be created, price would decrease and thus many disincentives would be created to prevent more bread from being produced.



As an aside: The history of the integration of third-world countries into the world economy on similar lines - whereby local economies were ripped up, de-industrialised, and turned back into rural agricultural monoculture economies supplying the world economy with raw materials – is a very bleak one. The history of such practices in India in the 19th century, for example, when coupled with catastrophic colonial mismanagement by British authorities and disastrous droughts, resulted in the deaths of countless millions of people.
Planning versus anarchy of production again. Nevertheless, without such an action the First World countries could never have developed and instead would have been stuck in their misery. This is what I talked about when I spoke of Capitalism doing things leading to today which your system cannot do. The way the British did it was treating the Indians as inferior, not caring about their well-being and only caring about extracting goods for their own country. Such a problem would be prevented through planning.



Imagine a US supermarket: it might contract out to a supplier in a country where wages are lower (say where there are no minimum wage laws), then use its power to blackmail the supplier into signing an exclusive contract with it, so it can extract further concessions from the supplier with relative impunity. It might then strike a deal with an oil company for discounted fuel if it buys in bulk, an option unavailable to smaller businesses.

So now, from the perspective of the customer in Wyoming in the store itself trying to buy something to eat, the product is cheaper. But a Wyoming farmer could have produced that same commodity, but he has to pay a decent wage to employees, can’t make use of economies of scale, has to meet his own delivery costs, etc. He is now out of business.

Where are the economic benefits of such a situation, really? And who is benefiting?
The economic benefits are that the supermarket is playing its cards pretty well and providing cheap products. Society is benefiting from this, but the inefficient Wyoming farmer isn't. Nevertheless, the supplier couldn't really be blackmailed on that bases because he's not breaking the law. There is nothing wrong with ordering in bulk, it's better for society as it requires less shipping and consumption and costs in that aspect. Sure the Wyoming farmer is affected but he can also play his cards well due to the fresh produce he can supply. Otherwise there isn't really a problem if the Wyoming farmer goes out of business except for himself. This, of course wouldn't happen in "my" system because blackmailing as you give an example of wouldn't be a problem. That entire example of yours, in fact, wouldn't be a problem if there were no blackmailing.




It depends on why the goods are cheaper.

If they are cheaper because workers were paid less, or because regulations were ignored, or because a cheaper but more environmentally damaging production technique was used, then no being cheaper isn’t a good thing.
Actually if you pay a worker less you still decrease the cost of goods, that's good. A worker is never paid less than he can sustain himself according to Marx. Regulations being ignored would only be an issue if no problems arise. In your society there is no assurance that regulations won't be ignored or that they would even exist. A cheaper but more environmentally damage production technique would be necessary, it is cheaper for a reason, due to the scarcity of resources, cost of production, cost of shipping, or whatnot which need to be taken into consideration.



If the good is cheaper because it is some boring standardised identikit model produced en masse, which required no skill to make and so the producers of it were probably bored out of their mind, then there are still considerable social drawbacks to it being cheaper.
That would only take place in your system where everything would be as you describe due to the inability of consumer choice-making, money to affect customization and lure customers, and so on. You would be living in a USSR Lada-hell trying to meet everyone's needs regardless of everything else. And yes, I say regardless because without a market or a pricing mechanism there is no reason to diversify and appeal to demand and interests, just to needs which can be fulfilled however.



Er… WTF? You yourself called American suburban homes “destructive, wasteful, and isolationist” and I’m agreeing with you. I didn’t raise the issue, you did :lol:
Thought you were being sarcastic.

[Lord Hargreaves]

I have to go through this reply rapidly because I'm wasting too much time taking part in multiple long debates on here and other forums.

Actually if they are a problem and they exist then the entire system needs to accomodate itself on that basis to prevent them from spreading like a viral disease. There would be no basis for mutual benefits if that is the case, as I have already explained to the others above:

"The "symbiotic interest" of yours is nonsense. If that were the case then people today would already operate on that basis rather than requiring markets and pricing mechanisms. In fact, symbiotic interest would only be relevant if the system were based on survival and threat of extinction where everyone depends on another living in small communities such as tribes. In a fully-fledged economy this symbiotic interest is done away as altruism and memory no longer exist as they did in kin-based societies. You cannot count on any other, others are not basing their existence on you, and you have little to no direct contact to know and judge if they are working properly or not as in the case of tribal and kin-based societies. You need an accounting mechanism, such as a pricing mechanism with or without a market (Market Socialist or even State-owned and created), to ensure that other individuals are actually contributing to society in that "symbiotic interest" of yours to ensure that others will do the same. Money, pricing mechanisms, and the market are capable of doing so through the remuneration of work and labor with the appropriate credits. In other words, I fundamentally believe that a significantly high enough populations you need something approximating markets to have cooperation. Benefits must be proportional to aid given or cooperation breaks down. At small enough or simple enough scales cooperation can be maintained though altruism because memory is an effective accounting mechanism. Memory keeps tabs on who helped me and who didn't. When the size of society exceeds a certain threshold and the complexity along with the complexity of production there are limits to the memories capacity to police who is producing value and who isn't. Something must stand in for memory in a "meta conscious", that is, "beyond a singular consciousness". This is a price system. The market serves as an extended mind aggregating information because no "one person" possesses all the necessary information to organize society and then position us like pawns to engage in these tasks, there are no human gods. Your assumptions based on cooperation which you claim to be "symbiotic interest" are ridiculous as soon as you surpass the human limitation of the number of active human relationships you have known as Dunbar's number. "

Altruism is stronger among small communities, sure. That's part of the reason I feel there are an important social unit. But people are often altruistic toward total strangers just because it is the right thing to do. I don't see how this is controversial? People are generally good.

And altruism can be embodied within social institutions in large societies. What else is the NHS, for instance, but a healthcare system, free at the point of use for all? The reality of social life simply cannot be fully understood through a perspective that looks only at how people act to their own self-interest


Because if you do not keep much of this infrastructure then you cannot only not speak of today's results as a given for your system but you will have absolutely nothing at all to even speak of a possibility of achieving today's results or more. Hell, you would have to start rebuilding everything all over again.

It would be an empirical question ultimately - what is working and what isn't? But no, I don't think the incentive-style pay structure of capitalism is necessary for productivity under socialism. I don't believe you've proved it is.


That isn't a problem at all, in fact that is something superb, as that is what we want to acheive. Super-productivity and super-abundance. You just acheived those. Workers were laid off? But so be it! We don't need those workers anymore as everything would be automated! At such a moment and only at such a moment can we speak of an "according to need" system and a gift economy! Do you see the beauty of it all? The entire point is to no longer utilize labor after extreme productivity in order to achieve an "according to need" system. You, however, and the others, wish to automatically achieve such a system without the proper material conditions relying solely on what Capitalism has achieved and attempt to falsly and magically have the same reuslts but with different methods by simply taking the super-abundance as a given without even bothering to offer any proper system or otherwise as to how you are going to achieve that super-abundance in the first place.

Some of this is genuinely quite scary. The point of communism ultimately is that people should have a say in how their own lives are run. You are describing a system where workers are insignificant pawns in a huge game that doesn't exist for their own wellbeing but for the sake of "superabundance".

What happens in an economy where everything is automated and there are more people of working age than there is work? So then we get distribution according to need? Well, at least that is something. But then we already have enough, so everything you are advocating is totally unnecessary.

I don't feel like I understand you at all at this point: are you saying you are actually a communist, but we need this market socialist, wage-labour type system in a transition period? You are starting to make more sense if this is the case


Right, and what's the problem here?

Er, because what people demand effects everyone else. So yes, it is my business if you are buying another SUV which will destroy the planet.


Then raise prices or go out of stock. Why would you even want to limit what people demand in a democratic system?
Isn't a democratic system essentially an aggregation, in turn, of what people demand? If the system cannot cope for such quantities then it is not productive, inefficienct, and thus alternatives need to be found to solve the crisis. What are these alternatives, then? We cannot be sure in your system just as we cannot be sure they can be solved, but under a Market Socialist system they can be solved with ease as people come up to answer the demand as demand outweighing supply means people will pay dearly for those goods. If too much ecological damage is being done then the issue is not here but in the entire system in your case as you need to meet the demands of every single individual on Earth and cannot do so without severe and serious ecological damage.

I'm saying that we can already meet people's needs, and without the current levels of ecological damage as exists under capitalism. You bizarrely still don't get the point.

I'm not arguing that in the distant post-capitalist future, after production has grown massively to such an extent that the earth has been turned into a wasteland, we can FINALLY have a system "according to need"! Where everyone can have 15 fridges, 6 cars and a yacht, or whatever they damn well please!

No no no!

The ecological damage is going to be caused if we keep producing more and more consumables above current rates, regardless of whether it is capitalism or a rational market socialism.

Your statement "Isn't a democratic system essentially an aggregation, in turn, of what people demand?" is completely false. No. A democracy is self-government. People are not just consumers who demand stuff. It may be precisely the most democratic decision of all for people to agree to stop demanding more stuff as individuals.



A discussion? Are you serious? A discussion trying to convince BILLIONS of people all over the world that they should not buy this product? What if they do not agree with you? What if they still want the product? Have you ever tried convincing someone to do something they do not want to do? Have you ever convinced someone in a debate? One person? Two? Out of billions? These things rarely ever take place. Now you can always take part in grassroots campaigning but in that case it would generally fail or slightly reduce demand for the slogan would be "Stop killing our whales!" or something like that. It is far easier, simpler, and effective for prices to increase rather than do what your alternative suggests.

Go ahead and start an "agreement-in-solidarity" right now, I'll be waiting. Even PETA failed, so do the vegans, so does every mass campaign concerning awareness. You cannot convince every single person out of billions, but if you place a pricing system then only the most desperate would be highly and at which point they ARE paying dearly and highly. You are arguing that solidarity's exclusion is ideological? What about the exclusion of everything from a pricing mechanism to markets, is that not ideological? People ignore solidarity as a concept because it is unreliable and non-existent in anything but the large-scale. See the part concerning kin altruism and memory.

I'm arguing for the principle of subsidiarity. If a decision can't be taken at a local level because people there don't have enough information, and if they still can't perform this function by communicating with other communes, etc., then that decision has to be taken at a higher level. I'm simply saying that the burden of proof as to be on those who want more centralised decision making, not that such a thing must not be allowed.

And anyway, I don't find it very plausible that a select elite group of planners sitting in a world government, armed only with the magical wonder that is Microsoft Excel, can make absolutely all of the distribution decisions for the whole world - and without any mistakes, and without any abuse of power, either. I think you'd have to be quite credulous to believe that.



I'm sorry but what is the issue if one wants a new car because he's jealous? We all create demand based on personal experience and information from society, such as the neighbor's car. The "given" that we use, the "dogmatism" which you speak of, is tried and tested, you can observe yourself what has been achieved today based on that axiom. Now show me where that solidarity of yours is and what it has achieved.

I'm arguing that since need is social too, then therefore we cannot say with certainty what people will demand in a communist society. So the idea of an economy "meeting demand" doesn't make sense outside of history or outside of an understanding of class



Not quite. Effort can be objectified and crystallized in the form out output. If an individual increases his effort, he naturally "contributes" more than an individual who puts in little to no effort. We can observe the direct output of effort but we cannot measure "need", its requirements, its output, or whatever. Effort does not matter if it does not lead to increased contribution. Hell, even on the local scale within the factory effort can be directly observed by others and rewarded properly with increased shares, money, bonuses, or whatnot. The questions that you ask which should determine aren't that valid unless they contribute to society. I do not care if they get anxious, cannot or can concentrate, how they learn skills, or how phyiscally capable, I only care that they contribute to society quantitavely and qualitatively. So yes, as you can see effort is completely different from the issue with need. That "unsastisfying technical fix" is a technical fix that YOU do not find satisfying for personal reasons, such as personal distaste.

A comprehensive syste rewarding effort is by every means more realizable and easier than one attempting to define and meet needs. You do not need to treat people as clones but treat them as different people with different levels of contribution. Clones only contribute the exact same output.

We've already been round and round on this. You are simply not addressing my arguments. I know you are defining effort in terms of productive effort, but I see no reason to accept this either as a moral principle or as something which we will necessarily have to reward to be efficient.



Imagine you're in Sim City. Would you prefer to be planning in the player's chair or be one of many pops in that city trying to plan an entire economy? Exactly. Central planning from the state top-side allows for a direct and complete observation of what is taking place taking information from the market and feedback/information from local districts. Planning shouldn't be democratic and shouldn't be at the lowest viable scale (as long as you have inputs from markets and information/feedback from local districts), but the opposite.

I can't get over the sheer arrogant hubris of imagining that being the player in Sim City is analogous of being a planner in a world economy. Really?:rolleyes:

And anyway, as I've said, I can't share your optimism that this world planner will have perfect information and so be able to make perfect decisions.



They don't need to do so with a mind to what society actually needs. They only need to satisfy outstanding demand, demand which arises out of needs and in doing so they act in the interests of society as such. If that were the case then people today and the system today would work based on people acting on the interests of what society needs as their motivation. Nevertheless that is completely unnecessary today as the needs of society as their motivation is objectified and crystallized in the form of profits. People generally are not motivated to work for the sake of society, they have no relationship to society nor the ones they are producing goods for. This is not a kin-based altruism nor relationship, as I have previously explained (in the reply to you or someone else, replying to so many and writing so much can get quite confusing), and there are no means by which one can ensure that in this mutual relationship the other is acting symbiotically or parasitically and as such it won't work. Individual can effectively work for society if they are in a close-knit grouping, but not on the communal level nor on the international level. They need a pricing system to act as memory for them (see "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota). As I have also explained, "Economism is at the core of my position as long as economism exists today and is depended upon. We need to use what we have today at our disposal and base our theories upon that. They currently work better than what we have ever created throughout history and as such if we use such economism and proceed on that basis then our society cannot possible become worse off, but if it appropriates "mass consciousness" then all the merrier, but we did not base anything on that point and would not fail entirely should that "mass consciousness" not take place. Nevertheless, yes, "as though a society would have *no* mass consciousness" because there is absolutely no guarantee, assurance, nor proof that it will have anything such as that mythical dream of yours. Again, Dunbar's number, lack of accountability, lack of contribution equaling or surpassing remuneration, lack of personal relationships with the rest of society, etc. etc. This "mass consciousness" of yours is what you previously referred to as moralism. You expect mass altruism and morality to dominate where everyone would contribute for the betterment of society and each other and all that Utopian shit. That will not happen and you have absolutely no proof, evidence, or guarantees that it will happen. The only instance where such a "mass consciousness" ever took place was during emotionally tense periods of strife and conflict on one side against another such as in the case of revolutions or in small-scale societies where memory and personal relationships solve the issue. The directions and outcomes of society cannot be reflected without a pricing mechanism or market. In large-scale societies memory is objectified and crystallized through money. See "Money Is Memory" by NR Kocherlakota."

Er, what? You're saying that people's needs are met today through the mechanism of everyone seeking profits? How can you possibly deny that this is neoliberal ideology?


I'm pretty sure work time would be set in stone, but I don't see it as necessary if the individual does not want to. Social obligations would lead to people working less? Possibly, then they are contributing less, but you can argue that they are still doing socially beneficial work, in which case I would have to disagree. To make society function you would be contributing to society. Personal friends and loved ones can be taken care of outside of the working hours. People do not need work more than they need or even attempt to work more than others if they don't want to. But, isn't it an argument by early young Marx, IIRC, that society is to become the new family? Anyway, yes they would receive less because they are contributing less. This isn't unfair because they are still receiving as much as they work. People who shun social life in favor of work get paid more because they worked more. This even happens today and is not by any means unfair. They get paid for work, not how much they want to spend with friends. If your system goes opposite to this and pays people who spend less time working and more time partying then I honestly cannot see how your system would ever work. Productivist loyalty is what ensures increased productivity which you need for you "according to needs" society.

Again, as above, it is now clear to me that I had fundamentally misunderstood your position: you are simply a market socialist for the transition period to superabundance. This isn't your ideal. I'm mightily relieved.

However, as I've said, I don't believe any of this is necessary.



Actually the idea of a democracy that is equitable is nonsense. People MUST have more votes than others otherwise their votes, despite them being educated or more valuable than the others'. This brings us to the issue of "rational ignorance" which I have written a lot on:

"This is related to public choice theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory), rational ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance), and the paradox of voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting). They're interesting articles.

Theoretically it's rational to be ignorant on issues where the cost outweighs the investment and effort needed to obtain knowledge (benefit) concerning those issues. As said in the OP, why study politics and so on when your vote equals the vote of anyone else regardless of his knowledge level in politics. Meritocracy could be a solution, but I find the point to be moot in the first place. Why consider this an issue when the voters are not voting for each issue that they invest their time into when they are not voting for single issues but for representatives that do not share all their views? That is to say, even if they obtain weighted votes corresponding to their level of knowledge in politics, economics, or whatnot, there remains the grander issue which lies in the system of political representation. The voter still has a large part of his knowledge inhibited from being exercised through a limited selection of candidates available that can only represent a minority of views which need not even be shared by the voter. Individual voters today for instance resort to aligning themselves with parties that have similar views as theirs as this gives them the ability to have weight to their votes. This applies to coalitions, mergers, splits, and the formation of new parties. Of course this is an utter failure in the case of two party systems as in the case of the United States.

Education in politics and whatnot need not be represented in the form of weighted votes, but education in politics and whatnot can be used for the spreading of knowledge, debate, personal interest, political activism, spreading the word, influencing others, and even taking part in elections, parties, and so on. It doesn't all go to waste. In the case of equal single votes, individuals can use their accumulated knowledge to gain votes by convincing others. That's actually the entire point of political campaigns, attract as many voters as you can in order to indirectly overcome the limit on each individual's voting power. Of course this by itself also causes problems by forcing parties and candidates to appeal to a wide audience and even undesirable sections of society to attract as many votes as possible rather than appealing to those that you actually seek to represent.

A solution to this mess would be weighted votes based on an issue by issue voting process. Although obviously that's not the problem, the problem lies in determining how votes are to be weighted in the first place. "

If this is related to Arrow's Paradox, or some other result in game theory, then you'll have to explain further because I don't know anything about it.

In a democracy, it is one person one vote. However, inevitably, some people will be more knowledgeable and articulate than others, and will be able to strongly influence how others use their vote. This is not necessarily a problem at all, in my opinion.

I do have a general faith that people will be able to exercise their own judgement freely in a communist society. Education and political awareness will not be costly to acquire (in the sense of money) and people have every chance of knowing enough to make a good decision. There may still be an opportunity cost - watching the news has the "cost" that while doing so, one cannot be simultaneously at a baseball game - but in a more equitable and knowledgeable culture this seems less of a major stumbling block.

And you seem to have entirely missed the point that no one has any right to make decisions for me, nor any right to have a so-called "weighted vote". It is a question of political philosophy and moral values. If you're simply not willing to even engage in these issues, then I guess I can do no more than just state the fact that this is in fact the case.



And then there's this:

[i]"I just said you vote has no value with respect to the possibility that it will result in the possibility that your vote will matter in a political contest. That means that if you do not vote the outcome is still highly likely to be unaltered. From a statistical perspective regarding political outcomes it has no value. This is why wiki has an entry called “the paradox of voting”

When you throw a bag on the ground it harms the environment but not to the same extent that it harms YOU when you throw a bag on the ground in your room. The fundamental issue is cost isolation and this is the basis for understanding the “tragedy of the commons”. When you destroy your room, you eat the full costs of this action and so there is an increased incentive not to destroy your room, because you spend a lot of time there and you suffer the consequences of this action. If you destroy some part of the environment that is collectively owned, everybody eats that cost so costs are socialized and marginal to the polluter or the person that depletes. Without the ability to sanction or transfer costs to those that damage, pollute or induce costs to others the act of destroying collective assets is marginalized.

We should be able to confirm this as a thought experiment. What would cause you more psychological distress, throwing some sorta garbage on a city street that you happen to pass by maybe once a week or throwing some the same type of trash in your room? Ignore sanctions and regulations and answer honestly.

(continued)

This is a problem in game theory, where you are not allowed to influence the "move" of the other "player". The issue is not so much of what it is rational to do, but one of a social space vacated of authority.

We think "why should I spend time cleaning up garbage when eventually someone else will do it, and I will get the benefits of a clean street while expending no effort?" But in actual fact we have clean streets because there is a garbage service appointed with completing that task, paid for out of taxes. The problem doesn't arise because there is a social authority (government), which is in a sense an institution to which we "delegate" our altruism.

So basically, no, this is a problem only if we exclude a priori the possibility of a social agreement being reached to deal with the commons. And indeed, there are counter examples of the commons being upkept and which don't fall into tragedy.

[Lord Hargreaves]

[continued]

Now ignoring this issue of pollution for a second the issue is ignorant voters. If we had super-intelligent voters that would be beneficial to society they would perform better then uneducated voters, additionally if we actually had informed voters they would perform even better then uninformed voters? However the process of becoming informed requires an individual person to sacrifice time to obtain this information. This time requires that potential voter sacrifice his time elsewhere, raising his kids, studying or putting in extra time to advance his career and salary, or just entertaining himself watching TV. At the same time the voter has to consider the costs of not being informed. IF a voter fails to make an informed decision what are the consequences? Well there really aren’t any because if they make a poor decision the outcome is unlikely to change because the probability of your vote being deciding is very low. This is the rational ignorance concept, this is why it’s voters are not-informed, because it is a rational response to the incentive structure of voting.

Now consider the market analogue. You want to buy a washer and dryer but don’t do any research and end up buying a really crappy product because you buy from a non-retail wholesaler who does not have sales associates that give you information about products. What are the costs to society of your ignorance, they do not exist really except on the extreme margin that you might prolong the life expectancy of the company that makes crappy products. However others in society who know what a good product is and research it do not have to purchase these crappy products. This illustrates that cost isolation drives individuals to make more informed decisions because they cannot avoid the costs of THEIR failure as easily, their failure becomes their costs."[/i]

The decision to buy a washing machine isn't much of an analogue to the decision to elect a government


The problem is that you can never know what is the "best" idea since as you said "new options to vote" can constantly be proposed. You cannot "persuade" people and solve the paradox. In fact, none of those solve the paradox. Persuasion, as well, rarely ever takes place as individuals are hard-pressed to present their ideas over all others.


Explain? Why can't I know what is the best idea? Why can't I persuade?



People can run things by and for themselves all they want, that is not the issue as the issue is the democratic process that they want to run themselves on that basis. Legislative and executive functions need to be distinct in otherwise the legislative functions would cripple and hinder the executive functions. Even the soviets themselves had legislative and executive functions. You cannot send every single delegate from around the country or world for every single meeting and action then report back time and time again because you have no distinction between the two. Do you even have any idea how crowded, chaotic, and disorganized direct democratic meetings are? Imagine thousands of people stuck in a small room each with issues from their own corner of the country trying to shout over each other and get the chance to speak. This takes days if not weeks or months just to get a few decisions made. Ticking boxes to express themselves and having experts put them into effect is much more preferable than your system where uneducated uninformed people not only make decisions but are EXPECTED (with no guarantee) to put the decisions made into effect.

Yes these are traditional arguments against democracy. It is too time-consuming, too much effort, not efficient, etc. At no point is any moral consideration raised.

And no, direct democracy doesn't mean there is no formal structure at all. That is a bit of a strawman.



Oh and Arrow's theorem has nothing to do with democracy becoming passive, apathetic, or anything, it merely points out that democracy is flawed and unfair.

I meant in the sense that democracy as the mere "ranking of preferences" is a passive, blah, sitting-in-my-armchair, kind of conception.




You cannot persuade others. Persuasion does not involve democracy as you are not voting nor are taking part in decision-making to convince anyone.


What do you mean, I cannot persuade others? How is persuasion undemocratic?



I expect democracy to achieve the best decision possible, since it cannot do so then binary thinking on this issue is enough. Democracy is essentially permitting uninformed, ignorant, and wreckless individuals to have equal say and equal votes as super informed, educated, and cautious individuals whilst then being completely unable to ensure the best decision is made.

Lovely little fascist rant there. Feel better now? :lol:




"Contradictions exist. Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Contradictions lead to conflict. What is the best and most free framework for contradictions to exist together? Freedom. What happens when contradictions exist together? Conflict. As simple as it gets."

Contradictions, you know what those are? I like apples, you like oranges, we can only have one of those in society. You like Capitalism, I like Communism, we can have only one of those in society. You want peace, I want war, we can have only one of those in society.

Contradictions exist. Self-evident.

Contradictions cannot be reconciled. Self-evident given the explanation above; the bourgeoisie cannot coexist with the proletariat without conflict.

Contradictions lead to conflict. As above.

What is the best way to allow contradictions to thrive and clash with each other? By ensuring freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and so on and so forth. Nazis can come to the fore and spread racism. Anti-racists arise to stop them. Communists come to the fore to protest against Capitalism, the bourgeoisie and their guards come forth and try to stop them. Get it? Under a system that is not free, any such contradictions that are unfavorable to the state would be suppressed and thus unable to cause conflict.

Get it now?

Wow. I was kinda joking before, but yes, you are a fascist. Am I reading you correctly: you don't want freedom of speech, freedom of expression or freedom of the press? Wow.

Since when has conflict not been a good thing? If it isn't violent, and just concerned with idea, then it appears to me that conflict and contradiction is the lifeblood of a healthy society.




That was all good until you said "capitalist ideology". No, just no... It is Capitalist ideology but that is not even an argument. You do not argue and dismiss something by stating that it is "Stalinist", "Capitalist ideology", "Jewish", or whatnot as that is logical fallacy. Nevertheless, since utility means whatever makes him happy and satisfied, this brings us two conclusions, the first that the collective cannot represent and does not represent individual desires and needs and thus any collective decision-making on that end is oppressive of the individual, and secondly that the only means by which the individual can achieve his individual desires that make him happy and satisfied is through individual decision-making. How do we achieve individual decision-making? Pricing mechanism and so on. If the individual decides that he can best satisfy himself and make himself happy by "getting more material goods for personal consumption" then he is maximizing utility. You call this "obvious" and rational thus meaning that my previous conclusion was correct. Selfishness is the individual look after himself by satisfying his needs and happiness. If you define selfishness as something else then no, that does not apply to this case and your reasoning.

People will act to their self interest, but this isn't the full story. That's it. That is all I'm saying. How is it not dogmatism, or a kind of religious fundamentalism, to insist that it is everyhing; it is all that matters when trying to understand behaviour?




Lol that first sentence. The reason why your sense of fairness is "inferior" (negative connotations associate with it) to "mine" is because you are being more than unfair for those who overachieve and overwork, those who contribute more to society, in favor of those who do little or nothing and yet receive the same. You are unfair because you do not properly reward individuals for better and more socially favorable work. You are unfair because you treat everyone as equals when they're not. You are unfair because you attempt to resolve individual desires with collective desires. You are unfair because you support a "tyranny of the majority". You are unfair because you allow for the existence and foster parasitical relationships with certain people working their best while the others being rewarded for slacking or doing little (deficit between work and reward for each).

What I don't understand is that you see distribution according to contribution as something necessary for us to be productive up to a state of abundance, but then here you justify it, with no qualification whatever, as a moral or fair arrangement. This is completely contradictory.

Unless you are saying that this is fair as it is, but we can have an even fairer system when we reach superabundance?


What is inequality in the Communist sense? It is not treating all people the same, unequal people the same, or whatnot, it is merely the guaranteeing of equal opportunity and equal relationship to the means of production. Communism isn't about "equality" in the same of equal wages, same clothing, same cars, same families, same looks, etc. Their moral worth is of no use to society; you do not feed a family with moral worth to society, you feed them by being a utility to society. You want superabundance, how do you even plan on achieving such a state if you cannot even ensure that your own people will work their best or at all in the first place? By counting on charities based on moral worth?


My response here is the same as what I've said above. If you are morally opposed to communistic ideals, then what is the point of ramping up production so we can at some stage achieve it? Why not just stick with your market socialism, which is more fair?



A wild clinic example appears. Theophys used "Cobra Effect" and "Perverse Incentives", they're super-effective. Clinic example faints.

Boom.


"A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable effect which is opposite to the initial interests. A type of unintended consequences, perverse incentives are the result of an honest good intention. A historical example illustrates the problem: 19th century paleontologists traveling to China used to pay peasants for each piece of dinosaur bone that they presented. It was later found the peasants found bones and then smashed them into many pieces, which significantly reduced their scientific value, to get more payments. More modern examples include paying architects and engineers based on project costs, which leads to excessively costly projects as they overspend unnecessarily to make income."


"This is when the solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse. The term ‘Cobra effect’ comes from an anecdote from colonial India. The British government wanted to decrease the population of venomous cobra snakes, so they offered a reward for every dead snake. However, the Indians began to breed cobras for the income. When the government realized what was going on, the reward was canceled, and the breeders set the snakes free. The snakes consequently multiplied, and increased the cobra population. The term is now used to illustrate the origins of wrong stimulation in politics and economic policy. Unfortunately, some of the crises facing our world are the result of honest attempts to solve problems."


Yes, that sounds like what happened.


Anyway, your example is extremely rare and I've never heard of such a thing before. Can you show me the source because I'm interested in seeing why the hell would people stop donating blood when done so anonymously?



It is anonymous to the person receiving the donated blood, but you can't hide the fact that you gave blood from others.

The example is from Richard Titmus, 'The Gift Relationship'




Producing more profit means obtaining more money. With more money you get more things to buy and thus satisfy your needs however you wish. Personal autonomy. Those super-exploited workers work for next-to-nothing preferring not to live on nothing. Remember that was the English and Americans a few hundred years ago that earned next-to-nothing, look where they are now. I don't see how people are being crushed here, because they get paid next-to-nothing? They have no alternative there. How do you plan to solve this? Ending Capitalism and replacing it with an "according to need" system? You cannot even feed your own people and yet you want to feed the people of the world? The people in the First World today are living comfortably because workers in other countries, as you show, are being super-exploited. When you implement your system haphazardly the people in the First World would be pissed because they lost so much and the people in the Third World would be pissed because they lost their only means of income. Good job. Nevertheless, I don't see how people lost their autonomy, that would only be shown if they cannot find jobs or have no alternatives (Capitalism cannot ensure otherwise). People have personal autonomy as long as they have money. Under your system even if they can never have personal autonomy and are always under the rule and oppression of the majority/collective.


I never thought I'd see the day that a socialist actually defends the superexploitation of the poorest workers in the world. Really depressing.

They are paid next to nothing because the profit sold from their products don't go back to them but to the company's shaereholders, who are already wealthy. As I've been trying to explain this whole time, such arrangements have nothing much to do with "efficiency". So why would they still exist under socialism, I ask you?



And I'm explaining to you that you cannot base an economic system on moral and humane needs but on rational ones.

You need both.



Because work isn't enjoyable and not alienating. You don't have "fun" mining coal or managing accounting nor is it unalienating to have your products taken away by the collective strangers.

Some work is very enjoyable, some is very boring. Most is unsatisfying under capitalism, but I venture that this tells us more about capitalism and its oppressions than about the existential state of "work"




I'm surprised.

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/

I haven't seen a single criticism stand as of yet, even the more scholarly works that destroy democratic planning, parecon, and so on such as "Socialism against markets? A critique of two recent proposals" by Geoffery M. Hodgson.



Bookmarked



You mean the latter? Why use dispersed local production and local expertise when you can send them to the centralized factories and have their skills maximized?

Because that sounds like hell on earth?


You can never have thousands of local production being much more effective than centralized production. As I have explained, it's easier to update centralized factories, manage them, plan them, etc. than having to do the same with thousands of factories. It's best if you use local expertise in centralized factories with the best technology than in localized production facilities with questionable qualities.

There is no a priori reason why centralised production is necessarily better than local production. Sometimes it is precisely the hand made stuff that embodies someone's unique set of skills and vision that makes the best product. Whereas we know that the mass produced stuff, at least under capitalism anyway, is often crap.



That's where the anarchy of production of Capitalism ends and where planning comes in. Another country won't be allowed to do the same and instead be redirected to other forms of production. So yes, the central planners have all the information they can acheive and the necessary power to solve such an issue before it even arises. Suppose that commodity is bread, new bread factories would not be created, price would decrease and thus many disincentives would be created to prevent more bread from being produced.

It's a balancing act. The drop in price that crippled those two hypothetical countries resulted in cheaper goods for many consumers. I think that was my original point. In the relentless drive to cost-cutting and efficiency, some people often fall by the wayside.




The economic benefits are that the supermarket is playing its cards pretty well and providing cheap products. Society is benefiting from this, but the inefficient Wyoming farmer isn't. Nevertheless, the supplier couldn't really be blackmailed on that bases because he's not breaking the law. There is nothing wrong with ordering in bulk, it's better for society as it requires less shipping and consumption and costs in that aspect. Sure the Wyoming farmer is affected but he can also play his cards well due to the fresh produce he can supply. Otherwise there isn't really a problem if the Wyoming farmer goes out of business except for himself. This, of course wouldn't happen in "my" system because blackmailing as you give an example of wouldn't be a problem. That entire example of yours, in fact, wouldn't be a problem if there were no blackmailing.

The Wyoming farmer isn't "inefficient". The economic system is conspiring against him. If the supermarket used his produce instead, then that may very well be better for everyone in the long run.

How is society benefiting? The low costs of the product are being passed on to the supplier, crippling him. The world is heating up because of the unnecessary freight. Society is better off just because that product is cheaper for the consumer? Isn't that one of the problems with a pricing mechanism, that it doesn't adequately account for the other social costs?

FYI supermarkets are known for blackmailing suppliers, because supermarkets have often already run other wholesellers and such out of business. It is a question of selling goods to a supermarket for pittance or not selling goods at all.

[ckaihatsu]

[F]alsely assume that your system will be as productive and as technologically advanced as the current system. People that would want to continue to create devices that increase labor efficiency and whatnot? Why the hell do you think that we had the fastest technological progress in the entire history of our species? It wasn't due to Feudalism nor Primitive Communism, it was due to Capitalism's pricing mechanism, profit motive, and markets that allowed creators and inventors to be properly remunerated for their contributions and inventions.


A post-capitalist, communist-type system would inherently incentivize bulk automation, at least, so that no one would be singled-out and imposed-upon with gruntwork from the rest of the society's population -- a mass melting of individual *professional* distinctions would be the order of the day so that comradeliness would be maximized.





The logging operation would cut down as much trees as it can to ensure that next quarter's quota is fulfilled. The quota here being not just who are able to pay for logs, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON who wants logs ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR FREE. We can never fulfill absolute demand because we have FINITE resources.


You're again using the scare tactic of crazed, infinite demand, with *your own* assumptions of a very individualistic and self-absorbed populace that craves anything and everything that's free of charge. The revolution would never happen if these societal characteristics prevailed, and a post-revolutio order would bring an ethos with it quite different from what *you're* describing.





[Y]ou have the problem of producing luxury goods which are not necessary for survival.


Whether basic goods or luxury / specialty goods are the issue, the point of a communist-type order is to ensure that people are *empowered* to realize that productivity, as through a development and strengthening of the technological 'commons', or infrastructure. On this point you're hopelessly glass-half-empty, preferring to put your faith in a technocratic expert system for governance and an economics based on conventional surplus value extraction.





What if I urgently need a product?


The political civil society would have addressed the most-common and most-needed items long before it could even conceivably become a special individual 'emergency' concern.





Do I have to wait until everything up high on the list is supplied and produced?


Well this speaks to the topic of the thread -- just how much absolute mass demnd and potential involvement and cooperation would exist to produce Luxury Item X -- ? If the interest was widespread and intense enough, it would undoubtedly be covered in human-interest journalistic ways, enabling those with that shared interest (as for luxuries or specialty items) to 'make it happen' out of their own collective volition.





What if I want something low on the results list?


Well, what are you willing to do about it -- ?





Hell, it would make much more sense to give these points as a form of money to be exchanged for goods!


No, because by converting a fixed number ('100') into an abstract monetary valuation, you are positing an arbitrary and questionable value system that only begs what the value-units *mean*. To resort to conventional profit-making and surplus value extraction -- even within a "benevolent technocracy" -- is to put humanity under a mechanical motivational force.





Our priorities and demands would mean nothing in the larger way of things.


Or, more constructively, the most-common priorities and demand would co-reinforce on mass scales, clearly indicating popular inclinations.





We do not need infinite demand for consumables to justify rationing, we only need a constant demand with finite resources and over time those resources WILL run out and ergo we need a means of rationing to ensure that they do not run out rapidly and be given to those who utilize them best or contributed the most.


Or, more constructively, there might be sufficient mass concern to pro-actively address whatever shortfall by increasing production to fulfill demand.





No. You cannot because you cannot ensure the present-day tools will exist tomorrow and these present-day tools include superexploitation, imperialism, markets, profit-motive, etc. that ensure that these present-day tools are used, created, and so on. It is not only how society is to be organized, but that you cannot by any means make any false assumption of abundance or anything being constant if you have an entirely different mode of production different than the one that lead to the abundance. In all your "theories" you are taking it as a rule of thumb that you have abundance, which is not the case.


Yes, tools are different and distinct from social relations like superexploitation, imperialism, markets, profit motive, etc. We could today raid a museum to recover tools used in past times, but our social relations *and* technologies have already far surpassed those older utilities.

Revolution is required so that we may re-invent to what extents we use *today's* technologies, in as-yet-unseen, *superior* forms of social relations, such as collective mass production.





Actually if they are proportional to aid given then they ARE satisfying and thus cooperation remains due to two sides mutually benefiting from the relationship. That only applies on the local scale or on the large-scale through a pricing system. You cannot keep track of any such relationship if your products go to random destinations whilst you do not receive anything in return from those destinations. You cannot ensure that the person your product goes to is benefiting you or society. A pricing system allows you to do so by ensuring that when your products are bought, you receive a reward directly proportional to what was given. Thus, the point remains which you entirely ignored.


You're again running into the main problematic with your line -- the exact convertibility of work effort into material-good compensation. I warned you about this earlier and here it is now again -- with varying productivities by tool (etc.), it makes no sense to try to establish a ratio of work time and effort to material reward. Your theoretical need to resolve this intractable artifice leads you right back to financial operations and all of the hell that accompanies it.

[Skyhilist]

To be honest this is kind of one of my least favorite parts about revleft (which I know I'm guilty of sometimes). Long futile arguments that don't accomplish much. It seems obvious based on initial arguments that the communists in here are right... But come on, look how persistent this guy has been in spite of that. I mean just observe the mind state that he's clearly in. He's not in the kind of mind state where he's going to admit he's wrong when you have a better argument. He's too stubborn and clearly isn't going to be convinced of anything. And it's not like others will be convinced of what he's saying because his (and lot of you guys') replies are so long that almost nobody is going to bother reading ALL of them. Anyways, long story short seems kind of like a futile effort.

[cyu]

It seems obvious based on initial arguments that the communists in here are right... But come on, look how persistent this guy has been in spite of that.

I haven't bothered reading ever since the posts started getting into TLDR territory since I have better things to do with my time, but isn't that what http://www.revleft.com/vb/oi-learning-f233/index.html is for?

[Skyhilist]

Well, s/he's not restricted (s/he's a "socialist but not a communist") and doesn't really seem to want to learn as much as argue perpetually

Whatever I mean I mean let it continue if it must, I just don't personally see all that much good coming out of it

[cyu]

Personally I use the terms "socialist" and "communist" inter-changeably. If some random guy were going to try to convince me they were "socialist but not communist" I would assume that they were little more than a pro-capitalist that supports some minimal welfare programs.

[Lord Hargreaves]

To be fair, it has at least made me think about a few things in more detail.

I accept that I am slightly wild-eyed at times, and since I find questions of economic productivity, efficiency, work-incentives etc. dull as sin, my responses haven't been as sharp as I'd like. I had simply assumed all these things as given under socialism, without much thought.

Also the "democracy is impossible" result in Game Theory is here being used as an argument for socialism! (well, socialism as a system of rational planning by elites, who use pricing information to make their decisions). I have never come across anything much like this before. It spiked my curiosity at least :scared:

[cyu]

See also http://www.revleft.com/vb/motivation-work-under-t180685/index.html?p=2620338 =]

[WelcomeToTheParty]

It'd be a lot easier to read if it was a few short paragraphs of response instead of taking apart the previous post line by line I think.

[Theophys]

Altruism is stronger among small communities, sure. That's part of the reason I feel there are an important social unit. But people are often altruistic toward total strangers just because it is the right thing to do. I don't see how this is controversial? People are generally good.
Individuals share no direct relation with strangers, they have absolutely no reason to aid them nor can they especially take part in mutual aid and cooperation because they have no means by which to ensure that the receiving strangers are loyal, do not waste the resources, and contribute in kind. An economy isn't a charity. This inability to verify and check on proper loyalty and accountability leads to numerous problems in the long-run.



And altruism can be embodied within social institutions in large societies. What else is the NHS, for instance, but a healthcare system, free at the point of use for all? The reality of social life simply cannot be fully understood through a perspective that looks only at how people act to their own self-interest
The NHS is not an entire economy, it is a government-run institution within a Capitalist mode of production where altruism and voluntary contribution are not its basis. The NHS is funded by the state which in turn forcibly appropriates taxes from its citizens. The NHS is not a grassroots foundation based on purely voluntary and optional contributions with expectations of proper returns as is the case of a quid pro quo gift economy. The NHS is not proof of altruism in effect as the one found in the "according to need" system you suggest. The NHS exists REGARDLESS of individual preferences and altruism, it exists due to the state wanting to ensure complacency and prevent revolution due to unfavorable conditions. For an economy as the one you support you would require partnership loyalty or else that symbiotic mutual aid would turn into a parasitical system where slackers are rewarded for living off of the labor of others with little in return. We cannot base anything on altruism as we cannot ensure that altruism exists on the large-scale, but even then according to Trivers (71) altruism fails on the large-scale as accountability and memory in turn fail. Altruism can only be preserved in small interest groups and kin relationships, not on the scale of a world of 6 billion people.


It would be an empirical question ultimately - what is working and what isn't? But no, I don't think the incentive-style pay structure of capitalism is necessary for productivity under socialism. I don't believe you've proved it is.
This pay structure is better than anything that has been suggested so far. It has even been empirically proven in real-life, sending economics as a whole on basing itself on individual self-interest as being rational. What is working is the development of productivity, technology, and so on compared to other systems.


Some of this is genuinely quite scary. The point of communism ultimately is that people should have a say in how their own lives are run. You are describing a system where workers are insignificant pawns in a huge game that doesn't exist for their own wellbeing but for the sake of "superabundance".
Is that any different from a system where workers are insignificant pawns in a huge game that doesn't exist for their own well-being but for the sake of "the collective"? If you want communism to exist "according to need" then you need "superabundance". The best way to achieve that superabundance is to give individuals incentives and rewards for overproducing and overachieving. Oh and no, it's not for the sake of "superabundance" but for the sake of the individual workers which you care about. Your system of communal oppression over the interests of the individual worker would only lead to the oppression and inhibition of the individual, a pricing system allows the individual to meet his own needs regardless of the decisions or ruling of the collective. The collective can never properly represent the needs and desires of the individual, just as a representative democracy and direct democracy cannot properly represent the needs and desires of the individual.


What happens in an economy where everything is automated and there are more people of working age than there is work? So then we get distribution according to need? Well, at least that is something. But then we already have enough, so everything you are advocating is totally unnecessary.[/quote
The thing is that we do not "already have enough", we need to have enough before you can say "we already have enough". And yes, distribution according to need would only then be possible after mass automation and superproductivity which every Communist so far I have found to take for granted. It is exactly at such a stage that Marx's words would come into effect, that the division of labor would no longer be necessary, that work becomes a matter of enjoyment rather than exploitation and fending off starvation, that individuals are no longer alienated, that the motto "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need". But for that to happen you need the material basis for it and that is not even taken into consideration by Utopian Communists.

[quote]I don't feel like I understand you at all at this point: are you saying you are actually a communist, but we need this market socialist, wage-labour type system in a transition period? You are starting to make more sense if this is the case
Uhm, yes. A transitional phase is a transitional phase. Communism cannot be achieved until you have the proper material conditions for it.


Er, because what people demand effects everyone else. So yes, it is my business if you are buying another SUV which will destroy the planet.
This would make for a good sketch, buying another SUV which will destroy the planet. But yes I actually get your point, but I disagree. The SUV was paid for by the worker, he did not receive the SUV for free while someone else was needed one more dearly. If that will lead to the destruction of the planet, imagine what would happen when you plan to remove all entry barriers and instead give everyone free SUVs and other such goods "according to need". Rationing, such as in the case of the pricing system, ultimately prevents this from happening by limiting the use of such goods without proper contribution which in turn can be used to develop more environmentally-safe production methods or even funds to safeguard the environment.


I'm saying that we can already meet people's needs, and without the current levels of ecological damage as exists under capitalism. You bizarrely still don't get the point.
You cannot meet people's needs "already" just as you cannot do so tomorrow or if a revolution take place. The ecological damage that exists today under Capitalism is what allows Capitalism's productivity and efficiency. You cannot take the results of Capitalism minus the very basic functions that lead to those results. Your system requires abundance to work, mine does not.


I'm not arguing that in the distant post-capitalist future, after production has grown massively to such an extent that the earth has been turned into a wasteland, we can FINALLY have a system "according to need"! Where everyone can have 15 fridges, 6 cars and a yacht, or whatever they damn well please!
You're arguing that after Capitalism you can still have the same level of productivity of Capitalism minus the very things that make Capitalist highly productive. You can never have an "according to need" system without first reaching super-productivity, and that will never happen in your system of hippie kumbaya shit. You need what drives the productivity of Capitalism and maximize that whilst attempting to solve the issues it raises gradually. In fact, we don't even need to destroy the environment in a pricing system because we don't have to meet every single need of 6 billion people on Earth but only those who contribute getting remunerated according to contribution. You cannot achieve an "according to need" system without abundance. To achieve abundance you need to first base your system on scarcity and ration resources the best way possible in order to encourage productivity until you finally achieve abundance.


No no no!

The ecological damage is going to be caused if we keep producing more and more consumables above current rates, regardless of whether it is capitalism or a rational market socialism.
And are you planning to cease production of those consumables? Then you essentially just killed the main drive behind the productivity and the reasons for productivity under Capitalism. You want to return us to a system that bases itself on bare minimum needs a la medieval ages. That is ridiculous, keep it to yourself. The consumables that are produces are what people "need". You speak of "producing more and more consumables above current rates"? The current rates are limited by a pricing mechanism, now imagine the disasters that would arise if you do away with that restriction. The ecological damage would be much more severe without Capitalism or rational Market Socialism.


Your statement "Isn't a democratic system essentially an aggregation, in turn, of what people demand?" is completely false. No. A democracy is self-government. People are not just consumers who demand stuff. It may be precisely the most democratic decision of all for people to agree to stop demanding more stuff as individuals.
Nonsense. Self-government would imply the individuals are governing themselves. If you speak of self-government as that being of the collective then you entirely ignore the divergent needs, demands, priorities, and so on between the individual and the collective. The collective cannot properly reflect the demands of the individual but a pricing system and/or market can. People are indeed just consumers who demand stuff. The demands that they make are the direct and purest form of what they desire and want. To try to convince the impossible decision of making everyone stop being individuals (demanding stuff as individual is just that) then you essentially are attempting to impose the collective will over the individual will. The collective will can never properly represent the will of the individuals that it represents. What you are supporting is nothing short of tyranny, totalitarianism, and a system based on a hivemind. It's appealing, but not really plausible, especially after today's developments on the question of the individual.


I'm arguing for the principle of subsidiarity. If a decision can't be taken at a local level because people there don't have enough information, and if they still can't perform this function by communicating with other communes, etc., then that decision has to be taken at a higher level. I'm simply saying that the burden of proof as to be on those who want more centralised decision making, not that such a thing must not be allowed.
Why even create all that hassle in the first place when a local community can simply relay information directly to the central government that would be able to mobilize all the resources of the nation to solve the issue rather than have a reactionary tribal system back in place? Marx precisely argued against Proudhon's federalism for this and many other reasons. What burden of proof? It is common sense that a centralized government is more effective, rapid, has more resources at its disposal, and so on than thousands of small local communities trying to reach a decision which can very well escalate into a conflict with no higher government (see the nations of today for instance).


And anyway, I don't find it very plausible that a select elite group of planners sitting in a world government, armed only with the magical wonder that is Microsoft Excel, can make absolutely all of the distribution decisions for the whole world - and without any mistakes, and without any abuse of power, either. I think you'd have to be quite credulous to believe that.
"Towards A New Socialism", read it. Mistakes will take place, but they would be input mistakes by humans. These mistakes would be minimized due to the organized nature of a central government with centralized information as opposed to a thousands of divided communes trying to plan something such as their separate economies without valid information. Abuse of power but the abuse of power can never be prevented, only minimized.


I'm arguing that since need is social too, then therefore we cannot say with certainty what people will demand in a communist society. So the idea of an economy "meeting demand" doesn't make sense outside of history or outside of an understanding of class
I don't get your point. Isn't it for that reason that I'm telling you that you cannot speak of the end-result as a given without first taking into account how you are going to achieve it? Your systems speak of "meeting needs" without a basis for it. My system would "meet demand" because wherever demand exists, a sale can be made and an opportunity for money exists. People have every incentive to satisfy that demand. An economy "meeting demand" doesn't make sense outside of Capitalism or the current system in place. In your system you would require to know with centrality what people will demand to base anything on anything, in my system I don't need to know what they require because anything they require would be met with a supplier, invisible hand and all. In my system people have every incentive to fulfill outstanding demands while absolutely no reason to do so in your system.


We've already been round and round on this. You are simply not addressing my arguments. I know you are defining effort in terms of productive effort, but I see no reason to accept this either as a moral principle or as something which we will necessarily have to reward to be efficient.
I am addressing your arguments as best that I can. I only care about productive effort because that is the most important "effort" factor in order to raise efficiency. Any other form of effort that goes unpaid would still be paid due to the necessity of, it doesn't have to be maximized. Nevertheless, how do you then propose that we reach efficiency? By simply kindly asking that everyone works the best they can and magic will set in? To reach efficiency you need to maximize results and that means maximizing productive effort with the limited and scarce resources you have available.


I can't get over the sheer arrogant hubris of imagining that being the player in Sim City is analogous of being a planner in a world economy. Really?:rolleyes:
Yes. I need to get the image somehow into your head because you cannot seem to be able to understand that a centralized planning agency imposed from above is much more simple, streamlined, less cumbersome, more efficient, etc. than thousands of communes trying to form a single plan together.


And anyway, as I've said, I can't share your optimism that this world planner will have perfect information and so be able to make perfect decisions.
Better information from above than those from below.


Er, what? You're saying that people's needs are met today through the mechanism of everyone seeking profits? How can you possibly deny that this is neoliberal ideology?
This is what it is. This is an observation from real-life, whether you like it or not. I do not really care if you call this "neoliberal ideology" as I do not recall even Marx and Engels themselves criticizing the achievements of Capitalism but praising them. They called the achievements and production under Capitalism as progressive while the decentralized, agrarian, backwards system of Tsarist Russia as reactionary.


Again, as above, it is now clear to me that I had fundamentally misunderstood your position: you are simply a market socialist for the transition period to superabundance. This isn't your ideal. I'm mightily relieved.

However, as I've said, I don't believe any of this is necessary.
You don't believe any of this is necessary because you seem to think you already have abundance and are able to meet everyone's needs. As soon as you realize that is not the case then you'll understand why my position is necessary. My system works even in the case of scarcity whilst yours cannot work without strict abundance. Your "according to need" system would require super-productivity, low labor (no more need for "according to contribution), and abundance.


If this is related to Arrow's Paradox, or some other result in game theory, then you'll have to explain further because I don't know anything about it.
Arrow's impossibility theorem started out by Arrow as an attempt to create a fair democratic system. He laid down the conditions (below) and realized that it is impossible to create such a system, hence Arrow's impossibility theorem. The conditions were as such (from Wiki):

"Non-dictatorship:
The social welfare function should account for the wishes of multiple voters. It cannot simply mimic the preferences of a single voter.

Unrestricted domain:
(or universality) For any set of individual voter preferences, the social welfare function should yield a unique and complete ranking of societal choices. Thus:
It must do so in a manner that results in a complete ranking of preferences for society.
It must deterministically provide the same ranking each time voters' preferences are presented the same way.

Independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA):
The social preference between x and y should depend only on the individual preferences between x and y (Pairwise Independence). More generally, changes in individuals' rankings of irrelevant alternatives (ones outside a certain subset) should have no impact on the societal ranking of the subset. (See Remarks below.)

Positive association of social and individual values:
(or monotonicity) If any individual modifies his or her preference order by promoting a certain option, then the societal preference order should respond only by promoting that same option or not changing, never by placing it lower than before. An individual should not be able to hurt an option by ranking it higher.

Non-imposition:
(or citizen sovereignty) Every possible societal preference order should be achievable by some set of individual preference orders. This means that the social welfare function is surjective: It has an unrestricted target space.
Arrow's theorem says that if the decision-making body has at least two members and at least three options to decide among, then it is impossible to design a social welfare function that satisfies all these conditions at once.
A later (1963) version of Arrow's theorem can be obtained by replacing the monotonicity and non-imposition criteria with:

Pareto efficiency:
(or unanimity) If every individual prefers a certain option to another, then so must the resulting societal preference order. This, again, is a demand that the social welfare function will be minimally sensitive to the preference profile."

Transitive is when you have A>B>C which means that A>B, B>C and A>C.
Intransitive is when you have A>B>C which means that A>B, B>C, A>C AND C>A.

Transitive preferences can only exist on the individual level with individual preferences, such as in the case of a dictator. You know which option you want best.
Intrasitive preferences are the rule of thumb in democratic group decision-making.

Now for example a voting procedure takes place on apples, oranges, and bananas. The results are as follows:
Apples: 45%
Oranges 40%
Bananas 15%
Clearly, the group then prefers apples over oranges over bananas, but this isn't the decision of a single person but of thousands of people. Now imagine that those who voted for bananas would have preferred oranges over apples in which case then oranges would have won over apples. Then, the preferences would be as such, the group prefers apples over oranges over bananas, but oranges over apples. This is only dealing with one of the conditions of Arrow's Theorem for a "fair" democratic system, namely the independence from irrelevant alternatives condition. Pareto efficiency would also be broken.

"In short, the theorem states that no rank-order voting system can be designed that satisfies these three "fairness" criteria:
If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group prefers X over Y.
If every voter's preference between X and Y remains unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and W change).
There is no "dictator": no single voter possesses the power to always determine the group's preference."


In a democracy, it is one person one vote. However, inevitably, some people will be more knowledgeable and articulate than others, and will be able to strongly influence how others use their vote. This is not necessarily a problem at all, in my opinion.
Have you ever tried to debate and convince a Nazi or someone of an opposing opinion? Even when you are right they stubbornly stick to their position despite legitimate arguments. You will rarely, if ever, be able to strongly influence others' votes otherwise you'd sway the entire country in your favor and you'd have a Communist US. That is not the case and your vote counts for only one vote despite your level of knowledge and education on the political issue, thus it is rational to remain ignorant on the question of voting because your vote won't sway anything in large-scale voting systems and has the same worth as any other individual. However if your vote equated 115 votes then you cannot remain ignorant and must then choose wisely as you are representing 115 votes that can have a larger effect in voting systems.


I do have a general faith that people will be able to exercise their own judgement freely in a communist society. Education and political awareness will not be costly to acquire (in the sense of money) and people have every chance of knowing enough to make a good decision. There may still be an opportunity cost - watching the news has the "cost" that while doing so, one cannot be simultaneously at a baseball game - but in a more equitable and knowledgeable culture this seems less of a major stumbling block.
And all of that rests on the assumption that you will have an "equitable" and "knowledgeable" culture. See, this is what I refer to as Utopian Communism. You base your system on faith. People can never have the chance to know enough to make a good decision, especially when it comes to decisions requiring specializing such as when it comes to the economy, political system, and whatnot. The US has a pretty good educational and political awareness system, they're still stuck in a two-party system with majority votes going to the two parties.


And you seem to have entirely missed the point that no one has any right to make decisions for me, nor any right to have a so-called "weighted vote". It is a question of political philosophy and moral values. If you're simply not willing to even engage in these issues, then I guess I can do no more than just state the fact that this is in fact the case.
No one's making a decision FOR you, merely their votes have a larger impact than yours. Your vote remains, the ineffective and useless single vote that you so highly speak of.


This is a problem in game theory, where you are not allowed to influence the "move" of the other "player". The issue is not so much of what it is rational to do, but one of a social space vacated of authority.

We think "why should I spend time cleaning up garbage when eventually someone else will do it, and I will get the benefits of a clean street while expending no effort?" But in actual fact we have clean streets because there is a garbage service appointed with completing that task, paid for out of taxes. The problem doesn't arise because there is a social authority (government), which is in a sense an institution to which we "delegate" our altruism.

So basically, no, this is a problem only if we exclude a priori the possibility of a social agreement being reached to deal with the commons. And indeed, there are counter examples of the commons being upkept and which don't fall into tragedy.
You do not seem to get the point of that quote at all. That's not even beginning to start with the problems of your claim. Firstly, the point of the analogy was to show that on the question of scale, your vote has no impact at all. The cost of irrational voting is socialized and barely changes anything, but if the scale were much, much smaller then it would be analogous to throwing a bag of garbage inside your room as you will be directly affected due to your own actions. The cost of throwing a garbage bag, just as voting on the small-scale, "you eat the full costs of this action and so there is an increased incentive not to destroy your room." This cannot be argued against, you are more responsible for your vote directly proportional to the scale of the voting base. You took the analogy as being the problem itself whilst it was hinting at another problem by merely explaining it by an example.
Secondly, no, you do not delegate your altruism anywhere because you did not vote for the governmental institution which you refer to. You do not choose to pay your taxes, you are forced to pay your taxes if you wish to live in that society. Now this brings us to the much larger issue, the NHS and the garbage system exist regardless of your desires or the citizens' desires, they exist because they government deems that they should exist. The pricing system and the threat of jail for tax evasion is what ensures that everyone pays the cost through taxes and that free-riders are inhibited. Your system wants to have a public mutual aid relationship without any means to ensure that the relationship doesn't turn parasitical, that doesn't have a government to enforce it, that requires everyone to agree to it for it to work, and that works out of the kind heart of people. Here you'll try to say that people want garbage off their streets, that's why they'll want it work and chip in. Not really, back to the issue of scale and the example given and you'll see why not.


The decision to buy a washing machine isn't much of an analogue to the decision to elect a government
Actually it is. Again the argument of scale, when you buy a washing machine, you only affect yourself. If the washing machine is shit, you just negatively affected yourself as only you are held accountable, eating the full cost of that action. This would prompt you to later on reconsider your actions and educate yourself before buying washing machines or other appliances. Now, if you were to chip in with thousands of others to buy a washing machine and it turned out to be shit, the cost is socialized, you only lost a few cents, did not make the decision yourself, and did not learn anything from this action except to blame the collective or the individual that chose that washing machine. Now this brings us back to the issue of electing a government. If you were the only one electing the government, you would be the only one held accountable for such an action. The costs of electing a faulty government would thus directly impact and affect you negatively. The costs are not socialized. However, if you had only one vote out of millions then the cost is socialized, you had little to do with it, you had little to do with the outcome, there is no one person to blame from the voters, and thus the blame is put on society or the representative. You would be less affected if you vote in a large-scale election than if you were to vote in a small-scale election. Your vote changes nothing and has no reason to be educated if your vote is only one vote out of millions.


Explain? Why can't I know what is the best idea? Why can't I persuade?

What do you mean, I cannot persuade others? How is persuasion undemocratic?
Because you need to persuade every single person on every single decision that may or may not come up. Basically you would be switching from a democracy with differing ideals to a social dictatorship following your ideals. That still breaks the "fairness" condition of the theory as you are thus the dictator, if not a part of a social dictatorship with one idea and position on everything. You essentially do away with democracy in that way. However, if you do not convince everyone on every single decision then you also do not solve Arrow's impossibility theory's problem.


Yes these are traditional arguments against democracy. It is too time-consuming, too much effort, not efficient, etc. At no point is any moral consideration raised.
Play morality all you want, but when it comes to an economy there is no place for that. You cannot resort to systems that are "too time consuming, too much effort, not efficient" purely in favor of "moral consideration". If you want to preserve morality then firstly you need the proper material base for it. You need to ensure that you have a fully-fledged working economy and reach super-productivity before you can resort to moral decisions and meeting everyone's needs.


And no, direct democracy doesn't mean there is no formal structure at all. That is a bit of a strawman.
I said so?


I meant in the sense that democracy as the mere "ranking of preferences" is a passive, blah, sitting-in-my-armchair, kind of conception.
Uh, what? Again, that has nothing to do with Arrow's impossibility theorem.


Lovely little fascist rant there. Feel better now? :lol:
Please know what Fascism is and what the difference between Fascism is authoritarianism is. That's like you being a Republican and calling someone a Communist/Commie. It's false representation. If you claim that popular democracy isn't perfect or even isn't preferable then that does not signify that you are a Fascist merely that you do not prefer popular democracy. You can be anything at all except someone supporting direct democracy as an executive means, or even legislative.


Wow. I was kinda joking before, but yes, you are a fascist. Am I reading you correctly: you don't want freedom of speech, freedom of expression or freedom of the press? Wow.
So by your argument Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks were all Fascists. Same goes for Mao, Castro, Guevara, etc.? Same goes for Engels and Marx as well who spoke of repressing the counter-revolutionary through authority, violence, force, and coercion? Please. Stop using the term "fascist" like some liberal anti-war hippie on the streets of Seattle and use it like a proper fucking Communist that knows what it means. Nevertheless, calling me a Fascist is not an argument.


Since when has conflict not been a good thing? If it isn't violent, and just concerned with idea, then it appears to me that conflict and contradiction is the lifeblood of a healthy society.
Sure it is, until you reach a civil war and have millions die over differences of ideas. You cannot say "if it isn't violent" because it will be violent whether you like it or not. Similar to how Christianity evolved from a peace-loving religion of self-sacrifice to a war-loving religion of sacrifice. Now, constructive criticism and discussion is the lifeblood of a healthy society, not conflict and contradictions in a public scenario with destructive criticism and counter-productive bashing for the sake of winning over your opinion rather than advancing the interests of society. The discussion of such ideas must be limited to a specific framework that can hold it, such as in the case of a party.


People will act to their self interest, but this isn't the full story. That's it. That is all I'm saying. How is it not dogmatism, or a kind of religious fundamentalism, to insist that it is everyhing; it is all that matters when trying to understand behaviour?
If you say that they will act to their self-interest then that is the full story. It is dogmatism as much as you called my claims to be dogmatic. It is the basis of understanding behavior, something which you call "neoliberal ideology", "economism", "productivist", and various other nonsense just because I do not agree with your Utopian approach. I base everything on self-interest, but I develop things from there, unlike you who does not even take into consideration self-interest nor base anything on it.


What I don't understand is that you see distribution according to contribution as something necessary for us to be productive up to a state of abundance, but then here you justify it, with no qualification whatever, as a moral or fair arrangement. This is completely contradictory.
You've never heard of this line, have you? "The end justifies the means". In fact, this is much less dastardly than that phrase, I'm not suggesting we nuke anyone nor am I suggesting we round up all "inferiors" and shoot them I'm suggesting that we create a system that can actually lead to an "according to need" system realistically in the long-run. You just want to jump to such a system just like the Bolsheviks did, forcing them to run back to the NEP. "According to contribution" is a necessity for every system until you reach a state of complete (or almost) automation with the ability to meet everyone's needs. Space mining may also be a necessity to deal with the issue of finite resources. The thing you do not seem to understand is that an "according to need" society is an END-RESULT, something that is a GOAL, not a means.


Unless you are saying that this is fair as it is, but we can have an even fairer system when we reach superabundance?
"This"? What do you mean by "this"? Capitalism? Capitalism isn't fair at all and will only lead us down the drain. According to need? It will never happen without the proper basis for it and today we do not have the basis for it until we have complete or almost complete automation, no or little need for labor, and so on. WHEN we reach superabundance is not the matter of dispute, the matter of dispute is HOW to reach that stage and until we do WHAT system can or should be used.


My response here is the same as what I've said above. If you are morally opposed to communistic ideals, then what is the point of ramping up production so we can at some stage achieve it? Why not just stick with your market socialism, which is more fair?
I'm opposed to Communistic ideals that want to take place BEFORE we can even support such a system in the first place. Because there is no need for Market Socialism after you automate everything and send laborers home. It would automatically and by its very nature develop into an "according to need" system.


Yes, that sounds like what happened.
Of course it did.


It is anonymous to the person receiving the donated blood, but you can't hide the fact that you gave blood from others.

The example is from Richard Titmus, 'The Gift Relationship'
I've got three people who disagree here. "Long-sleeved shirt" begs to differ with your assessment just as "other people knowing you got paid for donating blood" wants to slap you in the face. Oh? I hear something else too? Is that "a donation is not a proper representation of how a mutual aid system would work because the current blood donation system is based within an external framework that does not depend on it"? Oh my, he looks to be quite irritated!


I never thought I'd see the day that a socialist actually defends the superexploitation of the poorest workers in the world. Really depressing.
Am I defending that or informing you of the fact that the super-exploitation of the poorest workers in the world is what keeps the world running with cheap products and a comfortable living? Unless I somewhere stated that I support such an endeavor, which I actually said is a problem with Capitalism, then do remind me.


They are paid next to nothing because the profit sold from their products don't go back to them but to the company's shaereholders, who are already wealthy. As I've been trying to explain this whole time, such arrangements have nothing much to do with "efficiency". So why would they still exist under socialism, I ask you?
I thought the products sold go to people who use them to live a comfortable life such as in the case of a labor aristocracy as explained by Lenin? I also do not remember supporting a system that isn't based on "according to contribution" but "according to how much you can exploit others". They don't have to do with efficiency, but they have to do with offering cheap goods, increasing competition, and decreasing the cost of production. They wouldn't exist under Socialism or an "according to contribution" system because they would be paid according to contribution. The difference here is that money isn't much of a zero-sum game but would directly be rewarded on payday.


You need both.
Good luck with that.


Some work is very enjoyable, some is very boring. Most is unsatisfying under capitalism, but I venture that this tells us more about capitalism and its oppressions than about the existential state of "work"
Utopian Communism, the land where work becomes play. :)
Deal with it, no one likes working in the sewers, no one likes cleaning up your garbage, no one likes cleaning the room after you, no one likes mining coal for you, no one likes chopping down trees for you, no one likes working in a steel factory for you, no one likes building houses for you, no one likes extracting sulfur for you, and so on. Do you get the point now? People do it because they get paid, not because they want to satisfy your desires or society's.


Because that sounds like hell on earth?
Apparently hell on Earth is a centralized system rather than thousands of inefficient, time consuming, worthless bickering in thousands of communes trying to reach one decisions would could be reached already by one decision-making entity. The same applies to the question of factories where you believe hell on Earth is simply centralizing the best in centralized factories whilst trying to do the same for thousands of factories on the local scale is not only heaven on Earth but also even remotely plausible.


There is no a priori reason why centralised production is necessarily better than local production. Sometimes it is precisely the hand made stuff that embodies someone's unique set of skills and vision that makes the best product. Whereas we know that the mass produced stuff, at least under capitalism anyway, is often crap.
Hey if you want to go against the historical process and Marx/Engels by returning back to a system of handicrafts, then be my guest. I'll be waiting here. Centralized production is much easier to plan, manage, upgrade, and hold accountable. You cannot, as I have already explained to you, give the same technological advancements, skill, resources, and plans to every single decentralized factory. You have industrial sectors and centralized industry for a reason, it's much less costly, faster, easier to plan, easier to attract skill to limited and specific locations, produce en masse, etc. in such sectors than it is to build a factory in rural areas and expect them to be the same as those in the industrial sectors.

You want to produce chairs. Do you building thousands of factories just to build chairs or do you build a centralized district for the production of chairs? Where is it easier to send resources, ship, manage, etc.? Sending trucks all the way across the country just to send resources to separate factories and return the products? It would be must less costly and more efficient to have a centralized system.


It's a balancing act. The drop in price that crippled those two hypothetical countries resulted in cheaper goods for many consumers. I think that was my original point. In the relentless drive to cost-cutting and efficiency, some people often fall by the wayside.
And that does not by any means lead to the conclusion that those countries cannot result to a separate production or adopt more efficient methods as the ones that supposedly crippled them.



The Wyoming farmer isn't "inefficient". The economic system is conspiring against him. If the supermarket used his produce instead, then that may very well be better for everyone in the long run.
Why would it if they're producing cheaper goods for everyone by choosing an alternative supplier?


How is society benefiting? The low costs of the product are being passed on to the supplier, crippling him. The world is heating up because of the unnecessary freight. Society is better off just because that product is cheaper for the consumer? Isn't that one of the problems with a pricing mechanism, that it doesn't adequately account for the other social costs?
If the supplier no longer sees a profit or benefit then he cancels the agreement regardless of the blackmailing. He would sooner prefer to risk the consequences of blackmail than to go bankrupt. The unnecessary freight is being paid for, if it is more expensive than the alternative than following price signals the supermarkets would look for cheaper means. The carbon emissions tax and so on would ensure that pollution, to any extent, is taken into consideration by the costs and prices. Yes, society is better off because the product is cheaper. It's not at all a problem, in fact, it is a solution. Without a pricing mechanism you have no means by which to calculate the costs, differentiate between the costs, know which is cheaper local production or international production WITH shipping, etc. Other social costs are taken into account by the pricing mechanism if you include taxes on pollution.


FYI supermarkets are known for blackmailing suppliers, because supermarkets have often already run other wholesellers and such out of business. It is a question of selling goods to a supermarket for pittance or not selling goods at all.
And that's bullshit. Millions of varying scales of supermarkets exist and will continue to exist as long as it profitable to do so. Blackmailing would be against the interests of the suppliers, they can choose to abide by the terms of the blackmail or not. Creating a monopoly and imposing terms of sale is not blackmailing.


A post-capitalist, communist-type system would inherently incentivize bulk automation, at least, so that no one would be singled-out and imposed-upon with gruntwork from the rest of the society's population -- a mass melting of individual *professional* distinctions would be the order of the day so that comradeliness would be maximized.
That barely made sense at all with that vagueness and hyphens in an attempt for an argument from verbosity fallacy. Nevertheless, no. You, again, speak of "bulk automation" as purely FOR GRANTED when you do not have bulk automation and cannot guarantee bulk automation. You Utopians sicken me with your perversions. From all that attempt at verbosity of yours I see that you're attempting to say that everyone would work in cohesion and not impose any extra load on any specific person. Ridiculous. You cannot ensure that nothing is imposed on anyone because you have absolutely no price signals, no pricing mechanism, and no means by which to objectively measure anything. You do not want to maximize "comradeliness", you want to create clones and nothing more. You want to create a system where there is no distinction between individuals and their contributions/work/efforts/efficiency. Seriously, what is this shit I'm reading? You cannot incentivize *anything* because you have absolutely no means by which to incentivize anything.


You're again using the scare tactic of crazed, infinite demand, with *your own* assumptions of a very individualistic and self-absorbed populace that craves anything and everything that's free of charge. The revolution would never happen if these societal characteristics prevailed, and a post-revolutio order would bring an ethos with it quite different from what *you're* describing.

I'm not resorting to any scare tactics of "crazed" infinite demand because I'm stating what is factual and self-evident. People, as long as they exist, WILL HAVE A DEMAND. Since we expect people to exist under any system that you propose then THERE WILL BE DEMAND. Since there are people and there will be demand, finite resources cannot account for nor satisfy that CONSTANTLY existing DEMAND. That is as much of an assumption as Earth revolving around the Sun is. This populace wants to meet its needs, how does it meet it needs? Through demand. What does the demand entail? Craving anything and everything that it demands limited only by money. In your system? They are limited by ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Do you get it now or are you still unable to understand before trying to use more vague nonsense to hide your point in verbosity that has absolutely no meaning. These societal characteristics always prevailed and always will prevail and for that very reason revolutions happen. A post-revolutionary order would either support what I suggest or it would fail miserably if it ever tries to, again, support a system as the one *you're* describing.


Whether basic goods or luxury / specialty goods are the issue, the point of a communist-type order is to ensure that people are *empowered* to realize that productivity, as through a development and strengthening of the technological 'commons', or infrastructure. On this point you're hopelessly glass-half-empty, preferring to put your faith in a technocratic expert system for governance and an economics based on conventional surplus value extraction.
Bullshit. Again for false assumptions and this guy isn't even to see that for himself. Before you even speak of a "communist-type" order, you need to have a system that can actually lead to a "communist-type" order which is a transitional phase known as Socialism. That Socialism is based on "according to contribution", not "according to need". Your "according to need" communism is ONLY possible if you have full automation, super-productivity, and thus super-abundance with no use for labor. That is not the case of a post-Capitalist society, you need a post-Socialist (the one I'm describing) society for that to take place. You want to "empower" people to "realize" that productivity? This is the most ridiculous nonsense that I have ever heard. This is to economics and theory as faith-healing is to medicine and science. I'm seriously hoping anyone reading your post is thinking the same as I am thinking. YOU CANNOT claim to realize productivity by "empowering" anyone because you cannot even "empower" anyone nor even prove that "empowering" anyone would lead to that productivity. Technological commons? You can speak of that all you want, but until you realize that you cannot magically summon the technological commons as a given for your society then your point is entirely moot. The question is not whether we desire technological commons or infrastructure, but HOW TO ACHIEVE, SUSTAIN, MAINTAIN, and DEVELOP the technological commons. You do not even bother to take any of that in into consideration, you take it as a given or claim that the magic of "--mass-consciousness--" and "--c-ommunism--" would solve it for you or you take it as a given from the current system and parasitically attempt to use it whilst forgetting that your system has NOTHING to do with the current system.


The political civil society would have addressed the most-common and most-needed items long before it could even conceivably become a special individual 'emergency' concern.
You mean "most common" and "most needed". Now let's see here. How exactly will your magical "political civil society" magically adress the MOST COMMON and MOST NEEDED items long before it could even conceivably become a "special individual 'emergency' concern". What the fuck does that even mean? Is that honestly how you debate? By adding hyphens where they are not needed and resorting to creating new words, terms, and concepts which have no meaning at all just in an attempt to resort to an argument from verbosity logical fallacy? Sigh... Now answer the question, how will your "political civil society" magically address those items before they become a "special individual 'emergency' concern?" You need to also explain what you mean by those new terms you keep coming up with. You need to explain what are the "most common" and "most needed" items. You need to explain HOW exactly it would address them.

What you are doing is akin to claiming that you will "magically" solve all problems before they even become a problem. Literally. That is ridiculous.


Well this speaks to the topic of the thread -- just how much absolute mass demnd and potential involvement and cooperation would exist to produce Luxury Item X -- ? If the interest was widespread and intense enough, it would undoubtedly be covered in human-interest journalistic ways, enabling those with that shared interest (as for luxuries or specialty items) to 'make it happen' out of their own collective volition.
Stop the hyphens. Seriously. They're more annoying than the magic you keep resorting to.

So in other words, in English that is using actual terminology and words, if people want something they just "make it happen"? Are you seriously kidding me here? Really, are you even serious? I mean where do I even start here? HOW can I even start here when you do not even explain how exactly it would take place but leave up to magic and false assumptions?

That's is exactly saying that you want to have a system where all the problems would be solved by people. That is ridiculous. Please stop trying to debate anything on the question of communism, you are very bad at it. I cannot even address this because there is nothing to address. Your only argument is that people will "make it happen' out of their own collective volition". That is neither an answer nor an argument. You are saying that people will "make it happen" WITHOUT, as with the abundance, productivity, communism, mutual aid, symbiotic relationship, automation, etc. even bothering to mention the means leading to such a conclusion or how such a conclusion will be made. You merely expect people to start a motherfucking riot just to get a good they want or "deal with it" and "make it happen" out of thin air. This is a theoretical discussion of theories, not of the fucking obvious nor of magic. People WILL "make it happen" but HOW will they make it happen. THAT is the argument you need to make. Why am I even bothering with you, honestly?

Oh and speaking of which "make it happen out of their own collective volition? The thing is with unpopular decisions is that there is no "collective volition". What a few guys and I want a specific television as a niche interest such as in the case of a section of gamers? We will never achieve such a product.


Well, what are you willing to do about it -- ?
In a price system, I would pay for it. In your system I would not receive it at all, even if I wanted to shout out and scream on the streets that I want it because it is low on the list.


No, because by converting a fixed number ('100') into an abstract monetary valuation, you are positing an arbitrary and questionable value system that only begs what the value-units *mean*. To resort to conventional profit-making and surplus value extraction -- even within a "benevolent technocracy" -- is to put humanity under a mechanical motivational force.
A mechanical motivational force, yes indeed! That is exactly how humanity functions today when it comes to the economy and that is exactly what must exist for an economy to exist. Your system does not even utilize a "mechanical motivational force" and doesn't even have a "motivational force" except the magic that people will somehow, without you even bothering to explain how, "make it happen". The fixed number that is converted into an abstract monetary valuation becomes an objective measurement of the costs in terms of money. It is not by any means arbitrary nor questionable. If you want to ask what "value units" (no hyphen) then go ask Marx or the LTV supporters. Profit-making and surplus value extraction are a means to an end, the mechanival motivational force that actually work and has led us to where we are today. Your alternative, however? "Make it happen". That shit right there should be hung as a god damned motivational poster for Nike's "Just do it".


Or, more constructively, the most-common priorities and demand would co-reinforce on mass scales, clearly indicating popular inclinations.
What? Again, "most common" is not "most-common". Nevertheless, in an actual translation from Hyphenish-Made-Up-Wordsish to English I think you're trying to say that the most popular priorities and demand would "clearly indicate popular inclinations"? Oh really now? And you think I did not already understand that point and devastate it already? The most popular decisions are not always the best decisions. The most popular priorities and demands are do not take into consideration the demands of individuals but aggregate demand which fall under the problems of democratic and group decision-making such as the Condorcet paradox and Arrow's impossibility theorem. I have dealt with those issues above in my reply to Lord Hargreaves. Popular and group democratic decision making are not true nor fair. The only alternative is a dictatorship, or in this case the dictatorship of the individuals when it comes to commodity consumption. As I have already shown, as well, that your lottery and social prioritization schemes do not take into account individual priorities and actual demand but instead only take individuals' AGGREGATE priorities and demand which different completely from those of the collective. For example, I voted for apples to be a priority, the communal decision turned out to be oranges with apples the last out of thousands on the list. I'm thus fucked and will never have my demands and priorities met. You say that I'll "make it happen"? Sure I would by a proper revolution to replace that shit system.

Oh and speaking of which "make it happen out of their own collective volition? The thing is with unpopular decisions is that there is no "collective volition". What a few guys and I want a specific television as a niche interest such as in the case of a section of gamers? We will never obtain such a product. In the case of a pricing system with or without a market, we would be able to pay for the creation and production of the product and thus obtain it. Your system CANNOT emulate this, not considering the fact that it's too busy meeting the priorities of the collective whilst ignoring yours. Production in your system acts REGARDLESS of individual priorities but based on COLLECTIVE priorities. What I personally put as a priority may be on the bottom of the list of priorities and demand of society's.


Or, more constructively, there might be sufficient mass concern to pro-actively address whatever shortfall by increasing production to fulfill demand.
So in other words "make it happen"? That magic. You speak of it as if it will be a simple matter of "mass concern" that will automatically and without question and without reason lead to "pro-actively address whatever shortfall by increasing production to fulfill demand". You think you can actually increase production without a basis for it, that you can increase production whenever you see fit, and that you can increase product just because mass concern exists. You have absolutely no reason, possibility, or incentive to increase production to fulfill demand. This was already proven in the USSR with mass demand existing for butter and meat yet no such magic as you want took place to "increase production to fulfill demand" because it simply is not possible.


Yes, tools are different and distinct from social relations like superexploitation, imperialism, markets, profit motive, etc. We could today raid a museum to recover tools used in past times, but our social relations *and* technologies have already far surpassed those older utilities.
And yet these social relations and technologies CANNOT sustain a communist system based on an "according to need" policy. You need full or complete automation, extremely minimal labor, an abundance of resources, an abundance of goods, and an infinite number of resources. THAT is when you can ONLY have communism "according to need", not now, now before, and not tomorrow. Communism "according to need" CANNOT take place without those conditions, with Africa in mass poverty and starvation, and with demand outweighing supply.


Revolution is required so that we may re-invent to what extents we use *today's* technologies, in as-yet-unseen, *superior* forms of social relations, such as collective mass production.
We've seen collective mass production in the USSR, Spain, Makhnovshchina, the Zapatistas and ESPECIALLY with the Israeli Kibbutzim. Look what happened and what is happening. Extremely primitive means of production, technological stagnation, and a reactionary falling back out of Capitalism and back to agrarian systems and handicrafts. Revolution is only required to dethrone the bourgeois and install another new system that can LEAD TO collective mass production, not instantly implement collective mass production without the proper material conditions nor base for it as we have historically seen take place.


You're again running into the main problematic with your line -- the exact convertibility of work effort into material-good compensation. I warned you about this earlier and here it is now again -- with varying productivities by tool (etc.), it makes no sense to try to establish a ratio of work time and effort to material reward. Your theoretical need to resolve this intractable artifice leads you right back to financial operations and all of the hell that accompanies it.
Not really. I only care about actual material contributions. If the individual is limited by tools then he is contributing less and thus receives less. I do not care if he's limited or bottlenecked, this forces him and the workplace to adopt alternative means of production in order to increase productivity and thus contribution which in turn rewards them through increased pay. I do not care about work time and effort, I care about contribution to material reward. Work time and effort can be rewarded within the factory and workplace, not on the large-scale, in order for the workers in that workplace to encourage the other workers to increase their work time and effort and thus benefit the entire factory as well.


To be honest this is kind of one of my least favorite parts about revleft (which I know I'm guilty of sometimes). Long futile arguments that don't accomplish much. It seems obvious based on initial arguments that the communists in here are right... But come on, look how persistent this guy has been in spite of that. I mean just observe the mind state that he's clearly in. He's not in the kind of mind state where he's going to admit he's wrong when you have a better argument. He's too stubborn and clearly isn't going to be convinced of anything. And it's not like others will be convinced of what he's saying because his (and lot of you guys') replies are so long that almost nobody is going to bother reading ALL of them. Anyways, long story short seems kind of like a futile effort.

You may not bother with them, but other lurkers, like myself previously, do in fact bother with them. People need to know that they cannot take things as "given" without question for socialism and commune instead need to think of that BEFORE they even speak of the results. "This guy" is persistent because he's in a debate over the issues of the first posts here. Instead of "observing" the "state of mind he's in" maybe actually look at his arguments? Before you complain, actually TRY to read. It would do us all a favor.


Well, s/he's not restricted (s/he's a "socialist but not a communist") and doesn't really seem to want to learn as much as argue perpetually

Whatever I mean I mean let it continue if it must, I just don't personally see all that much good coming out of it

I'm not here to learn but to teach. You're the one here to learn by asking a question, we're here to answer. We disagree on the answers and thus the debate. Get it now? A lot of good is coming out of it, you're just not bother to read to understand anything.


It'd be a lot easier to read if it was a few short paragraphs of response instead of taking apart the previous post line by line I think.

We're arguing point by point, not line by line, because we disagree on many points.

[barbelo]

For example, lets say you tell everyone in the world they have free access to airline tickets any time they want. Many people love traveling, so many would take up this offer... so many, in fact, that it seems as though there wouldn't even be enough airplanes for everyone who wanted to fly to ride in.

But of course everyone will be able to fly... To gulag.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Theophys,

I don't have the time (neither the inclination) to continue our debate. I don't think we are going to get much further than we already have. I'm just going to take this opportunity to restate my position:


The entire basis of your argument is that we are still living in a condition of scarcity, and that the sole priority of socialism (as a transitional stage) is to ramp up production so that we can finally achieve a state of "superabundance". But I simply do not see any of this as necessary, since I think current rates of consumption are enough. Indeed it may be that we have to consume less in the West so that the earth can survive while the rest of the world's population attains a good comfortable state of living. If every person living today consumed at the same rate as the average American, we would need the energy and resources of 5 Earths. But we only have one. Treating environmental damage (and the exploitation of the labour of the poorest) as a "price to be paid" for continued abundance of goods is simply unacceptable.


You refuse absolutely any questioning of the axioms of rational choice theory. For you there cannot be altruism, there cannot be any kind of motivation to mutual aid rather than naked selfishness. I've tried to get you to entertain other possibilities but have so far failed. You exclude all moral considerations, and I find this rather frightening if I'm honest. And you simply dismiss practical counter examples of people acting in altruistic/social conscious or "irrational" ways - giving blood without needing to be paid, collectively setting up institutions of authority to deal with the "tragedy of the commons", or voting in a general election even though my single vote is statiscally irrelevant - because it seems to contradict the theory. The refusal to accept contrary evidence when it appears to contradict (or at least qualify) one's theory, is the dictionary definition of dogmatism.

You cannot or will not understand democracy in the same way that 99% of all other socialists and communists do. It fact it would probably be a division between you and a select few others in economic departments, and the rest of the entire population of humanity. You see democracy as exclusively the ranking of preferences by individuals to be run through an algorithm. At no point is debate, discussion, compromise etc. to be allowed, and all preferences must simply be taken as "given". Whereas what I and everyone else calls democracy - the coming together of people to debate, with people trying to persuade others in good faith of the correctness of a policy when it comes to improving the lot of the group, and then finally having a majority vote if it comes to it - you call "social dictatorship" (If I influence others to my point of view, and they therefore vote with me, then I am apparently a dictator over them. This is because by definition my own preferences are concerned merely with what is in my own self-interest, and so if people are voting with me they are voting against their own self-interest and in favour of mine. The circularity of it all makes one dizzy! What if my preferences express my honest opinions on what is good for everyone? Unconscionable! Irrational! Utopian!)

We have both given arguments for and against the centralisation of production and decision making. I have said that in many cases decentralised, local production is better; but that centralisation may in other cases be better. All I have said is that the burden of proof is on centralisers (because direct, self-governing democracy is less possible the grander the scale). Whereas you insist that all production must be centralised, and that anything else is sheer hysterical delusion. I regard this as unbelievable arrogance. And anyway, there is no more to debate here, because it ultimately becomes a question of what works given experimental evidence etc.


So yes, that's basically it from me,

Lord Hargreaves

[Jimmie Higgins]

If profit is an objective measusre of rational production, why are there crisis of overproduction, why if production is too high do prices depress to the point that production in reduced even if there is demand at a lower price for the commodities? Why do people invest knowing that something is a bubble? If producing too well hurts profits, how is this a rational system if be base "reasonable production" on using our productive abilities to benifit us?

Theophys is right, the OP question has gotten lost. Mostly because Theo's trying to use an exception to make a point. Communism can't make a naturally scarse thing not scare - we'd have to democratically decide on the best way to handle things like that either by finding more abundant analogues or finding new methods to accomplish what this resource does, or by some kind of organized rotation or sharing. Frankly, this is a problem most of us would be lucky to have. If I can't have diamonds or my own yaht in a liberated society, it's not too big of a deal considering I have no access to these things as it is. Not having to worry about rent or debt or being fired for whatever whim of the business cycle or my boss's mood, having some say in society, would be pretty decent consolation.

Despite tons of bad predictions by Marxists over the years, the overall Marxist view of the capitalist economy still holds up whereas liberal economic ideas have been shown incorect and taken by surprise by every new crisis. That's ultimately the disagreement here I think - if one accepts the liberal economic explainations for capitalism, then it's sort of a closed circuit: labor, resources, profits, all sort of balence eachother out ultimately. Problems in capitalism in this view are due to "mismanagement" of resources and whatnot. Therefore why not get some smart technocrats or state-socialists to manage it better!

[cyu]

What is scarce is the percentage of labor and raw materials that are devoted to producing for the poor (as opposed to producing for the rich).

From http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/01/08/plutonomics/

"Kapur estimates that in 2005, the richest 20% may have been responsible for 60% of total spending... The best way for companies and businesspeople to survive in Plutonomies, Kapur implies, is to disregard the “mass” consumer and focus on the increasingly rich market of the rich."

From http://www.revleft.com/vb/argument-favor-outsourcing-t120460/index.html?p=1582198

"Spending by the uber-rich overwhelms that of the average consumer... The United States is one of the plutonomy countries countries whose economies are powered by a relatively small number of rich people."

In other words, you don't really need to pay your workers much if your finance tycoons can basically print money - workers are no longer consumers that you need money from - they are just producers. The source of money is now places like Wall Street and fractional reserve banking, where they basically pull money out of thin air to buy the labor they need to live in luxury.

[ckaihatsu]

A post-capitalist, communist-type system would inherently incentivize bulk automation, at least, so that no one would be singled-out and imposed-upon with gruntwork from the rest of the society's population -- a mass melting of individual *professional* distinctions would be the order of the day so that comradeliness would be maximized.





That barely made sense at all with that vagueness and hyphens in an attempt for an argument from verbosity fallacy. Nevertheless, no. You, again, speak of "bulk automation" as purely FOR GRANTED when you do not have bulk automation and cannot guarantee bulk automation.


I continue to be saddened by your lack of acceptance of what's right in front of all of us -- certainly current technologies, developed by capitalism, would be more than sufficient to enable a mass-based control of mass production. This is the Holy Grail of revolutionary politics, so to speak, but you can't accept even *this* much of a revolutionary sentiment, unfortunately.





You Utopians sicken me with your perversions. From all that attempt at verbosity of yours I see that you're attempting to say that everyone would work in cohesion and not impose any extra load on any specific person. Ridiculous. You cannot ensure that nothing is imposed on anyone because you have absolutely no price signals, no pricing mechanism, and no means by which to objectively measure anything.


Yes, I do, actually:





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





You do not want to maximize "comradeliness", you want to create clones and nothing more. You want to create a system where there is no distinction between individuals and their contributions/work/efforts/efficiency. Seriously, what is this shit I'm reading? You cannot incentivize *anything* because you have absolutely no means by which to incentivize anything.


I don't appreciate this characterization and lack of acceptance of principle. What I am describing and arguing-for can be taken on its own merits, independently of myself, even.

Your entire line is based on a particular, strict interpretation of 'human nature' -- one that posits that "incentives" are needed, regardless of the overall social and productive climate at hand. This is a decidedly *non*-Marxist basis of understanding of individual identity and social reality.





You're again using the scare tactic of crazed, infinite demand, with *your own* assumptions of a very individualistic and self-absorbed populace that craves anything and everything that's free of charge. The revolution would never happen if these societal characteristics prevailed, and a post-revolutio order would bring an ethos with it quite different from what *you're* describing.





I'm not resorting to any scare tactics of "crazed" infinite demand because I'm stating what is factual and self-evident. People, as long as they exist, WILL HAVE A DEMAND. Since we expect people to exist under any system that you propose then THERE WILL BE DEMAND. Since there are people and there will be demand, finite resources cannot account for nor satisfy that CONSTANTLY existing DEMAND.


The nature of the question / problem calls for a rough estimate of some particular finite quantities -- [1] How much *productivity* could feasibly be possible? [2] What materials should be *prioritized* for mass production? [3] To what level of even production could a post-capitalist society bring to every last person in the world? [4] What amounts of cooperation and initiative would be required, from how many people, for this?

You're not recognizing realistic parameters in your framing of the problem, and so your base assumptions become boundless and abstract.





That is as much of an assumption as Earth revolving around the Sun is. This populace wants to meet its needs, how does it meet it needs? Through demand. What does the demand entail? Craving anything and everything that it demands limited only by money. In your system? They are limited by ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.


This is not true -- a post-capitalist mass demand would be limited by the society's own efforts, in total. While you prefer to deal with incentives on an individualized basis, a *mass* (political) approach looks at incentives on the *mass* scale.





Do you get it now or are you still unable to understand before trying to use more vague nonsense to hide your point in verbosity that has absolutely no meaning. These societal characteristics always prevailed and always will prevail and for that very reason revolutions happen. A post-revolutionary order would either support what I suggest or it would fail miserably if it ever tries to, again, support a system as the one *you're* describing.


Whatever. Please tone down your invective, too, since such aggressiveness adds nothing to the exchange.





Whether basic goods or luxury / specialty goods are the issue, the point of a communist-type order is to ensure that people are *empowered* to realize that productivity, as through a development and strengthening of the technological 'commons', or infrastructure. On this point you're hopelessly glass-half-empty, preferring to put your faith in a technocratic expert system for governance and an economics based on conventional surplus value extraction.





Bullshit. Again for false assumptions and this guy isn't even to see that for himself. Before you even speak of a "communist-type" order, you need to have a system that can actually lead to a "communist-type" order which is a transitional phase known as Socialism. That Socialism is based on "according to contribution", not "according to need".


A basic way of looking at revolution is to see it as the increasing expansion of the public sector. We currently have a degree of "collectivization", as for education and social services, despite capitalism's overwhelming drive to privatization -- with this as a starting point it's not difficult to estimate what can and can't be done, realistically.





Your "according to need" communism is ONLY possible if you have full automation, super-productivity, and thus super-abundance with no use for labor.


*Ultimately*, yes -- but there *is* a road of increments in getting to there.





That is not the case of a post-Capitalist society, you need a post-Socialist (the one I'm describing) society for that to take place. You want to "empower" people to "realize" that productivity? This is the most ridiculous nonsense that I have ever heard. This is to economics and theory as faith-healing is to medicine and science. I'm seriously hoping anyone reading your post is thinking the same as I am thinking. YOU CANNOT claim to realize productivity by "empowering" anyone because you cannot even "empower" anyone nor even prove that "empowering" anyone would lead to that productivity. Technological commons? You can speak of that all you want, but until you realize that you cannot magically summon the technological commons as a given for your society then your point is entirely moot.


A 'technological commons' *already* exists, in the sense of commonly available paved roads, electricity, the Internet, and so on. There's no need to resort to an imaginary 'magic'.





The question is not whether we desire technological commons or infrastructure, but HOW TO ACHIEVE, SUSTAIN, MAINTAIN, and DEVELOP the technological commons.


If you like.





You do not even bother to take any of that in into consideration, you take it as a given or claim that the magic of "--mass-consciousness--" and "--c-ommunism--" would solve it for you or you take it as a given from the current system and parasitically attempt to use it whilst forgetting that your system has NOTHING to do with the current system.


"Parasitically" -- ? Really?

This is either a defense of the existing bourgeois order, or else is definitely ad hominem.





The political civil society would have addressed the most-common and most-needed items long before it could even conceivably become a special individual 'emergency' concern.





You mean "most common" and "most needed". Now let's see here. How exactly will your magical "political civil society" magically adress the MOST COMMON and MOST NEEDED items long before it could even conceivably become a "special individual 'emergency' concern".





consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination





What the fuck does that even mean? Is that honestly how you debate? By adding hyphens where they are not needed and resorting to creating new words, terms, and concepts which have no meaning at all just in an attempt to resort to an argument from verbosity logical fallacy? Sigh... Now answer the question, how will your "political civil society" magically address those items before they become a "special individual 'emergency' concern?" You need to also explain what you mean by those new terms you keep coming up with. You need to explain what are the "most common" and "most needed" items. You need to explain HOW exactly it would address them.





consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination





What you are doing is akin to claiming that you will "magically" solve all problems before they even become a problem. Literally. That is ridiculous.


It's not "magically" when I'm providing clear reasonings for my assertions.





Well this speaks to the topic of the thread -- just how much absolute mass demnd and potential involvement and cooperation would exist to produce Luxury Item X -- ? If the interest was widespread and intense enough, it would undoubtedly be covered in human-interest journalistic ways, enabling those with that shared interest (as for luxuries or specialty items) to 'make it happen' out of their own collective volition.





Stop the hyphens. Seriously. They're more annoying than the magic you keep resorting to.




So in other words, in English that is using actual terminology and words, if people want something they just "make it happen"?


Well, since the liberated laborers would collectively be the only ones with any authority over the means of mass production, no one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers.





Are you seriously kidding me here? Really, are you even serious? I mean where do I even start here? HOW can I even start here when you do not even explain how exactly it would take place but leave up to magic and false assumptions?




That's is exactly saying that you want to have a system where all the problems would be solved by people. That is ridiculous. Please stop trying to debate anything on the question of communism, you are very bad at it. I cannot even address this because there is nothing to address.




Your only argument is that people will "make it happen' out of their own collective volition". That is neither an answer nor an argument. You are saying that people will "make it happen" WITHOUT, as with the abundance, productivity, communism, mutual aid, symbiotic relationship, automation, etc. even bothering to mention the means leading to such a conclusion or how such a conclusion will be made.


Obviously social organization is required, sufficient to whatever task at hand.





You merely expect people to start a motherfucking riot just to get a good they want or "deal with it" and "make it happen" out of thin air. This is a theoretical discussion of theories, not of the fucking obvious nor of magic. People WILL "make it happen" but HOW will they make it happen.


Since I'm only one person and I don't have a crystal ball, I don't have those specifics of future history for your convenience. I have put forth a post-capitalist model for everyone's consideration.





THAT is the argument you need to make. Why am I even bothering with you, honestly?

Oh and speaking of which "make it happen out of their own collective volition? The thing is with unpopular decisions is that there is no "collective volition". What a few guys and I want a specific television as a niche interest such as in the case of a section of gamers? We will never achieve such a product.


Well, then you *won't*, obviously, if that's your foregone conclusion.





Well, what are you willing to do about it -- ?





In a price system, I would pay for it. In your system I would not receive it at all, even if I wanted to shout out and scream on the streets that I want it because it is low on the list.


That's not necessarily true -- you're making a pessimistic assumption. Perhaps some *would* want to do that for you, according to your specifications, if you and your buddies would reciprocate in kind with some productive activity requested in turn. And, once designed / engineered, the resulting product(s) could be made available to thousands and millions more just by letting the production line run a little longer.





No, because by converting a fixed number ('100') into an abstract monetary valuation, you are positing an arbitrary and questionable value system that only begs what the value-units *mean*. To resort to conventional profit-making and surplus value extraction -- even within a "benevolent technocracy" -- is to put humanity under a mechanical motivational force.





A mechanical motivational force, yes indeed! That is exactly how humanity functions today when it comes to the economy and that is exactly what must exist for an economy to exist. Your system does not even utilize a "mechanical motivational force" and doesn't even have a "motivational force" except the magic that people will somehow, without you even bothering to explain how, "make it happen". The fixed number that is converted into an abstract monetary valuation becomes an objective measurement of the costs in terms of money. It is not by any means arbitrary nor questionable. If you want to ask what "value units" (no hyphen) then go ask Marx or the LTV supporters. Profit-making and surplus value extraction are a means to an end, the mechanival motivational force that actually work and has led us to where we are today. Your alternative, however? "Make it happen". That shit right there should be hung as a god damned motivational poster for Nike's "Just do it".


Cute, and thanks for the entertainment, but I am more and more convinced that we're merely tackling the issue at different *scales*.





Or, more constructively, the most-common priorities and demand would co-reinforce on mass scales, clearly indicating popular inclinations.





What? Again, "most common" is not "most-common". Nevertheless, in an actual translation from Hyphenish-Made-Up-Wordsish to English I think you're trying to say that the most popular priorities and demand would "clearly indicate popular inclinations"? Oh really now? And you think I did not already understand that point and devastate it already? The most popular decisions are not always the best decisions. The most popular priorities and demands are do not take into consideration the demands of individuals but aggregate demand which fall under the problems of democratic and group decision-making such as the Condorcet paradox and Arrow's impossibility theorem. I have dealt with those issues above in my reply to Lord Hargreaves. Popular and group democratic decision making are not true nor fair. The only alternative is a dictatorship, or in this case the dictatorship of the individuals when it comes to commodity consumption.


And it is your prerogative to advance such a line.





As I have already shown, as well, that your lottery and social prioritization schemes do not take into account individual priorities and actual demand but instead only take individuals' AGGREGATE priorities and demand which different completely from those of the collective.


No, the individuals' aggregated prioritized demands *are* the collective, synonymously.





Infrastructure / overhead

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process





For example, I voted for apples to be a priority, the communal decision turned out to be oranges with apples the last out of thousands on the list. I'm thus fucked and will never have my demands and priorities met. You say that I'll "make it happen"? Sure I would by a proper revolution to replace that shit system.


As unrealistic as this bullshit hypothetical of yours is, I'll entertain it and note that you could address your personal priority *economically* and decide to cultivate an apple tree or an orchard yourself, to your heart's content. Or, organize in such a way -- as for the gaming system -- so that each in the party passes something forward, from freely available natural and industrial productive capacities, for the next in the circle.





Oh and speaking of which "make it happen out of their own collective volition? The thing is with unpopular decisions is that there is no "collective volition". What a few guys and I want a specific television as a niche interest such as in the case of a section of gamers? We will never obtain such a product. In the case of a pricing system with or without a market, we would be able to pay for the creation and production of the product and thus obtain it. Your system CANNOT emulate this, not considering the fact that it's too busy meeting the priorities of the collective whilst ignoring yours. Production in your system acts REGARDLESS of individual priorities but based on COLLECTIVE priorities. What I personally put as a priority may be on the bottom of the list of priorities and demand of society's.


I hear you and understand your concern, but will note that smaller-scale, non-(capital-C)-Collective production would not be disallowed:





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only


Also, to illustrate the 'hybrid' nature of the productive implementation:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://s6.postimage.org/ccfl07uy5/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimage.org/image/ccfl07uy5/)





Or, more constructively, there might be sufficient mass concern to pro-actively address whatever shortfall by increasing production to fulfill demand.





So in other words "make it happen"? That magic. You speak of it as if it will be a simple matter of "mass concern" that will automatically and without question and without reason lead to "pro-actively address whatever shortfall by increasing production to fulfill demand".


Which, in the present-day context, would be termed 'a revolution'.





You think you can actually increase production without a basis for it, that you can increase production whenever you see fit, and that you can increase product just because mass concern exists. You have absolutely no reason, possibility, or incentive to increase production to fulfill demand. This was already proven in the USSR with mass demand existing for butter and meat yet no such magic as you want took place to "increase production to fulfill demand" because it simply is not possible.


So who deserves the blame for fucking up historical reality like that -- ?





Yes, tools are different and distinct from social relations like superexploitation, imperialism, markets, profit motive, etc. We could today raid a museum to recover tools used in past times, but our social relations *and* technologies have already far surpassed those older utilities.





And yet these social relations and technologies CANNOT sustain a communist system based on an "according to need" policy. You need full or complete automation, extremely minimal labor, an abundance of resources, an abundance of goods, and an infinite number of resources.


*Ideally*, sure -- but it's not a *digital*, on-or-off, all-or-nothing proposition. Just think of how the existing public sector could be expanded, incrementally, and how quickly.





THAT is when you can ONLY have communism "according to need", not now, now before, and not tomorrow. Communism "according to need" CANNOT take place without those conditions, with Africa in mass poverty and starvation, and with demand outweighing supply.


Understandable, but then in which direction should we orient ourselves today -- ?





Revolution is required so that we may re-invent to what extents we use *today's* technologies, in as-yet-unseen, *superior* forms of social relations, such as collective mass production.





We've seen collective mass production in the USSR, Spain, Makhnovshchina, the Zapatistas and ESPECIALLY with the Israeli Kibbutzim. Look what happened and what is happening. Extremely primitive means of production, technological stagnation, and a reactionary falling back out of Capitalism and back to agrarian systems and handicrafts. Revolution is only required to dethrone the bourgeois and install another new system that can LEAD TO collective mass production, not instantly implement collective mass production without the proper material conditions nor base for it as we have historically seen take place.


Okay, no disagreement here.





You're again running into the main problematic with your line -- the exact convertibility of work effort into material-good compensation. I warned you about this earlier and here it is now again -- with varying productivities by tool (etc.), it makes no sense to try to establish a ratio of work time and effort to material reward. Your theoretical need to resolve this intractable artifice leads you right back to financial operations and all of the hell that accompanies it.





Not really. I only care about actual material contributions. If the individual is limited by tools then he is contributing less and thus receives less. I do not care if he's limited or bottlenecked, this forces him and the workplace to adopt alternative means of production in order to increase productivity and thus contribution which in turn rewards them through increased pay. I do not care about work time and effort, I care about contribution to material reward. Work time and effort can be rewarded within the factory and workplace, not on the large-scale, in order for the workers in that workplace to encourage the other workers to increase their work time and effort and thus benefit the entire factory as well.


Fair enough -- I won't quibble over the economic mechanics of your line. I just happen to disagree with the implementation of market socialism as a stagist step.

[Theophys]

I continue to be saddened by your lack of acceptance of what's right in front of all of us -- certainly current technologies, developed by capitalism, would be more than sufficient to enable a mass-based control of mass production. This is the Holy Grail of revolutionary politics, so to speak, but you can't accept even *this* much of a revolutionary sentiment, unfortunately.
I can't because I don't base anything on whimsical dreams. Today's world is not automated, people are still living in quasi-medieval Feudal ages, half the world still cannot meet its own needs, and resources, goods, and services are still scarce. Until we are able to change all that, only then is an "according to need" communism viable. The current technologies would not be able to meet the needs of everyone today, we still have a long, long way to go. Don't get me wrong, I already explained that I used to be very Utopian, I used to be a Kropotkinist. My revolutionary sentiment is not the issue, the issue is whether or not is this revolutionary sentiment viable. Today's society operates as it does purely because it is able to ration goods and limit consumption to those who have money. We cannot by any means do away with that restriction today or else the only "mass" we'll lead to are mass starvation, mass chaos, and mass murder.



Yes, I do, actually:

We already discussed that chart. It's a disaster on many levels ranging from the priorities list not being able to determine individual priorities and needs, the lottery system of the priorities list, the lack of a cost accounting mechanism to prevent hapless demand, etc. to the question of the reclamation of personal property that goes "unused". The chart still needs a lot of explanation because most of it makes no sense at all due to the vagueness of it all. If you used actual English with actual English terms rather than " That's not to mention that in the chart your, again, presuppose a super-productive, super-abundant, super-organized, society where the only worry and problem is not reaching abundance, productivity, organization, resolving conflicts, etc. but the simple task of distribution and production post-scarcity without any bottlenecks, without any incentives to continue production, and so on. You also speak of labor-notes, that's an "according to contribution" system, but you somehow turn it into an "according to need" system on the question of consumption. You treat consumers as different from workers or the income/wage workers of the family, that consumers can consume everything they want with no limits, but that workers have to use labor credits. Unless, of course, labor-credits have nothing to do with consumption and only apply for the funding of projects?

Here's what I previously said:

"I didn't understand anything from that, could you explain or at least use a simple layout? The English used is very abstract, vague, and choppy... Are you essentially stating the needs would be determined by pre-planned demand and requests? If so then that is a disaster if based on an "according to need" system rather than an "according to contribution" system which already solves this if it has a pricing mechanism or market. Nevertheless, I see a lot of assumptions in that model's text such as "all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status"
You cannot ensure that anyone will be liberated from all "coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status" because you cannot even ensure that you can fulfill some or all their basic human living needs.

You also state "no surplus value (subsistence living)" but then you claim that "no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property". That is essentially the extraction of surplus value and the taking away of it from the worker by the commune and others. There's still surplus value and that surplus value is being forcibly taking away from the worker. This simply is surplus value that is being taken away.

You also claim that:
"Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want with the privisio [sic] that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only - after a certain period of disuse any personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property."
And how do you determine if the material is in disuse? Do you perform regular visit and home searches to look for any "disused" products? You also make yet another false assumption that can send your whole chart down the drain, you claim that "individuals may posses and consume as much material as they want" so long as the actually use them. You cannot by ANY MEANS ensure that individuals can consume as much material as they want because you cannot ensure that you have a superabundance of resources. If you cannot ensure that superabundance then consumers will need to have the goods they desire rationed at which point that entire point would fall apart as they will not be able to consume "as much as they want" but "as much as they are given". Hell, even if a ration system is implemented in your system it would be completely unable to operate on the basis of "according to need" but would have to resort to an "according to contribution" system in order to not only ration the goods but also relieve the scarcity by encouraging people to work harder to receive more thus boosting the economy. "



I don't appreciate this characterization and lack of acceptance of principle. What I am describing and arguing-for can be taken on its own merits, independently of myself, even.

Your entire line is based on a particular, strict interpretation of 'human nature' -- one that posits that "incentives" are needed, regardless of the overall social and productive climate at hand. This is a decidedly *non*-Marxist basis of understanding of individual identity and social reality.
No, my position is that for an untested and untried "social and productive climate", we cannot make vague and false assumptions and claims such as you do. You are, again, doing what the Bolsheviks and other Socialists and Communists did, they turned to Utopian radical dreams of a post-revolutionary society then reality slapped them in the face until they retreated back to reality. Your system, whenever and wherever it has been tried, has failed time and time again. This is why I propose another alternative that can actually work. Incentives are needed because we cannot count on people acting faithfully and loyally, not all of them will be active, not all of them will be dedicated Communists, and not all of them will work as you plan for them to work and that is exactly why we need to give them a reason to work on the individual level. It's not as much of an interpretation of human nature as it is an interpretation of today's society (we're going to progress FROM such a society) and its mechanics as well as a division of incentives to the lowest and safest level - the individual. I honestly do not care if anyone on Revleft speaks of "non-Marxism" and "anti-Marxism" because from what I've seen they're nothing more than blank terms used by kids trying to insult rather than argue.



The nature of the question / problem calls for a rough estimate of some particular finite quantities -- [1] How much *productivity* could feasibly be possible? [2] What materials should be *prioritized* for mass production? [3] To what level of even production could a post-capitalist society bring to every last person in the world? [4] What amounts of cooperation and initiative would be required, from how many people, for this?

You're not recognizing realistic parameters in your framing of the problem, and so your base assumptions become boundless and abstract.
I'm not recongnizing parameters? YOU are the one who's not recognizing anything as we have seen with your reliance on false and baseless dogmatic assumptions.

[1] I do not care about how much productivity could feasibly be possible because in "my" system production would be determined by incentives that move individuals and society to satisfy demand. Individuals are rewarded for satisfying demand by being paid. Your system cannot do this, your system merely attempts to "make it happen" with no reason for any individual to "make it happen" at all. Prices determine everything.

[2] Materials should be prioritized based on individual demand and the ability to pay for it, how much will be paid for it, the profits that can arise out of such an action, and so on. Your system cannot do as your system bases itself on an extremely open, unrestricted list that can easily be abused as I have explained before. You have absolutely no means by which to prioritize individual demand, but "my" system can with the pricing mechanism it contains.

[3] We don't know, that's why I support a system based on rationing, a price system, and so on as is the case today.

[4] Absolutely none for "my" system. Yours, however, bases itself completely on cooperation and social initiative which cannot by any means be proven to exist, proven to be a basis for society, or ever been successful throughout history. Your "mass" nonsense has been observed countless times and every time they have been extremely temporary measures and policies that have failed miserably.



This is not true -- a post-capitalist mass demand would be limited by the society's own efforts, in total. While you prefer to deal with incentives on an individualized basis, a *mass* (political) approach looks at incentives on the *mass* scale.
I deal with individuals because that's the safest and most reliable basis for anything. A person can trust himself and only himself for loyalty and meeting his needs, society cannot do this to itself because it cannot ensure that other individuals are doing the same. You can read your own mind and know what you are going to do, but you cannot read society's mind and know what it's going to do. Again, public choice theory shows that "mass" nonsense is not at all feasible, is oppressive, cannot determine individual preferences, cannot determine even ITS OWN DECISIONS (Arrow's impossibility theorem, Condorcet paradox, etc.), cannot ensure loyalty and faithfulness, and cannot even ensure its existence. Mass demand being limited by society's own efforts? Is that it? What about scarcity of resources? Limits of production? Inability to meet the mass demand on the lower tiers of the priority list which is made up of BILLIONS of products which can never be added to a simple list? What about the fact that consumer desires and demand change constantly and even rapidly making your list a disaster? What about the issue of the socialization of costs? What about the tragedy of the commons? What about the societal incentives not being incentives for the individual?

Your system is not even possible for another reason, you require individuals with complete faithful loyalty and dedication with no corruption and no betrayal. You expect people to act in the interests of society and resort to self-sacrifice with no individual reason, incentive, or reward. That will never happen, that is also another reason why your system is destined for the coffin.



A basic way of looking at revolution is to see it as the increasing expansion of the public sector. We currently have a degree of "collectivization", as for education and social services, despite capitalism's overwhelming drive to privatization -- with this as a starting point it's not difficult to estimate what can and can't be done, realistically.
This "degree of 'collectivization'" is WITHIN the framework of Capitalism, markets, and pricing mechanisms, enforced by a state, funded by taxes, and is organized on the individual basis. So no, the "collectivization" today has nothing to do with your system and thus your view of a revolution as being "increasing expansion of the public sector" is false when it comes to your system being an "evolution" of the current system. Your system has NOTHING to do with the current system. "My" system, however, is what can attribute all of these and act as a natural extension to an "increasing expansion of the public sector." This "starting point" has absolutely nothing to do with your system, but this starting point can very well act as one for mine.



*Ultimately*, yes -- but there *is* a road of increments in getting to there.
And that road of "increments" is what is referred to as Socialism, a system based on "according to contribution", the very thing I am supporting before "getting to there".



A 'technological commons' *already* exists, in the sense of commonly available paved roads, electricity, the Internet, and so on. There's no need to resort to an imaginary 'magic'.
The issue of the technological commons was only address in the last sentence of that paragraph of mine. Nevertheless, that's all very fine and all, but those are all aspects within the framework of Capitalism and due to Capitalism. Roads can exist and will exist out of necessity, but anything more advanced and limited than that, such as the internet, will not. The internet today is almost solely based on private companies. The ones that create the "technological commons" which should also include machinery, and the ones who implement them are generally Capitalists using Capitalist mechanisms. Even the public roads that are build require private companies to do the work.



If you like.
That's not a reply.



"Parasitically" -- ? Really?

This is either a defense of the existing bourgeois order, or else is definitely ad hominem.
First of all, even Marx himself defended the existing bourgeois order.
Secondly, yes, parasitically, and that has nothing to do with defending anything or an ad hominem, but the very kernal of truth that you base your system on what Capitalism has achieved and use those achievements as a given for your society. You take what Capitalism creates and appropriate them into your own society with no means to advance, progress, or properly utilize them. You are basing your system on Capitalism and its achievements whilst having nothing to do with Capitalism.



It's not "magically" when I'm providing clear reasonings for my assertions.
Not a single one of your "reasonings" is "clear" nor an actually reasoning, which is exactly why I'm arguing that you're resorting to magic.



Well, since the liberated laborers would collectively be the only ones with any authority over the means of mass production, no one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers.
You know if you actually used advanced English then it would be much more easier to read than this gibberish. What does that even mean "could politically be *disallowed*"? So they can go there and be practically disallowed but their right to the means of production would only be politically, i.e. on the surface and on paper, be allowed? That's what your statement means and I'm sure you mean something else, but given your butchery of the English language I wouldn't be surprised. And "proportionate to their numbers"? Proportionate to WHOSE numbers? The workers? The means of production? The productive capabilities? The "no one" that would not be disallowed? If so then proportionate to WHAT? The means of production? The workers? Available spaces? Productive capabilities? Seriously, you make absolutely no sense, please use proper English if you wish that others know what you're talking about and not call you out on an argument from verbosity logical fallacy.

Nevertheless, to the point from what I understood... People can access the means of production without restrictions? If so then that is ridiculous and counter-productive. To allow any random person into the factory, halt mass production to produce whatever he wants to produce, and then use the machinery at his fill at the expense of society then that is self-evidently an issue. To allow any random person into the factory without the proper skills, requirements, and experience would prove to be disastrous if not even fatal. If you would bother to tell me what you mean by the statement then I can actually stop poking the bush and poke your own actual argument. I really do not get your point, how is THAT even an explanation for "just make it happen"? It's even a worse cop-out.



Obviously social organization is required, sufficient to whatever task at hand.
*facepalm*



Since I'm only one person and I don't have a crystal ball, I don't have those specifics of future history for your convenience. I have put forth a post-capitalist model for everyone's consideration.
And it's a disaster, even in theory.



Well, then you *won't*, obviously, if that's your foregone conclusion.
I rest my case.




That's not necessarily true -- you're making a pessimistic assumption. Perhaps some *would* want to do that for you, according to your specifications, if you and your buddies would reciprocate in kind with some productive activity requested in turn. And, once designed / engineered, the resulting product(s) could be made available to thousands and millions more just by letting the production line run a little longer.
That is your solution? Reciprocate in kind? Money exists for a reason and that is to simplify exchange, and yet here you want us to return to a reactionary system of "reciprocation in kind", i.e barter? Seriously? It is extremely rare for a successful act of barter to take place and solidify. If I want a television and I produce wheelchairs, why the hell would the television producers want to exchange a custom-made television for wheelchairs which they are no in need of? That's not even bothering to talk about the inability to objectively measure value through a barter system as opposed to a money and pricing system. If designed and engineered it need not at all result in the production of thousands and millions because there is no demand for it except by a handful of individuals who under a normal pricing system can actually pay higher prices for their demands.



Cute, and thanks for the entertainment, but I am more and more convinced that we're merely tackling the issue at different *scales*.
What do you mean "at different *scales*"? You mean you referring to social incentives and thus on th social scale whilst I'm referring to individual incentives and thus on the individual level? And what the hell is the issue here? We're arguing thus which is better and I believe the latter to be achievable, preferable, workable, safe, reliable, empirically proven, and viable as opposed to yours.



And it is your prerogative to advance such a line.
I just... Are you kidding me? You either accept the argument or you reject it in a debate. You did neither.



No, the individuals' aggregated prioritized demands *are* the collective, synonymously.
Slip of the mind, I meant "different completely from those of the individual" instead of "different completely from those of the collective." Now you can address it properly.



As unrealistic as this bullshit hypothetical of yours is, I'll entertain it and note that you could address your personal priority *economically* and decide to cultivate an apple tree or an orchard yourself, to your heart's content. Or, organize in such a way -- as for the gaming system -- so that each in the party passes something forward, from freely available natural and industrial productive capacities, for the next in the circle.
Damn the Utopian nonsense here! First of all, if you personally "decide to cultivate an apple tree or an orchard yourself" then that would prove to be a disaster. The individual would be taking out from the supply of the commune for his personal interests and thus risk destroying any plan that was created with quotas. The individual would be taking out from that tree or orchard without paying back the costs of such an action or for the creation of the fruits. Hell, what if that individuals wants 2,000 apples for a party? With a pricing system and/or market, he can rightfully buy all those with money. Under your system he would be laughed at and sent back him with a slap to the face. To your heart's content? I'll pluck all the apples and fruits off the trees just to prove my point then. If you even try to limit me, then it is NOT "to your heart's content" and would then fall into the issue of determining "how" much can a person take or use. Hell, the problem isn't even here, the problem falls back to issues that require a lot of labor or production such as in the case of smartphones, shit that doesn't grow on trees. Why should anyone trade a gaming system for things "freely available natural or industrial"? That makes absolutely no sense at all. The issue of the apples was simply an example, it could very well be a much more complicated issue. Suppose that I put "super large plasma TV" up high on the list, put "Ferrari", put "wheelchair", put a specific medicine for a rare disease, put a specific smartphone, etc., what then? Do you even have ANY IDEA how many commodities exist today with their different shapes, sizes, types, colors, functions, age, etc.? What if I want a round mahogany coffee table? Do I put "round mahogany coffee table"? How many people do you think will actually say the same? Barely any. Such a table will not be produced even though I really need or want one. What if I write down "white television" when all televisions produced are black? I will never get my white television as only goods high up on top of the priorities list will be produced. Your "prioritization list" is a disaster, especially we go into the question of specifics.



I hear you and understand your concern, but will note that smaller-scale, non-(capital-C)-Collective production would not be disallowed:

Also, to illustrate the 'hybrid' nature of the productive implementation:

Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

What the fuck did I just see? I didn't understand anything from what you were trying to say. Judging from the entire image, I'm now completely sure of your reliance on an argument from verbosity logical fallacy. The text made no sense nor did the images make ANY sense AT ALL. I mean what the fuck was that shit? The crisis popped zits would impose on modern society? What cheese volcanoes could possibly result in if coupled with a crater in the ground (bottom right)? Seriously, what the fuck? The text barely made any sense at all. Really if you actually used non-butchered actual English then trust me, I'd actually argue against what you're presenting, but this shit makes no sense at all and its only purpose seems to be in order to confuse the reader. You do not even bother to explain all those images even, merely slap a part of a post on a background of popping zits and tall factory chimneys threatened by an overflow of zit juice. Hell, I do not even see how your image solves any problems with decentralization. You plan to connect various zones together and claim that "material accounting for such would not be overly complicated" simply because "any given point in the formation would only need to be in contact with those other associated entities nearby, below, and above"? What? That's not even a solution. You will have thousands if not millions of workplaces that all produce different and separate products with different and separate techniques using different and separate resources. You want to satisfy demand with those conditions WITHOUT utilizing money, WITHOUT markets, WITHOUT a pricing mechanism, and/or WITHOUT central planning. That is nothing short of impossible. How will the producers of lumber know where they should take their products to? To those who demand it? The thing is that thousands of workplaces and even private consumers demand lumber. There aren't enough individual lumber producers to satisfy all that demand on a local scale. Where does the producer of lumber take his lumber to? Factory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 [...], 9,001 and so on? Which factory needs it more? Which factory has the highest demand on its products? Why shouldn't the lumber go to the private consumer who has a demand on it, why factory 10 not 10,000? What should produced oil be used for and refined into? Where should it go? Who needs it most? What should be done with it? You CANNOT get your system to work without an overall centralized plan or a pricing mechanism or market. Your decentralization can only POSSIBLY work in a society with thousands of mini-factories, but that would be too decentralized and inefficient for any large-scale mass production.



Which, in the present-day context, would be termed 'a revolution'.
We saw what all revolutions in history have led to, and none of them led to your Utopia but its abandonment.



So who deserves the blame for fucking up historical reality like that -- ?
You and any other similar Utopian Communist that still thinks we live off of bread and water.



*Ideally*, sure -- but it's not a *digital*, on-or-off, all-or-nothing proposition. Just think of how the existing public sector could be expanded, incrementally, and how quickly.
No, not ideally, that is what you ACTUALLY need for an "according to need" system or else it will be impossible to work as I have explained time and time again. It is a binary system, actually, it bases itself on whether you have the proper material conditions or not.
as for the existing public sector, the existing public sector has nothing to do with your system. The existing public sector is propped up by a state, within the framework of Capitalism, funded by taxes from Capitalist activities, and so on. The public sector today has nothing to do with your decentralization but on the contrary, it is nothing but centralization, it has nothing to do with your mass consciousness, it has nothing to do with your "according to need" system, it has nothing to do with unlimited consumption, it has nothing to do with your moneyless system, and it is NOT an entire economy.



Understandable, but then in which direction should we orient ourselves today -- ?
"My" system, one of the many variations of Market Socialism, or simply wait for Capitalism to actually fulfill its historical evolutionary role. Capitalism still needs to finish exploiting and thus advancing Third World countries. And no, this isn't "non-Marxist" or "sick", this is what Marx and Engels supported. Don't believe me? You can find much harsher and worse material on the question of the reactionary Tsarism versus the progressive bourgeois Germans and Magyars on the question of the "trash" (quoting Engels on this word) Slavs. They called for the Slavs to be forcibly, or otherwise, assimilate with the Germans against the reactionary Tsarist Russians. They claimed that Tsarism, the Slavs, etc. were a crime against history and progress and that they needed to be done away with in favor of the German and Magyar adoption of bourgeois advancements.



Okay, no disagreement here.
No disagreement here? What I said goes directly against what you said? Either you conceded the point and agree or you did not concede the point and instead ignore it completely.



Fair enough -- I won't quibble over the economic mechanics of your line. I just happen to disagree with the implementation of market socialism as a stagist step.
Of course you do, hence the debate. You think you have what is needed for an "according to need" communism, I claim we do not and thus a transitional stage following the lines of Market Socialism is a necessity.

[ckaihatsu]

I continue to be saddened by your lack of acceptance of what's right in front of all of us -- certainly current technologies, developed by capitalism, would be more than sufficient to enable a mass-based control of mass production. This is the Holy Grail of revolutionary politics, so to speak, but you can't accept even *this* much of a revolutionary sentiment, unfortunately.





I can't because I don't base anything on whimsical dreams. Today's world is not automated, people are still living in quasi-medieval Feudal ages, half the world still cannot meet its own needs, and resources, goods, and services are still scarce. Until we are able to change all that, only then is an "according to need" communism viable. The current technologies would not be able to meet the needs of everyone today, we still have a long, long way to go. Don't get me wrong, I already explained that I used to be very Utopian, I used to be a Kropotkinist. My revolutionary sentiment is not the issue, the issue is whether or not is this revolutionary sentiment viable. Today's society operates as it does purely because it is able to ration goods and limit consumption to those who have money. We cannot by any means do away with that restriction today or else the only "mass" we'll lead to are mass starvation, mass chaos, and mass murder.


Your consumption-oriented mentality is regrettable and very sad to see -- you think there is no way for cooperation and planning to overcome individualistic consumerism, even in positive, production-oriented directions.

All I need to do is point out that a given population must be -- by definition -- *insufficient* to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever, if that population doesn't include enough liberated labor of its own to 'get the ball rolling' in some manner, for the production called-for by its mass demands.

In other words, if a given locality can't provide its own liberated labor -- on fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery -- then it has to *impose* on the liberated labor of *others*, *outside* its own population, and so the locality would incur a public debt of labor credits to that exact amount of liberated-labor effort provided by others.





Yes, I do, actually:




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





We already discussed that chart. It's a disaster on many levels ranging from the priorities list not being able to determine individual priorities and needs,


Not true -- all individuals' (consumers') lists are prioritized by each respective individual, themselves.





the lottery system of the priorities list,


You're mistaken -- there's no such "lottery" system of any sort.





the lack of a cost accounting mechanism to prevent hapless demand, etc. to the question of the reclamation of personal property that goes "unused".


I don't see why you're experiencing such anxiety over 'hapless demand' -- if it happens, it happens. As you know, (liberated) labor is required for the provision of any good or service, so it's entirely within the domain of a liberated labor to simply say "Fuck you, we are not willing to put in the work that would be required to produce Specialty Item Y -- go fish."

And why the borderline-neurotic concern over how the release of unused personal property would be handled -- ? It could simply be a general regulatory guideline, like 1-1/2 years or something, as the need arises. As with any mass demand, if social conditions really necessitated the freeing-up of "hoarded" personal resources en masse, it would be the issue and politics of the day and would have to be actively addressed and implemented on a societal scale.





The chart still needs a lot of explanation because most of it makes no sense at all due to the vagueness of it all. If you used actual English with actual English terms rather than "


I'm sorry you find the framework to be elusive at all, and I actually do appreciate your feedback. I'll continue to be open to addressing and clarifying any aspect of it, indefinitely.





That's not to mention that in the chart your, again, presuppose a super-productive, super-abundant, super-organized, society where the only worry and problem is not reaching abundance, productivity, organization, resolving conflicts, etc. but the simple task of distribution and production post-scarcity without any bottlenecks, without any incentives to continue production, and so on.


No, this contention is entirely of your own concoction, and I have made clear that the fulfillment of increasingly exotic goods and services would be wholly dependent on the cooperation of available liberated laborers, and available collectivized assets and resources.





You also speak of labor-notes, that's an "according to contribution" system, but you somehow turn it into an "according to need" system on the question of consumption.


No, and I apologize for any mixed meanings across the various diagrams -- I prefer to emphasize the 'communist supply & demand' model, which uses a system of circulating weighted-labor-hour credits.

Furthermore I'll note that by *separating* the supply of liberated labor -- as through the paying-forward of labor credits in possession -- *from* the resulting material goods produced by that labor, there is *no exchangeability* of labor credits for material goods produced. This approach avoids all the pitfalls and inherent contradictions native to any *other* approach that -- errantly -- posits *valuations* across communist-type *collectivized* assets, resources, and goods.

In other words, a genuinely liberated labor force should be respected and considered for its total effort of liberated labor put forth, *not* for the bulk material it produces. The results of its liberated labor would have been pre-planned, anyway, as per the daily prioritized aggregated lists of mass demands.





You treat consumers as different from workers or the income/wage workers of the family, that consumers can consume everything they want with no limits, but that workers have to use labor credits. Unless, of course, labor-credits have nothing to do with consumption and only apply for the funding of projects?


Correct, and I'm glad you picked up on that -- what this approach does is put liberated laborers fully in authority over the particulars of the provisioning of (liberated) labor for any given project or production run, and then only to the extent that one has actually done labor in the past, as shown from one's own personal labor credits in possession.

This indirectly encourages participation since providing one's liberated labor gives one a certain amount of control over equal-proportioned liberated labor, going forward. Such earned authority could certainly complement any *political* initiatives one may be involved in and advocating, as with actively promoted proposals and policy packages, in response to mass demand (or otherwise).





Here's what I previously said:

"I didn't understand anything from that, could you explain or at least use a simple layout? The English used is very abstract, vague, and choppy... Are you essentially stating the needs would be determined by pre-planned demand and requests?


Yes.





If so then that is a disaster if based on an "according to need" system rather than an "according to contribution" system which already solves this if it has a pricing mechanism or market.


Or, instead of being dependent on the 'hands-off' market mechanism, any 'according to need' requests / demands would have to enjoy sufficient popular political support, and sufficient economic support from organized liberated labor.

I don't think this is too onerous a condition, though obviously you *do* see it as a lopsided situation. If this has any explanatory power whatsoever, we *could* *invert* the situation and look at it from an 'according to contribution' standpoint -- how hard would how many liberated laborers work, upfront, at the slightest request offered, in order to build up their personal supplies of labor credits -- ?

If the liberated laborers of one locality happened to be particularly 'ambitious' and did this, they would be gaining proportionate authority over *future* liberated labor provisioning, *disproportionate* to their simple numbers as individuals in the population (of their locality and beyond). This would be entirely fair since they have accomplished past work in accordance with actual, formal popular wishes.





Nevertheless, I see a lot of assumptions in that model's text such as "all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status"
You cannot ensure that anyone will be liberated from all "coercion and threats related to basic human living needs regardless of work status" because you cannot even ensure that you can fulfill some or all their basic human living needs.


For whatever reason -- that I cannot discern -- you are *mystifying* this aspect of what is otherwise a common revolutionary supposition, that bulk productivity and a post-capitalist collectivized social relations would together be sufficient, spread evenly, to satisfy humanity's basic humane material requirements.

This is *not* a matter of *faith*, as you seem to be implying. You are in the wrong on this point.





You also state "no surplus value (subsistence living)" but then you claim that "no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property". That is essentially the extraction of surplus value and the taking away of it from the worker by the commune and others. There's still surplus value and that surplus value is being forcibly taking away from the worker. This simply is surplus value that is being taken away.


No, you are simply *assuming* this to be the case -- that some kind of mysterious, dark-force "Collective" would swoop in out of nowhere and trump the formal aggregated lists of prioritized mass demands.

I'll counterpose from the model again, and note that either a person -- anyone -- *pre-orders* using their daily demand list, and so has a personal use for what they're requesting, or else whatever they're *not actually using* should simply be returned to the public domain, for possible future use (by individuals or for projects).

Please recall that a communist-type system does not, and should not, allow for private accumulations of property, since such would be superfluous in the context of a fully collectivized mass production.





You also claim that:
"Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want with the privisio [sic] that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only - after a certain period of disuse any personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property."
And how do you determine if the material is in disuse? Do you perform regular visit and home searches to look for any "disused" products? You also make yet another false assumption that can send your whole chart down the drain, you claim that "individuals may posses and consume as much material as they want" so long as the actually use them.




You cannot by ANY MEANS ensure that individuals can consume as much material as they want because you cannot ensure that you have a superabundance of resources.


Again, this is merely a spurious claim on your part -- I'll maintain that this method / model only requires a post-capitalist material environment that has the *capacity* to provide humane basics for all, as specified here:





Infrastructure / overhead

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits


As a comparison, we could say that historically many countries developed the capacities to supply basic *civil rights* to all people, regardless of incurring social costs that accompanied such a shift away from specialization according to race, nationality, etc.





If you cannot ensure that superabundance then consumers will need to have the goods they desire rationed at which point that entire point would fall apart as they will not be able to consume "as much as they want" but "as much as they are given".


Or, more constructively, 'as much as they can organize for, and accomplish, using fully collectivized implements'.

You insist on positing a false dichotomy of interests, of a clientelist nature, when no evidence for such exists in the model.





Hell, even if a ration system is implemented in your system it would be completely unable to operate on the basis of "according to need" but would have to resort to an "according to contribution" system in order to not only ration the goods but also relieve the scarcity by encouraging people to work harder to receive more thus boosting the economy. "


Certainly -- if you like, depending on actual conditions.





I don't appreciate this characterization and lack of acceptance of principle. What I am describing and arguing-for can be taken on its own merits, independently of myself, even.

Your entire line is based on a particular, strict interpretation of 'human nature' -- one that posits that "incentives" are needed, regardless of the overall social and productive climate at hand. This is a decidedly *non*-Marxist basis of understanding of individual identity and social reality.





No, my position is that for an untested and untried "social and productive climate", we cannot make vague and false assumptions and claims such as you do. You are, again, doing what the Bolsheviks and other Socialists and Communists did, they turned to Utopian radical dreams of a post-revolutionary society then reality slapped them in the face until they retreated back to reality.


Look, I can't promise to know the future in advance. Either actual conditions will be hospitable enough, or they won't. All *I* can control in the here-and-now is that the model I politically advocate is self-consistent and doesn't contradict itself, and is reasonably realistically feasible.





Your system, whenever and wherever it has been tried, has failed time and time again.


No, now you're stepping outside of what's in front of you -- this model of mine is unique and unprecedented.





This is why I propose another alternative that can actually work. Incentives are needed because we cannot count on people acting faithfully and loyally, not all of them will be active, not all of them will be dedicated Communists, and not all of them will work as you plan for them to work


The model is a *framework* and specifies *nothing* in the way of policy particulars.





and that is exactly why we need to give them a reason to work on the individual level. It's not as much of an interpretation of human nature as it is an interpretation of today's society (we're going to progress FROM such a society) and its mechanics as well as a division of incentives to the lowest and safest level - the individual. I honestly do not care if anyone on Revleft speaks of "non-Marxism" and "anti-Marxism" because from what I've seen they're nothing more than blank terms used by kids trying to insult rather than argue.


You're trying to dismiss the reasoning of my argument by making a blanket characterization, or ad hominem attack, on 'anyone on Revleft [who] speaks of "non-Marxism" and "anti-Marxism"' -- this is side-stepping the argument itself.

Your individual-based approach is arbitrary, conventional to capitalism, and not focused on any enlightened social (mass) dynamics.





The nature of the question / problem calls for a rough estimate of some particular finite quantities -- [1] How much *productivity* could feasibly be possible? [2] What materials should be *prioritized* for mass production? [3] To what level of even production could a post-capitalist society bring to every last person in the world? [4] What amounts of cooperation and initiative would be required, from how many people, for this?

You're not recognizing realistic parameters in your framing of the problem, and so your base assumptions become boundless and abstract.





I'm not recongnizing parameters? YOU are the one who's not recognizing anything as we have seen with your reliance on false and baseless dogmatic assumptions.

[1] I do not care about how much productivity could feasibly be possible because in "my" system production would be determined by incentives that move individuals and society to satisfy demand. Individuals are rewarded for satisfying demand by being paid. Your system cannot do this, your system merely attempts to "make it happen" with no reason for any individual to "make it happen" at all. Prices determine everything.


'Making it happen' would depend on common material (consumer-type) interests, which is exactly what common *humane* interests are, as a priority of organic existence.





[2] Materials should be prioritized based on individual demand and the ability to pay for it, how much will be paid for it, the profits that can arise out of such an action, and so on. Your system cannot do as your system bases itself on an extremely open, unrestricted list that can easily be abused as I have explained before.


You have *not* shown that any kind of real dichotomy of interests is indicated in the model, and so you *cannot* support an accusation that abuse or corruption would be endemic to the model.





You have absolutely no means by which to prioritize individual demand,


Not true:





Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Material function

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]





but "my" system can with the pricing mechanism it contains.




[3] We don't know, that's why I support a system based on rationing, a price system, and so on as is the case today.


But what *capacities* of mass production is the world *capable* of today, and to what extents of fulfillment could those capacities be used, in *humane* directions -- ?





[4] Absolutely none for "my" system. Yours, however, bases itself completely on cooperation and social initiative which cannot by any means be proven to exist, proven to be a basis for society, or ever been successful throughout history. Your "mass" nonsense has been observed countless times and every time they have been extremely temporary measures and policies that have failed miserably.


You're implying that some kind of blind-faith, selfless "altruism" would be a requirement here -- the "altruism" claim is a red herring, and spurious. Those who would wish to acquire would either have to d.i.y., using available implements and resources from the fully public-ized / un-private-ized domain, or else would have to organize and coordinate liberated labor as a matter of political initiative, per the model.





This is not true -- a post-capitalist mass demand would be limited by the society's own efforts, in total. While you prefer to deal with incentives on an individualized basis, a *mass* (political) approach looks at incentives on the *mass* scale.





I deal with individuals because that's the safest and most reliable basis for anything. A person can trust himself and only himself for loyalty and meeting his needs, society cannot do this to itself because it cannot ensure that other individuals are doing the same.


At the *societal* level a population only has to have *sufficient* production, materially, by whatever method.





You can read your own mind and know what you are going to do, but you cannot read society's mind and know what it's going to do.


In the blindsidedness of your individual-centric approach you've readily forgotten that -- like it or not -- societal-scale dynamics *do* exist, like public infrastructure, journalism, academia, the public domain, record-keeping, statistics, policy, and so on.

In this way you are as bad and deleterious as any right-winger who subscribes to the same Thatcherite "there is no such thing as society" mantra.





Again, public choice theory shows that "mass" nonsense is not at all feasible, is oppressive, cannot determine individual preferences, cannot determine even ITS OWN DECISIONS (Arrow's impossibility theorem, Condorcet paradox, etc.), cannot ensure loyalty and faithfulness, and cannot even ensure its existence. Mass demand being limited by society's own efforts? Is that it? What about scarcity of resources? Limits of production?


I have acknowledged inherent finite limits, respectively, where applicable.





Inability to meet the mass demand on the lower tiers of the priority list which is made up of BILLIONS of products which can never be added to a simple list?


Given today's existing communications technology, this is a sheerly spurious claim.





What about the fact that consumer desires and demand change constantly and even rapidly making your list a disaster?


Again, spurious -- a schedule of daily-updated iterations would be sufficient for any and all concerns.





What about the issue of the socialization of costs? What about the tragedy of the commons? What about the societal incentives not being incentives for the individual?


I'm not here to contribute wordings to your political line of choice -- if you have arguments to make here go ahead and make them.





Your system is not even possible for another reason, you require individuals with complete faithful loyalty and dedication with no corruption and no betrayal. You expect people to act in the interests of society and resort to self-sacrifice with no individual reason, incentive, or reward. That will never happen, that is also another reason why your system is destined for the coffin.


Whatever -- here is the counter-evidence:





Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions





A basic way of looking at revolution is to see it as the increasing expansion of the public sector. We currently have a degree of "collectivization", as for education and social services, despite capitalism's overwhelming drive to privatization -- with this as a starting point it's not difficult to estimate what can and can't be done, realistically.





This "degree of 'collectivization'" is WITHIN the framework of Capitalism, markets, and pricing mechanisms, enforced by a state, funded by taxes, and is organized on the individual basis.


Please recall *this* portion, which I am invoking as a response here:





It's not as much of an interpretation of human nature as it is an interpretation of today's society (we're going to progress FROM such a society)





So no, the "collectivization" today has nothing to do with your system and thus your view of a revolution as being "increasing expansion of the public sector" is false when it comes to your system being an "evolution" of the current system. Your system has NOTHING to do with the current system.


No, not ultimately, but if we take today's conditions as 'Point A' and my model as 'Point B', then the transformation from Point A to Point B would see a complete, total expansion of the public sector to encompass everything societal, including mass (industrial) production.





"My" system, however, is what can attribute all of these and act as a natural extension to an "increasing expansion of the public sector." This "starting point" has absolutely nothing to do with your system, but this starting point can very well act as one for mine.


Whatever.





*Ultimately*, yes -- but there *is* a road of increments in getting to there.





And that road of "increments" is what is referred to as Socialism, a system based on "according to contribution", the very thing I am supporting before "getting to there".





A 'technological commons' *already* exists, in the sense of commonly available paved roads, electricity, the Internet, and so on. There's no need to resort to an imaginary 'magic'.





The issue of the technological commons was only address in the last sentence of that paragraph of mine. Nevertheless, that's all very fine and all, but those are all aspects within the framework of Capitalism and due to Capitalism. Roads can exist and will exist out of necessity, but anything more advanced and limited than that, such as the internet, will not. The internet today is almost solely based on private companies. The ones that create the "technological commons" which should also include machinery, and the ones who implement them are generally Capitalists using Capitalist mechanisms. Even the public roads that are build require private companies to do the work.


Again, 'Point A to Point B'....





If you like.





That's not a reply.





"Parasitically" -- ? Really?

This is either a defense of the existing bourgeois order, or else is definitely ad hominem.





First of all, even Marx himself defended the existing bourgeois order.
Secondly, yes, parasitically, and that has nothing to do with defending anything or an ad hominem, but the very kernal of truth that you base your system on what Capitalism has achieved and use those achievements as a given for your society. You take what Capitalism creates and appropriate them into your own society with no means to advance, progress, or properly utilize them. You are basing your system on Capitalism and its achievements whilst having nothing to do with Capitalism.


Of course -- hence the need for revolution to *break* with capitalism.





It's not "magically" when I'm providing clear reasonings for my assertions.





Not a single one of your "reasonings" is "clear" nor an actually reasoning, which is exactly why I'm arguing that you're resorting to magic.





Well, since the liberated laborers would collectively be the only ones with any authority over the means of mass production, no one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers.





You know if you actually used advanced English then it would be much more easier to read than this gibberish. What does that even mean "could [not] politically be *disallowed*"?


For the sake of explanation I'll again refer to the domain of *civil* rights -- politically there is no longer any basis for discrimination based on race, gender, etc.

Likewise, a fully collectivized *productive* social order would have no civil / political basis for disallowing open-source, free public access to the means of mass production, since private property would no longer exist / be respected.





So they can go there and be practically disallowed but their right to the means of production would only be politically, i.e. on the surface and on paper, be allowed?


You're simply putting words in my mouth, here -- there is no evidence in the model that supports this contention / anxiety of yours.





That's what your statement means and I'm sure you mean something else, but given your butchery of the English language I wouldn't be surprised. And "proportionate to their numbers"? Proportionate to WHOSE numbers? The workers?


Yes.





The means of production?


No.





The productive capabilities?


No.





The "no one" that would not be disallowed?


No.





If so then proportionate to WHAT? The means of production?


No.





The workers?


Yes.





Available spaces?


No.





Productive capabilities?


No.





Seriously, you make absolutely no sense, please use proper English if you wish that others know what you're talking about and not call you out on an argument from verbosity logical fallacy.




Nevertheless, to the point from what I understood... People can access the means of production without restrictions?


No, again, to repeat:





[N]o one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers.





If so then that is ridiculous and counter-productive. To allow any random person into the factory, halt mass production to produce whatever he wants to produce, and then use the machinery at his fill at the expense of society then that is self-evidently an issue. To allow any random person into the factory without the proper skills, requirements, and experience would prove to be disastrous if not even fatal. If you would bother to tell me what you mean by the statement then I can actually stop poking the bush and poke your own actual argument. I really do not get your point, how is THAT even an explanation for "just make it happen"? It's even a worse cop-out.


For the sake of clarification:





Material function

communist administration -- Assets and resources are collectively administered by a locality, or over numerous localities by combined consent [supply]

labor [supply] -- Work positions are created according to requirements of production runs and projects, by mass political prioritization




Infrastructure / overhead

labor [supply] -- [A]ny labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits





Obviously social organization is required, sufficient to whatever task at hand.





*facepalm*





Since I'm only one person and I don't have a crystal ball, I don't have those specifics of future history for your convenience. I have put forth a post-capitalist model for everyone's consideration.





And it's a disaster, even in theory.





Well, then you *won't*, obviously, if that's your foregone conclusion.





I rest my case.





That's not necessarily true -- you're making a pessimistic assumption. Perhaps some *would* want to do that for you, according to your specifications, if you and your buddies would reciprocate in kind with some productive activity requested in turn. And, once designed / engineered, the resulting product(s) could be made available to thousands and millions more just by letting the production line run a little longer.





That is your solution? Reciprocate in kind? Money exists for a reason and that is to simplify exchange, and yet here you want us to return to a reactionary system of "reciprocation in kind", i.e barter? Seriously?


What you're not realizing is that "barter" can simply be administered on-the-whole, over limitless inputs and outputs -- on a mass scale this is termed 'communism'.





It is extremely rare for a successful act of barter to take place and solidify. If I want a television and I produce wheelchairs, why the hell would the television producers want to exchange a custom-made television for wheelchairs which they are no in need of?


Then, perhaps -- for the sake of this constrained example -- *more* parties should be added to this pool, to even out what is being supplied to what is being requested.





That's not even bothering to talk about the inability to objectively measure value through a barter system as opposed to a money and pricing system. If designed and engineered it need not at all result in the production of thousands and millions because there is no demand for it except by a handful of individuals who under a normal pricing system can actually pay higher prices for their demands.


The (small-scale) equivalent in my model is the individual or small group that uses materials and implements from the world's fully-collectivized assets and resources to produce for their own immediate purposes.





Cute, and thanks for the entertainment, but I am more and more convinced that we're merely tackling the issue at different *scales*.





What do you mean "at different *scales*"? You mean you referring to social incentives and thus on th social scale whilst I'm referring to individual incentives and thus on the individual level?


Yeah.





And what the hell is the issue here? We're arguing thus which is better and I believe the latter to be achievable, preferable, workable, safe, reliable, empirically proven, and viable as opposed to yours.


Obviously.





And it is your prerogative to advance such a line.





I just... Are you kidding me? You either accept the argument or you reject it in a debate. You did neither.





No, the individuals' aggregated prioritized demands *are* the collective, synonymously.





Slip of the mind, I meant "different completely from those of the individual" instead of "different completely from those of the collective." Now you can address it properly.


Okay, that results in this:





As I have already shown, as well, that your lottery and social prioritization schemes do not take into account individual priorities and actual demand but instead only take individuals' AGGREGATE priorities and demand which different completely from those of the [individual].


No lottery method. First-come, first-served.

Secondly -- the aggregate, for any locality or larger population, does not *preclude* being addressed at any *smaller* scale. If your outstanding concern is that the collective will not address and provide-for more-individualized and specialty / exotic desires, then perhaps those specialty concerns for production *can* be more easily addressed by a *localized* production, as in an arts-and-crafts way, even using fully open, available assets and resources.





As unrealistic as this bullshit hypothetical of yours is, I'll entertain it and note that you could address your personal priority *economically* and decide to cultivate an apple tree or an orchard yourself, to your heart's content. Or, organize in such a way -- as for the gaming system -- so that each in the party passes something forward, from freely available natural and industrial productive capacities, for the next in the circle.





Damn the Utopian nonsense here! First of all, if you personally "decide to cultivate an apple tree or an orchard yourself" then that would prove to be a disaster.


Okay, if that's really the case then *don't* do it that way, if you know something better about the logistics of such. Other options for apple production would still be potentially possible.





The individual would be taking out from the supply of the commune for his personal interests and thus risk destroying any plan that was created with quotas.


Purportedly, in which case the individual could simply formally request / demand a personal share from that apple production -- perhaps the 'apple commune' would have to increase its quota and issue a new, revised plan to account for this individual's additional consumption, as quickly as possible.





The individual would be taking out from that tree or orchard without paying back the costs of such an action or for the creation of the fruits.


Not a problem, even though you'd rather be skittish and freeze-up at the slightest change from initial conditions.

If the new individual's request for additional consumption could not be readily accommodated, then some provision for that additional consumption *would* have to be taken up -- perhaps the individual possessed enough labor credits to pass on to an available liberated laborer to put in the effort required to fulfill the request for apples.

Or perhaps the locality that the new individual is from would collectively agree to issue a new debt of labor credits in its name so that the requisite harvesting (and more) could be accomplished, by available liberated labor.

Or perhaps the new individual might come to some arrangement of providing their own liberated labor in some other capacity in return for additional available liberated labor from the 'apple commune' to make additional apples available to the new individual for consumption.

(Etc.)





Hell, what if that individuals wants 2,000 apples for a party? With a pricing system and/or market, he can rightfully buy all those with money. Under your system he would be laughed at and sent back him with a slap to the face.


More facile imaginings on your part -- I just outlined some potential options, above.





To your heart's content? I'll pluck all the apples and fruits off the trees just to prove my point then.


Just keep *this* following aspect in mind, and recall that, proportionately, you are only one individual person displaying an individualistic propensity....





[N]o one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers.





If you even try to limit me, then it is NOT "to your heart's content" and would then fall into the issue of determining "how" much can a person take or use.


Well, how much do you *want*, and how much could you *personally* consume, or use, exactly -- ?

If you couldn't satisfy your individualistic concerns / desires from your own efforts on open-source resources, then it would necessarily become a *political* request, for involving the efforts of others.





Hell, the problem isn't even here, the problem falls back to issues that require a lot of labor or production such as in the case of smartphones, shit that doesn't grow on trees. Why should anyone trade a gaming system for things "freely available natural or industrial"? That makes absolutely no sense at all. The issue of the apples was simply an example, it could very well be a much more complicated issue. Suppose that I put "super large plasma TV" up high on the list, put "Ferrari", put "wheelchair", put a specific medicine for a rare disease, put a specific smartphone, etc., what then? Do you even have ANY IDEA how many commodities exist today with their different shapes, sizes, types, colors, functions, age, etc.? What if I want a round mahogany coffee table? Do I put "round mahogany coffee table"? How many people do you think will actually say the same? Barely any.


Sheer fatalism and defeatism.





Such a table will not be produced even though I really need or want one. What if I write down "white television" when all televisions produced are black? I will never get my white television as only goods high up on top of the priorities list will be produced. Your "prioritization list" is a disaster, especially we go into the question of specifics.


Nope -- again, it would be a matter of organizing others to accomplish it, whatever it is, with their full, liberated cooperation.





I hear you and understand your concern, but will note that smaller-scale, non-(capital-C)-Collective production would not be disallowed:

Also, to illustrate the 'hybrid' nature of the productive implementation:

Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy





What the fuck did I just see? I didn't understand anything from what you were trying to say. Judging from the entire image, I'm now completely sure of your reliance on an argument from verbosity logical fallacy. The text made no sense nor did the images make ANY sense AT ALL. I mean what the fuck was that shit? The crisis popped zits would impose on modern society? What cheese volcanoes could possibly result in if coupled with a crater in the ground (bottom right)?


Thanks for the laugh -- your interpretation is downright comedic and welcome...(!)

The increasingly generalized scales of the 'tiers' depicted is what's relevant here.





Seriously, what the fuck? The text barely made any sense at all. Really if you actually used non-butchered actual English then trust me, I'd actually argue against what you're presenting, but this shit makes no sense at all and its only purpose seems to be in order to confuse the reader. You do not even bother to explain all those images even, merely slap a part of a post on a background of popping zits and tall factory chimneys threatened by an overflow of zit juice.


(Grin!)

I know the meaning will become clear to you over time, if you want to be open to it....





Hell, I do not even see how your image solves any problems with decentralization. You plan to connect various zones together and claim that "material accounting for such would not be overly complicated" simply because "any given point in the formation would only need to be in contact with those other associated entities nearby, below, and above"? What? That's not even a solution. You will have thousands if not millions of workplaces that all produce different and separate products with different and separate techniques using different and separate resources. You want to satisfy demand with those conditions WITHOUT utilizing money, WITHOUT markets, WITHOUT a pricing mechanism, and/or WITHOUT central planning.


Increasingly collectivized and generalized aggregates of linked productive processes would provide increasing degrees of 'central planning', depending on actual conditions.





That is nothing short of impossible. How will the producers of lumber know where they should take their products to? To those who demand it? The thing is that thousands of workplaces and even private consumers demand lumber. There aren't enough individual lumber producers to satisfy all that demand on a local scale.


Purportedly, but I'm not going to accept your hypothetical specifics at face value.





Where does the producer of lumber take his lumber to? Factory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 [...], 9,001 and so on? Which factory needs it more? Which factory has the highest demand on its products? Why shouldn't the lumber go to the private consumer who has a demand on it, why factory 10 not 10,000? What should produced oil be used for and refined into? Where should it go? Who needs it most? What should be done with it?


Again you're just fabricating pessimistic specifics to support your overall defeatist interpretation.





You CANNOT get your system to work without an overall centralized plan or a pricing mechanism or market.




Your decentralization can only POSSIBLY work in a society with thousands of mini-factories, but that would be too decentralized and inefficient for any large-scale mass production.


As a matter of social implementation I tend to agree with you here.





Which, in the present-day context, would be termed 'a revolution'.





We saw what all revolutions in history have led to, and none of them led to your Utopia but its abandonment.


It's obvious that you are too bound to past histories.





So who deserves the blame for fucking up historical reality like that -- ?





You and any other similar Utopian Communist that still thinks we live off of bread and water.


Nope -- wasn't me, and that's not what my politics are about.





*Ideally*, sure -- but it's not a *digital*, on-or-off, all-or-nothing proposition. Just think of how the existing public sector could be expanded, incrementally, and how quickly.





No, not ideally, that is what you ACTUALLY need for an "according to need" system or else it will be impossible to work as I have explained time and time again. It is a binary system, actually, it bases itself on whether you have the proper material conditions or not.


There are *degrees* of potential operation, from humane basics up to more exotic, specialized kinds of production.





as for the existing public sector, the existing public sector has nothing to do with your system. The existing public sector is propped up by a state, within the framework of Capitalism, funded by taxes from Capitalist activities, and so on. The public sector today has nothing to do with your decentralization but on the contrary, it is nothing but centralization, it has nothing to do with your mass consciousness, it has nothing to do with your "according to need" system, it has nothing to do with unlimited consumption, it has nothing to do with your moneyless system, and it is NOT an entire economy.


(Already responded-to.)





Understandable, but then in which direction should we orient ourselves today -- ?





"My" system, one of the many variations of Market Socialism, or simply wait for Capitalism to actually fulfill its historical evolutionary role. Capitalism still needs to finish exploiting and thus advancing Third World countries. And no, this isn't "non-Marxist" or "sick", this is what Marx and Engels supported. Don't believe me? You can find much harsher and worse material on the question of the reactionary Tsarism versus the progressive bourgeois Germans and Magyars on the question of the "trash" (quoting Engels on this word) Slavs. They called for the Slavs to be forcibly, or otherwise, assimilate with the Germans against the reactionary Tsarist Russians. They claimed that Tsarism, the Slavs, etc. were a crime against history and progress and that they needed to be done away with in favor of the German and Magyar adoption of bourgeois advancements.


---





We've seen collective mass production in the USSR, Spain, Makhnovshchina, the Zapatistas and ESPECIALLY with the Israeli Kibbutzim. Look what happened and what is happening. Extremely primitive means of production, technological stagnation, and a reactionary falling back out of Capitalism and back to agrarian systems and handicrafts. Revolution is only required to dethrone the bourgeois and install another new system that can LEAD TO collective mass production, not instantly implement collective mass production without the proper material conditions nor base for it as we have historically seen take place.





Okay, no disagreement here.





No disagreement here? What I said goes directly against what you said? Either you conceded the point and agree or you did not concede the point and instead ignore it completely.





Fair enough -- I won't quibble over the economic mechanics of your line. I just happen to disagree with the implementation of market socialism as a stagist step.





Of course you do, hence the debate. You think you have what is needed for an "according to need" communism, I claim we do not and thus a transitional stage following the lines of Market Socialism is a necessity.


Agreed.

[Theophys]

I feel as if I'm trying to explain that the world is round to someone who believes it is flat... Oh well.


Your consumption-oriented mentality is regrettable and very sad to see -- you think there is no way for cooperation and planning to overcome individualistic consumerism, even in positive, production-oriented directions.

Perhaps it is because the consumption-oriented mentality has gotten us where we are today, not your "positive production-oriented directions". In fact, you are also wrong when it comes to your own system. Your system is based on an "according to need" concept, not an "according to production" concept and as such your system should in fact be an "individualistic consumerism" not a "positive production-oriented" system. If you even would bother to notice that in that Communist adage it says "from EACH" and "to EACH", this is individualistic production and individualistic consumerism at its best. Cooperation and planning are to be built upon the bases of the individualistic consumerism which directs individualistic production, not the other way around.


My views are not the problem, my views are an attempt to solve the problem, but YOUR views are the problem as I have clearly shown to be the case time and time again. In fact, here's the main point that you quoted: "Today's society operates as it does purely because it is able to ration goods and limit consumption to those who have money. We cannot by any means do away with that restriction today or else the only "mass" we'll lead to are mass starvation, mass chaos, and mass murder."
You take what Capiatlism has and take them for granted for your system whilst ignoring everything that Capitalism has that allows it to give these favorable results which you take for granted. You take the results of Capitalism for granted without Capitalism just as one would take the results of the farmer without the farmer.



All I need to do is point out that a given population must be -- by definition -- *insufficient* to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever, if that population doesn't include enough liberated labor of its own to 'get the ball rolling' in some manner, for the production called-for by its mass demands.

That made no sense at all in English. Seriously, stop that shit. I want you to actually use proper English rather than butcher it with the destruction of grammar, sentences, and the addition of terms that do not exist and make no sense as well as hyphens and asterisks in the English language where they are not needed and only seek to confuse and disorient. I do not have to explain why that part above made absolutely no sense in English, but I shall do so just to show you and everyone else that your sentences make absolutely no sense at all.


"All I need to do is point out that a given population must be -- by definition -- *insufficient* to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever, if that population doesn't include enough liberated labor of its own to 'get the ball rolling' in some manner, for the production called-for by its mass demands."


I shall replace the words properly by their synonyms and dissect that part properly.


"All I need to do is point out that a given population must be NOT ENOUGH (insufficient) to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever for the production called-for by its mass demands."


The part between the two commas can be removed easily and the sentence should still have meaning. In your case, it does not. In fact, if we do so or even if we keep it, that sentence makes absolutely no sense at all. Your attempt at an argument from verbosity only leads to you making up words, butchering the English language, and confusing even yourself in an attempt to confuse others.



In other words, if a given locality can't provide its own liberated labor -- on fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery -- then it has to *impose* on the liberated labor of *others*, *outside* its own population, and so the locality would incur a public debt of labor credits to that exact amount of liberated-labor effort provided by others.

Good thing that you actually tried English this time. Sadly, that is not the issue which I spoke of at all. The issue is that the resources and production of Earth are FINITE and as such these resources and goods must be RATIONED in the best way possible to ensure the most optimal results possible. Nevertheless, no. You can speak of all the "fully collectivized, open source, freely available productive machinery" you want, but you will never have all those which you speak of.

You are attempting to claim that every locality will have its own "fully collectivized, open source, freely available productive machinery" whenever it needs them ignoring the fact that they cannot have them because they cannot resort to magic. In fact, if that were the case then the USSR would have had the best and most advanced technologies the world has ever seen, sadly that was not the case. What you are saying is essentially that if a locality can't provide its own labor then it needs to "buy" and hire wage-labor from other locality by paying them and incurring a public debt according to contribution?

Good job there, you just found yourself an extremely primitive, inefficient, and minor form of an "according to contribution" system. So all in all what you just did was admit that an "according to contribution" system is necessary if a locality can't provide its own labor "on fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery". Since this is reality, locality will never be able to have these "fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery" and provide their own labor, ergo "according to contribution" would be the dominant system. Pro logic of yours.


Not true -- all individuals' (consumers') lists are prioritized by each respective individual, themselves.
Which are then aggregated to form collective demand and priorities regardless of individual demand and priorities. Yes, my point, you missed it and then returned to it.


You're mistaken -- there's no such "lottery" system of any sort.

Actually yes, there is. When thousands of people put product X on the top of their priority list, only 50 X products were made, you CANNOT supply thousands with only 50 products and ergo must resort to a selection process NOT based on contribution, NOT based on bidding, NOT based on who needs it more, but purely based on a random lottery system or a "first come first serve".

In fact, it would be a fucking massacre to include such two alternatives, in the first case I explained why on my criticism of your lottery system suggestion before, and on the second because of the disaster you would create that only the bread lines of the USSR and the Black Friday of the USSR come into comparison. People would literally kill each other over these products, they would resort to fights, theft, murder, crime, and so on to obtain these products. People would leave their work just to sit in line in order to obtain those products before anyone else gets there first. Your system is a disaster however you make it out to be.



I don't see why you're experiencing such anxiety over 'hapless demand' -- if it happens, it happens. As you know, (liberated) labor is required for the provision of any good or service, so it's entirely within the domain of a liberated labor to simply say "Fuck you, we are not willing to put in the work that would be required to produce Specialty Item Y -- go fish."

In which case "liberated" labor would be unemployed and dropped off on the streets for refusing to contribute to the system as requested and demanded of it. If you claim that this will not happen then liberated labor will be able to do whatever it wants regardless of the demands of society, and thus your entire system goes tumbling down the stairs like the train wreck it is. Workers need to either be incentivized OR coerced to do something. Your system offers neither, it merely wants "liberated" labor to do whatever it wants regardless of what anyone else wants for no reason other than them being "liberated" and thus able to tell anyone "Fuck you, we are not willing to put in the work that would be required to produce ANYTHING YOU WANT -- go fish."

In fact, all of that is nothing more than a long-winded means to say that special request items CANNOT and WILL NOT be fulfilled, as opposed to other systems which can and do fulfill them with a greater reward.



And why the borderline-neurotic concern over how the release of unused personal property would be handled -- ? It could simply be a general regulatory guideline, like 1-1/2 years or something, as the need arises. As with any mass demand, if social conditions really necessitated the freeing-up of "hoarded" personal resources en masse, it would be the issue and politics of the day and would have to be actively addressed and implemented on a societal scale.

Because you CANNOT determine which personal property is unused and which isn't. It is because if unused PERSONAL property were to be taken away if left unused, then people would NOT leave them unused even if they do not want them or actually use them just for the sake of keeping them. For example, I would not want to lose my gaming console, so I spend 5 minutes of each day using it just for the sake of not losing it. I would not want to lose any personal property of mine so I would spend a few minutes of each day using them just for the sake of it or just for the sake of abusing your useless system that cannot work.

You say 1-1/2 years? Then I'll use that personal property once every year, a few months, or a few months before the deadline. Nevertheless, that is not the issue, the issue is HOW are you going to determine what is used and what is not used? Are you going to implement trackers on each personal property? Are you going to resort to a Big Brother-esque monitoring system to spy on who's using what? In fact, do you even realize that used products can generally no longer be in fit form to be reused by others?

Hell if I want I could use the item and then break it before deadline just to have fun with it. I would receive NO penalty because there is absolutely NO COSTS incurred in the obtaining of the product and the separation with the product. Your system is by every means a horror that I would never wish to take part in. The last thing I'd like to see are some of my personal property being taken away by others, be them items of memorabilia and nostalgia or books, clothing, and reserve/spare items of scarcity.



I'm sorry you find the framework to be elusive at all, and I actually do appreciate your feedback. I'll continue to be open to addressing and clarifying any aspect of it, indefinitely.
Right, I really hope you will.


No, this contention is entirely of your own concoction, and I have made clear that the fulfillment of increasingly exotic goods and services would be wholly dependent on the cooperation of available liberated laborers, and available collectivized assets and resources.

No, that is not a concoction of mine, it is what you taken for granted as a false assumption for your system to work. Increasingly exotic goods and services have nothing to do with cooperation of available labor nor do they have any reason to be produced by workers.

The workers share absolutely no relationship as in the case of kin altruism or small-scale mutual aid and altruism to allow the workers to even produce this difficult to manufacture and scarce exotic goods and services. These workers will still receive the same goods and services whether they produce enough or not because they receive according to need, not according to contribution. In fact in such as system of disaster as yours, these workers could very well produce enough for themselves and halt production with various excuses in order to free up more leisure time for themselves or they could produce just enough for themselves and then a small amount and create an artificial scarcity which they can then use as a means of increasing the "value" of their goods and thus take part in barter and black markets.

Your system is a DISASTER, but your dogmatism has seemingly blinded you to that fact. Now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today, the exotic goods and services determined by the available laborers, assets, and resources of your system then these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced, WILL NOT be produced, have no means by which to rationally and most effectively allocate these goods, and have no means by which to ensure the loyalty and faithfulness of the producers to the consumers.



No, and I apologize for any mixed meanings across the various diagrams -- I prefer to emphasize the 'communist supply & demand' model, which uses a system of circulating weighted-labor-hour credits.

Furthermore I'll note that by *separating* the supply of liberated labor -- as through the paying-forward of labor credits in possession -- *from* the resulting material goods produced by that labor, there is *no exchangeability* of labor credits for material goods produced. This approach avoids all the pitfalls and inherent contradictions native to any *other* approach that -- errantly -- posits *valuations* across communist-type *collectivized* assets, resources, and goods.
I need a translator because that made no sense at all.



In other words, a genuinely liberated labor force should be respected and considered for its total effort of liberated labor put forth, *not* for the bulk material it produces. The results of its liberated labor would have been pre-planned, anyway, as per the daily prioritized aggregated lists of mass demands.

That's more like it. Observe how easy it is now to critique your argument now that it actually makes sense. You speak of respected and considered for the total effort put forth and not for the material produced. The disasters here are numerous.

You have absolutely no means which to calculate total effort if it is not through the material produced and thus cannot by any means properly respect and consider the total effort put forth because you have no means by which to measure and compare production and effort used. You have no price signals, you have no pricing mechanism, you have no market, you have no centralized planning, you have no form of remuneration according to contribution, etc. and as such you are completely unable to respect and consider the total effort put forth. Workers and consumers will receive all the same in terms of remuneration according to the effort put in because you disregard bulk material produced. You cannot give pay bonuses, rewards, and so on because you oppose an according to contribution system. Your system cannot guarantee quality because you have no intra-sectoral competition between workplaces and labors in the form of Socialist competition or otherwise.Your "liberated labor" also has absolutely no reason, incentive, or otherwise to put it much, if any, effort at all as they are not being remunerated according to effort or contribution but being remunerated according to need REGARDLESS of effort or contribution.

So in summary you have absolutely no means by which to "respect" and "consider" the total effort of labor, you have no means which to calculate total effort because you disregard remuneration according to effort and contribution and because you disregard bulk material produced, nor do you even have any means by which to lead to the expenditure of any "effort" whatsoever because the effort expended by workers does not lead to any direct benefits or rewards to the worker nor are they even calculated.


The results of labor CANNOT be pre-planned without a central plan and without a constant production number. In your system they have absolutely no incentive or reason to put in any effort at all, reach productivity, or even work instead of slack in the first place. Your system would be far worse than the USSR and its system of unfulfilled quotas.



Correct, and I'm glad you picked up on that -- what this approach does is put liberated laborers fully in authority over the particulars of the provisioning of (liberated) labor for any given project or production run, and then only to the extent that one has actually done labor in the past, as shown from one's own personal labor credits in possession.

This indirectly encourages participation since providing one's liberated labor gives one a certain amount of control over equal-proportioned liberated labor, going forward. Such earned authority could certainly complement any *political* initiatives one may be involved in and advocating, as with actively promoted proposals and policy packages, in response to mass demand (or otherwise).

And that's a disaster, again. From what I understood from there, even though you never have explained that system of "labor-notes" according to projects in this thread before so I cannot criticize much of it, is that workers not only have no reason and incentive to produce anything but they also put forward conditions of their own to whatever they want to work in? This keeps getting better and better with the disasters within it. I need you to explain exactly how this perverted labor-notes system you support so that I can actually critique it in a proper manner, just do it in proper English in an attempt to make people understand rather than get confused. Where does this labor-notes come form, how exactly is it awarded, how is it different from labor-notes rewarded according to contribution, how is it not an award according to contribution, how does it not cause inequalities between "liberated" labor, how does it ensure "liberated" labor, and so on. Give me all of those so that I would be able to criticize your system.



Yes.

And thus the pre-planned demand and requests fall under the issues I have previously explained with your system be it on the question of prioritization, actual need, individual demands and priorities being different from aggregate individual demands and prioritization, etc. etc.



Or, instead of being dependent on the 'hands-off' market mechanism, any 'according to need' requests / demands would have to enjoy sufficient popular political support, and sufficient economic support from organized liberated labor.

And if there isn't "sufficient" support then such a product would never be produced risking thousands if not millions of unmet demand. The hands-off market mechanism ensures a proper supply as long as people are willing to pay for a product. Your "according to need" system thus cannot by any means ensure the creation and meeting of demands that are not popular, are niche demand, and demand of specialty. Your system is thus inferior to the alternative. Just to put this into perspective, gamer supplies, special handicraft equipment, specific desired goods, hobby goods, special medical supplies for rare medical treatment, diseases, and so on would not be produced. In fact, all products that would be produced would be bland and uniform rather than as diverse and appealing to as many tastes and desires as is the case today.



I don't think this is too onerous a condition, though obviously you *do* see it as a lopsided situation. If this has any explanatory power whatsoever, we *could* *invert* the situation and look at it from an 'according to contribution' standpoint -- how hard would how many liberated laborers work, upfront, at the slightest request offered, in order to build up their personal supplies of labor credits -- ?

Depending on how many credits they want. The more they produce, the higher the amount of credits received. What is the issue here? This is the only means by which to ensure that labor is actually liberated by giving them the freedom of choice on such matters. Do they want a lot of credits to purchase a lot of goods? Then they are to work and produce more in order to receive more. Your system cannot account for this, your system treats all labor as the same and thus should receive the same regardless of contribution. For example, if a certain SINGLE individual wants a special TV, the workers of the TV-producing factory would propose a price, say 1000 credits (costs of production, planning, and profits for workers included), for a custom special TV. The individual can then pay 1000 credits and receive the TV REGARDLESS of whether or not the rest of society wants a similar TV.



If the liberated laborers of one locality happened to be particularly 'ambitious' and did this, they would be gaining proportionate authority over *future* liberated labor provisioning, *disproportionate* to their simple numbers as individuals in the population (of their locality and beyond). This would be entirely fair since they have accomplished past work in accordance with actual, formal popular wishes.

No, not at all. By appealing to particular desires which are not immensely popular and a priority, i.e. by appealing to the items mentioned above, then they may very well be ambitious, but they would not be supplying MASS PRIORITIES according to need. In fact, if they want to "accomplish past work in accordance with actual, formal popular wishes" then the are to supply the most demand and highly popular products first in order to reap the most authority from such an action. You tend to receive prominence by supplying to as many people as possible the most demanded products possibly, not by supplying unpopular goods to specific specialized groups. If anything, you are attempting to use an "according to contribution" system without actually using such a system and have thus resorted to a primitive and failure of a system. If products do not have "sufficient popular support" then they will simply not be produced in your system. The workers producing these will not be by any means affected.



For whatever reason -- that I cannot discern -- you are *mystifying* this aspect of what is otherwise a common revolutionary supposition, that bulk productivity and a post-capitalist collectivized social relations would together be sufficient, spread evenly, to satisfy humanity's basic humane material requirements.

Yes, and that's what was a "revolutionary supposition" in the USSR. Look what happened. Then take a look at the same "common revolutionary supposition" in the case of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and every single other Communist revolution. They all start out with high aspiration and hopes of massive achievement, look at how they all ended up. The thing is, you CANNOT take anything into a "revolution supposition" nor can you falsely claim and assume that "bulk productivity and a post-capitalist collectivized social relations would together be sufficient, spread evenly, to satisfy humanity's basic humane material requirements". This is the main point of my criticism against your Utopian "according to need" system. ou do not seem to be able to understand this. I am not mystifying anything, you are. I'll bet your reply will be a No True Scotsman logical fallacy.



This is *not* a matter of *faith*, as you seem to be implying. You are in the wrong on this point.

Actually as I have seen it is a matter of faith with your baseless "revolutionary supposition, that bulk productivity and a post-capitalist collectivized social relations would together be sufficient, spread evenly, to satisfy humanity's basic humane material requirements". We have seen how that turned out in real-life and history.



No, you are simply *assuming* this to be the case -- that some kind of mysterious, dark-force "Collective" would swoop in out of nowhere and trump the formal aggregated lists of prioritized mass demands.

I'll counterpose from the model again, and note that either a person -- anyone -- *pre-orders* using their daily demand list, and so has a personal use for what they're requesting, or else whatever they're *not actually using* should simply be returned to the public domain, for possible future use (by individuals or for projects).

Please recall that a communist-type system does not, and should not, allow for private accumulations of property, since such would be superfluous in the context of a fully collectivized mass production.

As I have already explained, you cannot determine what is in use and what is no in use. As for the issue of the collective exploiting workers for their surplus value, that is indeed the case, but here you do not even pay them at all, you give them a promise of something that will not come. Wait, wait, now your demand list is a DAILY DEMAND LIST? Are you KIDDING me? Do you even have the slightest idea how huge a demand list would be? Do you even realize that such lists need to be made BEFOREHAND in order for planning to take place? Do you have any idea how much time, consideration, and work one needs in order to fill a DAILY demand list? It is simply not by any means conceivable. As for private accumulations, that has nothing at all to do with a communist system, but that has to do with how YOU perceive a communist system to be. They would not be superfluous at all because since you do not have super-abundance and super-productivity of all goods then individuals would seek to hoard materials due to the uncertainty of the future and the risk of scarcity that would be always at their doors, especially the scarcity of luxury goods, the main point of this thread which you still do not even bother to address. You speak of a fully collectivized mass production system as being synonymous with super-abundance and super-productivity, that is not the case, and no I'm not the one making the assumption, you are.



Again, this is merely a spurious claim on your part -- I'll maintain that this method / model only requires a post-capitalist material environment that has the *capacity* to provide humane basics for all, as specified here:

Bullshit. YOU are the one making the "spurious" claims, I am the one pointing them out and proving that they are nothing more than false magical a priori assumptions on your part. Your method/model requires a post-Capitalist "material environment", i.e. a post-scaricty, super-abundant, and super-productive society or else you cannot meet the needs of BILLIONS of people on Earth. The supplying of human basics is not the issue, we are not living in the medieval ages, it is the supplying of the TRILLIONS of demands of TRILLIONS of productions with TRILLIONS of variations that is the issue. Your system CANNOT do this as it has no central planning, no price mechanism, no guarantees for production such as loyality or incentives, no markets, etc.


Hell even what you say "as specified here" to prove that I am the one making "spurious" claims essentially implodes your own argument. This is what you quoted:


"All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits"


As we can see above, you make ANOTHER leap of faith a priori false assumption, you assume that "all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs". That is exactly the same bullshit that I can say when I claim that "Capitalism will lead to all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs", "Fascism will lead to all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs", "Anarcho-Primitivism will lead to all all workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs", etc. etc.


So what you just did was in order to prove that you did not make any a priori false assumptions you resort to giving me an example that includes another a priori false assumption! :laugh:



As a comparison, we could say that historically many countries developed the capacities to supply basic *civil rights* to all people, regardless of incurring social costs that accompanied such a shift away from specialization according to race, nationality, etc.

False analogy fallacy. Civil rights have NOTHING to do with material desires and demand. Civil rights are not material, they are not finite, they can be given to anyone without limits, the same does not apply for material desires and demand. The issue is not incurring social costs, the issue is the IMPOSSIBILITY of what you are suggesting which you cannot guarantee, ensure, or even prove. In fact, if anything, we have historically seen such systems fail drastically even on the question of basic human needs.



Or, more constructively, 'as much as they can organize for, and accomplish, using fully collectivized implements'.


You insist on positing a false dichotomy of interests, of a clientelist nature, when no evidence for such exists in the model.

Yeah, because "organizing" will create magical goods from thin air despite production limits, planning limitation (without central plans), resource limitations, distribution limitations, no restrictions on consumption, etc. etc. Anyone reading this should by now realize the only fallacy here that is your system of disaster. I am not positing a false dichotomy, I am positing a dichotomy that actually exists within your system. You say that consumers can consume "as much as they want" but you CANNOT ensure super-abundance, super-productivity, and so on. If you cannot ensure super-abundance and so on then consumers CANNOT consume "as much as they want". If they cannot consume "as much as they want" then they can only consume "as much as they are given". WHAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? WHERE is the false dichotomy of interests? I challenge you to show me.



Certainly -- if you like, depending on actual conditions.

Yes and since we cannot have the a priori false assumptions of which you speak of then the "actual conditions" demand that we have a rationing system "according to contribution" UNTIL we are able to have super-productivity, completely or almost complete automation, and super-abundance, NOT before.



Look, I can't promise to know the future in advance. Either actual conditions will be hospitable enough, or they won't. All *I* can control in the here-and-now is that the model I politically advocate is self-consistent and doesn't contradict itself, and is reasonably realistically feasible.

Your system is not "reasonably realistically feasible" because it depends on a priori assumptions which may never be possible. Your system you claim to be arising after Capitalism, but entirely ignore any hints of a transitional phase according to contribution. You want to directly come out of Capitalism and start implementing your system. If that is not the case then you support an ALTERNATIVE system, most likely an according to contribution system and thus you just destroyed the very basis for your argument. Nevertheless, even then, suppose we reach a system of super-abundance, super-productivity, etc. then for "according to need" to function we need INFINITE resources, which CANNOT happen while we remain on Earth. Ergo, either way, your system is impossible. I do not care if you claim your system is "self-consistent" and doesn't "contradict itself", because either way it is impossible and a disaster as I have already shown time and time again throughout the thread to you and the others. I can right now build a system that is "self-consistent", "doesn't contradict itself" and claim that it is "reasonably realistically feasible" when it need not at all be the case as we see here with your system given that I supply my own a priori assumptions. What you are doing is nothing other than creating an imaginary pipedream, a god damned Utopian society that will not take place and if it does it would prove to be a fucking disaster for humanity.



No, now you're stepping outside of what's in front of you -- this model of mine is unique and unprecedented.
And yet similarities to it that are much more realizable and real have failed by taking the same assumptions and a priori nonsense that you take right now. They made those assumptions and were slapped in the face by reality.



The model is a *framework* and specifies *nothing* in the way of policy particulars.

And that is the framework is that is the problem, as I have shown. Imagine the specifics.



You're trying to dismiss the reasoning of my argument by making a blanket characterization, or ad hominem attack, on 'anyone on Revleft [who] speaks of "non-Marxism" and "anti-Marxism"' -- this is side-stepping the argument itself.

Actually the thing is that you made no reasoning at all, your claim of "non-Marxism" and "anti-Marxism" is itself the ad hominem attack. When I point out an ad hominem attack, I do not need to deal with it other than criticizing the person himself and the logical fallacy that he made. You made no argument. I never side-step ANY argument. In fact, I CHALLENGE YOU to show me where I side-stepped ANYTHING and I will then reply properly.



Your individual-based approach is arbitrary, conventional to capitalism, and not focused on any enlightened social (mass) dynamics.

Fuck the enlightened social (mass) dynamics. Leave them to the plane of dreams and Utopian ivory tower daydreaming. I care about what is ensured, safest, and realistic to achieve, not what I can come up with in my dreams. I do not care about your ideals nor do I share them, I only care about reality and what we can actually achieve. My approach, which you ironically call arbitrary, is conventional to Capitalism because my system is a TRANSITIONAL phase FROM CAPITALISM "birthmarks of the old society" TO COMMUNISM. Again, I do not care about your "enlightened" social (mass) bullshit, I've seen those in effect in history and I've seen how they failed on epic proportions.



'Making it happen' would depend on common material (consumer-type) interests, which is exactly what common *humane* interests are, as a priority of organic existence.

And the point just flew directly over his head. The issue is not what "humane" interests are, the issue is what the interests of the PRODUCERS are to produce. The consumers can organize and cry all they want, they will not receive anything until the producers have a reason to do so. If this were by any means viable then the Zapatistas, Israeli Kibbutzim, as well as any other mass movement would have fulfilled all their desires by now and reached a space-age society. That is not the case, they have failed miserably wherever and whenever they have tried mass mobilizations and mass consciousness and led to counter-productive disasters. Hell, we can all organize to produce a big as Death Star made out of diamonds and unicorns. Will it ever happen? In your system you believe it will because of your bullshit magical nonsense. In any other system it would not be possible. Your system has no means by which to limit what consumers can demand, instead they can demand diamond-encrusted gadgets without consequences but only if they can organize for it with popular demand. Your system is a fucking disaster.



You have *not* shown that any kind of real dichotomy of interests is indicated in the model, and so you *cannot* support an accusation that abuse or corruption would be endemic to the model.

Oh my fucking god, is he even being serious? I have ALREADY shown the problems in your system and the model. What are you even talking about "real dichotomy of interests"? Do you think the only problems that exist in society are dichotomies of interest? Are you fucking kidding me? This is getting ridiculous with all these cop-outs. In the case of abuse and corruption, as I have already explained extensively, those who use the list can abuse it. How is this list system abused? Just as a lottery system is abused, it has no restrictiosn on entry, and rewards are given at random. As I have explained numerous times, this is one of them:


" A lottery would be much worse than the "according to need" gift economy. It completely randomly selects a handful of winners out of millions regardless of contribution, regardless of need, and regardless of relevance of the reward to the winner. I could enter a lottery for a wheelchair when I do not need it. Here you'll claim that you cannot enter such a lottery if you're not handicapped, in which case I'll change the lottery reward to something much different such as the case of a racing car when I cannot race, a large television when I have no place to put it, a truck when I am not in need of one, a gaming console when I already have one, etc. etc. This causes numerous problems. We need to also take into consideration the chance of even winning the lottery, the mentality of a person who enters the lottery ("I'll just try my luck") even if he does necessarily "need" the reward, the possibility of corruption, the possibility of certain individuals getting lucky multiple time, or even the frustration of those who keep losing. Such a system would be atrocious and unacceptable. Instead of rewarding individuals according to their contributions to society and other such socially beneficial actions, they are instead left unrewarded with a system of rationing that takes nothing into consideration. If you claim that you want to add a restriction to enter the lottery only to those who contributed over the social average or contributed the most to society then you are doing nothing but following an "according to contribution" system but you simply refuse to acknowledge this and simply want a ridiculous joke instead."


Your system gives NO reasons for producers to produce and NO reason for consumers to consume what they REALLY need rather than list what they really WANT or DESIRE whether they need them or not. Your system cannot ensure consumer nor producer loyalty and faithfulness.



Not true:

Are you kidding me? HOW DOES WHAT YOU JUST QUOTED PROVING WHAT I SAID AS NOT TRUE? You are getting on my nerves.

What you quoted are the problem, they are COLLECTIVE AGGREGATE INDIVIDUAL DEMANDS, not individual demands and priorities. I have ALREADY explained that individual demand and priorities conflict and are different than those of collective/aggregate individual demand and priorities. What one person puts high up on his demand and priority list may end up the lowest on the aggregate individual priority and demand list and thus be produced the last, if ever.



But what *capacities* of mass production is the world *capable* of today, and to what extents of fulfillment could those capacities be used, in *humane* directions -- ?

We don't know, that's why I am criticizing you every single time you attempt to make false assumptions on the capacities of today or tomorrow.



You're implying that some kind of blind-faith, selfless "altruism" would be a requirement here -- the "altruism" claim is a red herring, and spurious. Those who would wish to acquire would either have to d.i.y., using available implements and resources from the fully public-ized / un-private-ized domain, or else would have to organize and coordinate liberated labor as a matter of political initiative, per the model.

Those cop-outs. Ridiculous. I hope anyone reading this debate feels the same when it comes to this guy. Nevertheless, DIY, really? Your solution to the problem is DIY? Are you KIDDING ME? DIY is not a solution not a viable alternative. I'd like to see you start building electronic gadgets, microchips and all, yourself at home. You are not offering solutions at all, only cop-outs. Your reply to my criticisms that you cannot have altruism on such a scale are references to DIY and then a circle reasoning return to what I initially just criticized? I've debated many people, but never have I witnessed such ridiculous nonsense as I find here. You. Did. Not. Answer. My. Criticism. You are still stuck with the issue of altruism. The altruism criticism is a valid criticism which you are attempting to escape from because you do not have an answer to it. Admit it already and stop embarrassing yourself.



At the *societal* level a population only has to have *sufficient* production, materially, by whatever method.

Are you... Are you kidding me? Your answer to my claim is hat "a population only has to have sufficient production by whatever method"? Are you seriously kidding me? You criticize me for dealing with individuals, I explain exactly why I deal with individuals and not collectives, and yet you here reply to something else that has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING and resorting to another leap of faith a priori assumption? You CANNOT speak of a system by stating it will solve anything "by whatever method" or that it will have "sufficient production" or that it will simply "make it happen". The questions is HOW would your society have sufficient production, you cannot ensure this because following my criticism your system is a disaster in the spheres of production, planning, and consumption.



In the blindsidedness of your individual-centric approach you've readily forgotten that -- like it or not -- societal-scale dynamics *do* exist, like public infrastructure, journalism, academia, the public domain, record-keeping, statistics, policy, and so on.

In this way you are as bad and deleterious as any right-winger who subscribes to the same Thatcherite "there is no such thing as society" mantra.

Lol? Have you EVER heard or read ANYTHING about public choice theory, Arrow's impossibility theorem, the Condorcet paradox, and the fallacies of collective decision making over individual decision-making? Evidently, you have NOT. I'm not the one who is blindsided, you are. Public infrastructure, journalism, academia, he public domain, etc. are you answers to the individual's decision-making? HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY THE ANSWER TO THAT? Here's what I said: "You can read your own mind and know what you are going to do, but you cannot read society's mind and know what it's going to do."


And then you replied by speaking of public infrastructure, journalism, statistics, policy, etc.? What the fuck. Look, just do me a favor and go read up on what I have mentioned above because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about and are attempting to save face in public. You can never predict the actions of a society and its decisions as one can predict his own actions.



I have acknowledged inherent finite limits, respectively, where applicable.

And since those inherent finite limits exist, i.e. almost for every single good except air and natural water, then your according to need system is a fantasy, a disaster at that that will never take place, that if it does it will exterminate humanity as a whole.



Given today's existing communications technology, this is a sheerly spurious claim.

Lol? That's not even a counter-argument. In fact, the above is what we call a "sheerly spurious claim". I said "Inability to meet the mass demand on the lower tiers of the priority list which is made up of BILLIONS of products which can never be added to a simple list?", you said you have communications. What the fuck. Have you not realized that if goods are low on the list that they will be produced last unless there is an angry mob with torches ready to change that? Oh I bet you have not. If they will not be produced first, since production is busy fulfilling the billions of other priorities on the list then THEY WILL NOT BE PRODUCED REGARDLESS OF COMMUNICATIONS!



Again, spurious -- a schedule of daily-updated iterations would be sufficient for any and all concerns.

Again you make ANOTHER spurious claim and accuse me of making one. The daily updated iterations are not feasible and would be disastrous to any planning, production, and distribution that is not on the central scale. That's not even taking into account that the daily list will never be fully met.



I'm not here to contribute wordings to your political line of choice -- if you have arguments to make here go ahead and make them.

THOSE ARE FUCKING ARUGMENTS! "What about the issue of the socialization of costs? What about the tragedy of the commons? What about the societal incentives not being incentives for the individual?"


Go look them up. I already explained the socialization of costs, you can look up the tragedy of the commons, and I ALREADY explained societal incentives not being incentives for the individual.



Whatever -- here is the counter-evidence:

What the hell? Those are NOT counter-evidence!



Please recall *this* portion, which I am invoking as a response here:

Yes and that portion has NOTHING to do with your point and argument at all, they are referring to a means to an end. Your example of the public sectors and NHS today have NOTHING to do with your end, not even SLIGHTLY as I have already shown.



No, not ultimately, but if we take today's conditions as 'Point A' and my model as 'Point B', then the transformation from Point A to Point B would see a complete, total expansion of the public sector to encompass everything societal, including mass (industrial) production.

And thus you would need a transitional phase which is similar to what we have today in order to speak of using today's conditions and expand what we have today. The public sector of today has NOTHING to do with what you propose, the public sector of today, as I have already explained, "This "degree of 'collectivization'" is WITHIN the framework of Capitalism, markets, and pricing mechanisms, enforced by a state, funded by taxes, and is organized on the individual basis." So no, that argument of yours is a failure. Get another one.



Whatever.

Lol? "Whatever"? Really now? I am explaining how your system cannot incorporate the public sector of today because it is NOT a natural extension, it is something else entirely which has nothing to do with today.



Again, 'Point A to Point B'....

Again, no, as above.



Of course -- hence the need for revolution to *break* with capitalism.

What the fuck. A BREAK with Capitalism would mean that you have NOTHING TO DO WITH CAPITALISM, that you are SEPARATING from Capitalism, not USING Capitalism. This is what I have said, "the very kernal of truth that you base your system on what Capitalism has achieved and use those achievements as a given for your society. You take what Capitalism creates and appropriate them into your own society with no means to advance, progress, or properly utilize them. You are basing your system on Capitalism and its achievements whilst having nothing to do with Capitalism."


This is what you replied:


"Of course -- hence the need for revolution to *break* with capitalism."


If you are to say "of course" then you are to agree with me DISAGREEING WITH YOU that what you propose is false and thus you have no idea what you are talking about.



For the sake of explanation I'll again refer to the domain of *civil* rights -- politically there is no longer any basis for discrimination based on race, gender, etc.

Likewise, a fully collectivized *productive* social order would have no civil / political basis for disallowing open-source, free public access to the means of mass production, since private property would no longer exist / be respected.
What the fuck do abstract and infinitely available civil rights have ANYTHING to do with finite material issue such as the means of production and so on? The restrictions on the means of production to be only used by those who work htere are a NECESSITY lest the production process be stunted and prevented from functioning by random people going in and deciding they want to stop the constant churning of the production process just in order to do whatever they want with the means of production. As anyone reading your post so far should realize, your system is a disaster and is nothing more than the dreams of a child that has not ever taken a single book on economics nor experienced reality. Civil rights and the issue thereof have NOTHING to do with the issuing of goods and access to material goods and the means of production. Material goods are finite and can only have limited use, civil rights can be given indefinitely as words or ink on paper.



You're simply putting words in my mouth, here -- there is no evidence in the model that supports this contention / anxiety of yours.

You are unable to read it seems. That statement came directly after this "
You know if you actually used advanced English then it would be much more easier to read than this gibberish. What does that even mean "could [not] politically be *disallowed*"?" It was an attempt to make sense of the nonsense that you wrote in that "model" of disaster.


In fact, after your explanation on the similarities between civil rights and their right to access those means of production and whatnot I have concluded that my initial statement above was true that "So they can go there and be practically disallowed but their right to the means of production would only be politically, i.e. on the surface and on paper, be allowed?"


This is actually the case as this guy showed.


I said: "Nevertheless, to the point from what I understood... People can access the means of production without restrictions?"


He said: "No, again, to repeat: [N]o one could politically be *disallowed* from accessing such productive capabilities -- proportionate to their numbers."


Thus, what I had said would be true, people would be restricted from access to the means of production but NOT politically. They would POLITICALLY, i.e. ON PAPER, be allowed to access them, but in practice they would be disallowed. That's how much sense this guy makes.



What you're not realizing is that "barter" can simply be administered on-the-whole, over limitless inputs and outputs -- on a mass scale this is termed 'communism'.

Lol? No, it cannot. Barter is nothing more than a disaster of a system that was long abandoned by everyone. If Marx and Engels were to read this then they would slap you across the face for this reactionary nonsense. Barter is a disaster, it CANNOT be administered "on-the-whole, over limitless inputs and outputs". Hell, a quid pro quo gift economy would be similar to this but even that is a disaster.



Then, perhaps -- for the sake of this constrained example -- *more* parties should be added to this pool, to even out what is being supplied to what is being requested.

As many parties as you wish to add, the problem would not be solved and would be MUCH easier, simpler, faster, and more efficient if we were to utilize a new invention which you do not seem to have heard of called "money". This "money" was developed for a reason, because barter is a disaster, much like your system. You can add all the parties you want in THEORY, but even then you cannot balance what is being supplied to what is being demand, especially on the scale of billions of productions with trillions of variations.



The (small-scale) equivalent in my model is the individual or small group that uses materials and implements from the world's fully-collectivized assets and resources to produce for their own immediate purposes.

And that's why your system of Bakuninist collectivism is a disaster. You stifle mass production that need to be constantly running in favor of various individuals coming to a factory, halting production, and playing as much as they want and however they want with the machinery to produce what they want despite having no skill, no experience, and the inability to operate any of these machinery. In fact, there is absolutely no reason as to why individuals should even produce for their own immediate purposes when a factory can merely produce and distribute with the individuals buying what they need for their immediate purposes. What you propose is a disaster, as always.



Yeah.

And what the hell is the issue here except the problem that is your system when it comes to collective decision-making?



Obviously.

If this is obvious THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN MAKE IT OUT TO BE A PROBLEM!? Unless I just met Mr. Obvious here. Hm.



No lottery method. First-come, first-served.

Your distribution method is "first come, first served"? Then my prediction was right, your system indeed is a disaster and the criticism of your system based on "first come, first serve" rather than any other criteria such as bidding from credits given according to contribution with ACTUAL value applies.



Secondly -- the aggregate, for any locality or larger population, does not *preclude* being addressed at any *smaller* scale. If your outstanding concern is that the collective will not address and provide-for more-individualized and specialty / exotic desires, then perhaps those specialty concerns for production *can* be more easily addressed by a *localized* production, as in an arts-and-crafts way, even using fully open, available assets and resources.

Since you claimed that production would be based upon what is the most demanded and the highest in priority then anything other than that is a betrayal of your first proposition. The new system that you propose above would not be feasible and would not at all go along with your previous claims on production according to demand priorities. You cannot by any means create a new small-scale factory for each and every separate niche product. But, that is not the problem, the problem is that aggregate priorities of individuals are DIFFERENT from the priorities of an individual, as I have already explained. If I want product A high on my priorities list and product A ends up the lowest on the social priority list then my individual priorities would not be fulfilled because they would not be produced as they are the LAST out of trillions on the list. Oh and I do not even have to tell you that you cannot claim that if people want X then magically they will have X by creating factories and such.



Okay, if that's really the case then *don't* do it that way, if you know something better about the logistics of such. Other options for apple production would still be potentially possible.
I do, and that's dealt with through a pricing mechanism, markets (artificial or real), and price signals.



Purportedly, in which case the individual could simply formally request / demand a personal share from that apple production -- perhaps the 'apple commune' would have to increase its quota and issue a new, revised plan to account for this individual's additional consumption, as quickly as possible.
And if they increase their already strained quota, you'd end up much worse than the USSR with its unfulfilled quotas. But, of course, with all those new "solutions" you keep trying to make with every hole that gets blown up in your ignorant theory, more problems arise from this. If a personal can request a PERSONAL SHARE from that apple production, if the apple producers accept then other individuals will follow suit until general production for those apples would not even reach the public but would instead be entirely sent to these individuals for their personal reasons. If the person cannot request a personal share then he has his personal demands and priorities UNFULFILLED, bringing us back to the initial problem.



Not a problem, even though you'd rather be skittish and freeze-up at the slightest change from initial conditions.
Maybe that's because your suggestions are ridiculous?



If the new individual's request for additional consumption could not be readily accommodated, then some provision for that additional consumption *would* have to be taken up -- perhaps the individual possessed enough labor credits to pass on to an available liberated laborer to put in the effort required to fulfill the request for apples.
And that is nothing more than another form of primitive payment. You are essentially resorting to "my" system as a solution but without actually claiming it is so. You are using labor remuneration notes, payment, etc. in order to solve issues within your system.



Or perhaps the locality that the new individual is from would collectively agree to issue a new debt of labor credits in its name so that the requisite harvesting (and more) could be accomplished, by available liberated labor.
Yet another form of primitive payment. No longer is it "according to need" but it is "according to how much labor credits you are paid".



Or perhaps the new individual might come to some arrangement of providing their own liberated labor in some other capacity in return for additional available liberated labor from the 'apple commune' to make additional apples available to the new individual for consumption.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fully-fledged retreat from "according to need" in favor of "according to contribution". Good job, ckaihatsu, I'm proud.



More facile imaginings on your part -- I just outlined some potential options, above.
Every single one of which was a retreat from the unquestionable "according to need" system.



Just keep *this* following aspect in mind, and recall that, proportionately, you are only one individual person displaying an individualistic propensity....
Not really. If people were able to pluck all the apples they want, if they want to do so then they can and will do so. Since you cannot ensure what they actually need or loyalty on their part then they can very well abuse that system with ease.



Well, how much do you *want*, and how much could you *personally* consume, or use, exactly -- ?
"A lot". That's how much. Or I could be using them for a party, to feed the commune, or just to use them to build an apple closet. I can make up any excuse.



If you couldn't satisfy your individualistic concerns / desires from your own efforts on open-source resources, then it would necessarily become a *political* request, for involving the efforts of others.
No, don't worry, I'd pluck all the apples from the trees and use them all up.



Sheer fatalism and defeatism.
ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING? THAT IS YOUR COUNTER-ARGUMENT? What I proposed was an actual legitimate argument, and instead of a proper reply you give me this shit. Very well, I'll treat you in kind.



Nope -- again, it would be a matter of organizing others to accomplish it, whatever it is, with their full, liberated cooperation.
You cannot ensure that people will organize to accomplish it and even then if you can accomplish it after organization otherwise every single country with mass campaigns would get what it wants. What I want may not be what others want and thus there would be no popular demand for it and thus no popular organization and thus I would not get what I want. In a pricing system, with/without markets, etc. I would receive whatever I want as long as I am able to pay for it.



Thanks for the laugh -- your interpretation is downright comedic and welcome...(!)

The increasingly generalized scales of the 'tiers' depicted is what's relevant here.
Which made no sense at all to me.



(Grin!)

I know the meaning will become clear to you over time, if you want to be open to it....
I am open to it, if only to understand it in order to destroy it.



Increasingly collectivized and generalized aggregates of linked productive processes would provide increasing degrees of 'central planning', depending on actual conditions.
And why use "central planning" if you don't have central planning at all. Why even use the quotation marks? In other words you're stating that the more collectivized and centralized productive process are then the more they would be put under central planning and control? No shit? And what did you just create here? Nothing more than a centrally planned system with local scale government.



Purportedly, but I'm not going to accept your hypothetical specifics at face value.
Omfg how is that even a counter-argument reply to what I had presented as an argument!? Either learn to argue or concede.



Again you're just fabricating pessimistic specifics to support your overall defeatist interpretation.
No, I'm fabricating specific examples to prove that your system cannot work and will never work. The example can be replaced by thousands of others which would show that your system is nothing short of a DISASTER. My defeatist interpretations are only aimed at defeating YOUR NONSENSE in order to save humanity from ever trying out a suicidal system such as yours. Again, you ignore the entire argument. Good job avoiding the argument time and time again.



As a matter of social implementation I tend to agree with you here.
Oh gee wiz, he agrees on something.



It's obvious that you are too bound to past histories.
And it's obvious that you have no idea about past histories and have learned nothing from past histories that took your level of false assumptions, mass bullshits, etc. and failed.



Nope -- wasn't me, and that's not what my politics are about.
Neither were your replies above what my arguments are about. Oh and yes, that is what your politics are about, meeting the bare necessitis of need which you seem to beleive are nothing more than bread and water. You already, if I remember correctly it was you or someone else in this thread, admitted that you cannot eliminate scarcities for luxuries and thus your entire system is a disaster if you do not take that into consideration. You have no means by which to ensure that luxuries are rationed, to who, according to what, etc. but instead you give everything "according to need" regardless of anything else.



There are *degrees* of potential operation, from humane basics up to more exotic, specialized kinds of production.
All human basics need super-productivity, super-abundance, and full or almost full automation to give "according to need" rather than "according to [anything else]". This is just dealing with human basics, not even go up to the exotic. If you cannot meet an "according to need" criteria for human basics then you cannot move up anywhere to any "degree".



(Already responded-to.)
Which that reply was a disaster.



---
Left-over hyphens not used in your newly created words.

[ckaihatsu]

As a preface I'm going to note that I stopped short of a full response -- while I appreciate the peer review, many of your points are redundant.

I will look through the remaining content of your post and try to extract out any discrete points that have *not* been covered here. It would be helpful for the exchange if you could keep track, as well, of what's been clarified and what hasn't.





I feel as if I'm trying to explain that the world is round to someone who believes it is flat... Oh well.





Your consumption-oriented mentality is regrettable and very sad to see -- you think there is no way for cooperation and planning to overcome individualistic consumerism, even in positive, production-oriented directions.





Perhaps it is because the consumption-oriented mentality has gotten us where we are today,


Yes, granted, but any revolutionary would quickly point out that it's a double-edged sword -- while capitalism's fevered dynamic in world history is irrefutable, it also commodifies lives every day and reduces people to numbers in someone else's calculations.

You obviously *overstate* capitalism's importance, especially now that it has produced the means by which to finally and decisively *bury* it, and move on to better, *socialized* social relations of production.





not your "positive production-oriented directions". In fact, you are also wrong when it comes to your own system. Your system is based on an "according to need" concept, not an "according to production" concept and as such your system should in fact be an "individualistic consumerism" not a "positive production-oriented" system.


As I spelled-out in my previous response the model is flexible, and is open to perspective and emphasis, and to varying actual conditions -- you may see it from the "according to production" viewpoint if you like.





If you even would bother to notice that in that Communist adage it says "from EACH" and "to EACH", this is individualistic production and individualistic consumerism at its best. Cooperation and planning are to be built upon the bases of the individualistic consumerism which directs individualistic production, not the other way around.


This is all well and good, and you have made more than clear that you subscribe to this stance. Just keep in mind that others -- those to the left of your market socialism -- will prefer to emphasize the overarching socialized relations of production, including central planning, as the main initiative towards satisfying individualistic consumerism, on a mass scale.





My views are not the problem, my views are an attempt to solve the problem, but YOUR views are the problem as I have clearly shown to be the case time and time again.


No, I certainly don't accept your claims that you have "refuted" my stance, nor is my position any kind of "problem" -- you are being too dismissive from the relative (market-socialist) position that you occupy.





In fact, here's the main point that you quoted: "Today's society operates as it does purely because it is able to ration goods and limit consumption to those who have money. We cannot by any means do away with that restriction today or else the only "mass" we'll lead to are mass starvation, mass chaos, and mass murder."




You take what Capiatlism has and take them for granted for your system whilst ignoring everything that Capitalism has that allows it to give these favorable results which you take for granted. You take the results of Capitalism for granted without Capitalism just as one would take the results of the farmer without the farmer.


Keep going -- you're more than welcome to keep digging-in on the project of building a pedestal to capitalism.





All I need to do is point out that a given population must be -- by definition -- *insufficient* to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever, if that population doesn't include enough liberated labor of its own to 'get the ball rolling' in some manner, for the production called-for by its mass demands.





That made no sense at all in English. Seriously, stop that shit. I want you to actually use proper English rather than butcher it with the destruction of grammar, sentences, and the addition of terms that do not exist and make no sense as well as hyphens and asterisks in the English language where they are not needed and only seek to confuse and disorient. I do not have to explain why that part above made absolutely no sense in English, but I shall do so just to show you and everyone else that your sentences make absolutely no sense at all.




"All I need to do is point out that a given population must be -- by definition -- *insufficient* to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever, if that population doesn't include enough liberated labor of its own to 'get the ball rolling' in some manner, for the production called-for by its mass demands."

I shall replace the words properly by their synonyms and dissect that part properly.

"All I need to do is point out that a given population must be NOT ENOUGH (insufficient) to support an initial round of requests / demands for whatever for the production called-for by its mass demands."

The part between the two commas can be removed easily and the sentence should still have meaning. In your case, it does not. In fact, if we do so or even if we keep it, that sentence makes absolutely no sense at all. Your attempt at an argument from verbosity only leads to you making up words, butchering the English language, and confusing even yourself in an attempt to confuse others.


You *may* choose to ignore the *content* of my words, if you like -- it's an act of willful forfeiting on your part.





In other words, if a given locality can't provide its own liberated labor -- on fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery -- then it has to *impose* on the liberated labor of *others*, *outside* its own population, and so the locality would incur a public debt of labor credits to that exact amount of liberated-labor effort provided by others.





Good thing that you actually tried English this time. Sadly, that is not the issue which I spoke of at all. The issue is that the resources and production of Earth are FINITE and as such these resources and goods must be RATIONED in the best way possible to ensure the most optimal results possible. Nevertheless, no. You can speak of all the "fully collectivized, open source, freely available productive machinery" you want, but you will never have all those which you speak of.

You are attempting to claim that every locality will have its own "fully collectivized, open source, freely available productive machinery" whenever it needs them ignoring the fact that they cannot have them because they cannot resort to magic. In fact, if that were the case then the USSR would have had the best and most advanced technologies the world has ever seen, sadly that was not the case. What you are saying is essentially that if a locality can't provide its own labor then it needs to "buy" and hire wage-labor from other locality by paying them and incurring a public debt according to contribution?


If objective material conditions can at least provide for the basics of life and living to everyone, through socialized production, then there would no longer be any material basis for wage labor of any kind -- your interpreting here would *not* be valid.

I will correct it accordingly: '[E]ssentially that if a locality can't provide its own labor then it needs to "buy" and [mass-prioritize a proposal to request] [liberated] labor from [anyone, anywhere] by paying them [in labor credits] and incurring a public debt according to contribution.'





Good job there, you just found yourself an extremely primitive, inefficient, and minor form of an "according to contribution" system. So all in all what you just did was admit that an "according to contribution" system is necessary if a locality can't provide its own labor "on fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery".


The key word here is 'if' -- meaning that it's conditional based on actual conditions.





Since this is reality,


It all depends on actual conditions.





locality will never


"Never" -- ?

You presume to know everything there is to know about future actual conditions, well in advance.





be able to have these "fully collectivized, open-source, freely available productive machinery" and provide their own labor, ergo "according to contribution" would be the dominant system. Pro logic of yours.


Sheer assumption on your part.





Not true -- all individuals' (consumers') lists are prioritized by each respective individual, themselves.





Which are then aggregated to form collective demand and priorities regardless of individual demand and priorities. Yes, my point, you missed it and then returned to it.


Yes, for the *mass* scales of policy over *mass* production -- anything that people can pull off on a more ad hoc basis would be doable on unused (open-source) assets and resources.





You're mistaken -- there's no such "lottery" system of any sort.





Actually yes, there is. When thousands of people put product X on the top of their priority list, only 50 X products were made,


Then, to run with this scenario of yours, it would merely be an *interim* situation, with further efforts required to fulfill outstanding demand -- more organization would be needed to make the additional thousands of products that are being demanded.

(But you'd rather stick to a defeatist stance, to mire the scenario down in fatalism.)





you CANNOT supply thousands with only 50 products and ergo must resort to a selection process NOT based on contribution, NOT based on bidding, NOT based on who needs it more, but purely based on a random lottery system or a "first come first serve".


'First come, first served' and a random lottery system are two *different* things.





In fact, it would be a fucking massacre to include such two alternatives, in the first case I explained why on my criticism of your lottery system suggestion before, and on the second because of the disaster you would create that only the bread lines of the USSR and the Black Friday of the USSR come into comparison. People would literally kill each other over these products, they would resort to fights, theft, murder, crime, and so on to obtain these products. People would leave their work just to sit in line in order to obtain those products before anyone else gets there first. Your system is a disaster however you make it out to be.


More fatalism and sensationalism in service to it.





I don't see why you're experiencing such anxiety over 'hapless demand' -- if it happens, it happens. As you know, (liberated) labor is required for the provision of any good or service, so it's entirely within the domain of a liberated labor to simply say "Fuck you, we are not willing to put in the work that would be required to produce Specialty Item Y -- go fish."





In which case "liberated" labor would be unemployed and dropped off on the streets for refusing to contribute to the system as requested and demanded of it.


No, because you're being condescending to liberated labors' own history of self-organization, particularly that which enabled it to overthrow capitalism in a worldwide revolution -- the precedent for the post-capitalist socialized-production social order. Certainly such a self-organized population the world over would not "unemploy" itself and starve -- or any other kind of nightmare scenario from your imagination -- because it would actually collectively preside over a post-class-division world.





If you claim that this will not happen then liberated labor will be able to do whatever it wants regardless of the demands of society, and thus your entire system goes tumbling down the stairs like the train wreck it is.


More fatalistic sensationalism.





Workers need to either be incentivized OR coerced to do something. Your system offers neither, it merely wants "liberated" labor to do whatever it wants regardless of what anyone else wants for no reason other than them being "liberated" and thus able to tell anyone "Fuck you, we are not willing to put in the work that would be required to produce ANYTHING YOU WANT -- go fish."

In fact, all of that is nothing more than a long-winded means to say that special request items CANNOT and WILL NOT be fulfilled, as opposed to other systems which can and do fulfill them with a greater reward.


Your contentions here *require* a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolution world -- specifics which you do not, and could not possibly, have.





And why the borderline-neurotic concern over how the release of unused personal property would be handled -- ? It could simply be a general regulatory guideline, like 1-1/2 years or something, as the need arises. As with any mass demand, if social conditions really necessitated the freeing-up of "hoarded" personal resources en masse, it would be the issue and politics of the day and would have to be actively addressed and implemented on a societal scale.





Because you CANNOT determine which personal property is unused and which isn't.


Good! And I don't *want* to, either -- !





It is because if unused PERSONAL property were to be taken away if left unused, then people would NOT leave them unused even if they do not want them or actually use them just for the sake of keeping them. For example, I would not want to lose my gaming console, so I spend 5 minutes of each day using it just for the sake of not losing it. I would not want to lose any personal property of mine so I would spend a few minutes of each day using them just for the sake of it or just for the sake of abusing your useless system that cannot work.




You say 1-1/2 years? Then I'll use that personal property once every year, a few months, or a few months before the deadline.


Okay, so be it. You just "gamed" the system and "won" the right to your personal property, indefinitely. I would personally not give a shit one way or the other, unless greater, more-important mass concerns were to overlap here.





Nevertheless, that is not the issue, the issue is HOW are you going to determine what is used and what is not used? Are you going to implement trackers on each personal property? Are you going to resort to a Big Brother-esque monitoring system to spy on who's using what? In fact, do you even realize that used products can generally no longer be in fit form to be reused by others?

Hell if I want I could use the item and then break it before deadline just to have fun with it. I would receive NO penalty because there is absolutely NO COSTS incurred in the obtaining of the product and the separation with the product. Your system is by every means a horror that I would never wish to take part in. The last thing I'd like to see are some of my personal property being taken away by others, be them items of memorabilia and nostalgia or books, clothing, and reserve/spare items of scarcity.


Here's my position on the issue, from a past thread:





[H]ow much slack [would] the people of such a world [grant] to the domain of *sentiment* -- would personal possessions *increase*, in a hoarding kind of way, for expanding and expansive personal reasons, or would society frown on such harboring of sentimentality, since all items themselves would be freely available anyway -- ?

A formal economy would be good to preserve and encourage individuality, but from a strictly material standpoint wouldn't be absolutely *necessary*, as the degree of socialized life increased. Doubtless there would have to be some complex balancing of the two, in all aspects.


---





No, this contention is entirely of your own concoction, and I have made clear that the fulfillment of increasingly exotic goods and services would be wholly dependent on the cooperation of available liberated laborers, and available collectivized assets and resources.





No, that is not a concoction of mine, it is what you taken for granted as a false assumption for your system to work.




Increasingly exotic goods and services have nothing to do with cooperation of available labor nor do they have any reason to be produced by workers.





Increasingly exotic goods and services have [something] to do with cooperation of available labor [so there may be no] reason [for them] to be produced by workers.


With the edit I provided, your words are a good description of how a post-capitalist social reality would be, and it is also the main implication of my model. Our foresight cannot predict to what lengths of cooperation a self-liberated labor force would go to, so to try to predict exactly *which* exotic / luxury / specialty goods would or would not be produced, is sheer folly.





The workers share absolutely no relationship as in the case of kin altruism or small-scale mutual aid and altruism to allow the workers to even produce this difficult to manufacture and scarce exotic goods and services. These workers will still receive the same goods and services whether they produce enough or not because they receive according to need, not according to contribution.


Not true -- I'll remind you of this aspect:





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Material function

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]




Propagation

labor [supply] -- Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality


What these parts *mean* is that people's demands will be *qualified*, first by *themselves*, according to personal priorities, then within the general popular context, and finally by available liberated labor, which must also take objective material realities -- material availability -- into account.





In fact in such as system of disaster as yours, these workers could very well produce enough for themselves and halt production with various excuses in order to free up more leisure time for themselves or they could produce just enough for themselves and then a small amount and create an artificial scarcity which they can then use as a means of increasing the "value" of their goods and thus take part in barter and black markets.


I appreciate your imagination on *this* part, and will note that such workers would have to solidly *organize* to such an extent -- hypothetically -- or else *other* liberated laborers would fill in the gaps, more in line with popular demand.





Your system is a DISASTER, but your dogmatism has seemingly blinded you to that fact. Now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today, the exotic goods and services determined by the available laborers, assets, and resources of your system then these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced, WILL NOT be produced, have no means by which to rationally and most effectively allocate these goods, and have no means by which to ensure the loyalty and faithfulness of the producers to the consumers.


Again, this is more assumption on your part, given unknowable future specifics.





No, and I apologize for any mixed meanings across the various diagrams -- I prefer to emphasize the 'communist supply & demand' model, which uses a system of circulating weighted-labor-hour credits.

Furthermore I'll note that by *separating* the supply of liberated labor -- as through the paying-forward of labor credits in possession -- *from* the resulting material goods produced by that labor, there is *no exchangeability* of labor credits for material goods produced. This approach avoids all the pitfalls and inherent contradictions native to any *other* approach that -- errantly -- posits *valuations* across communist-type *collectivized* assets, resources, and goods.





I need a translator because that made no sense at all.





In other words, a genuinely liberated labor force should be respected and considered for its total effort of liberated labor put forth, *not* for the bulk material it produces. The results of its liberated labor would have been pre-planned, anyway, as per the daily prioritized aggregated lists of mass demands.





That's more like it. Observe how easy it is now to critique your argument now that it actually makes sense. You speak of respected and considered for the total effort put forth and not for the material produced. The disasters here are numerous.

You have absolutely no means which to calculate total effort if it is not through the material produced and thus cannot by any means properly respect and consider the total effort put forth because you have no means by which to measure and compare production and effort used.


Yes, I do -- it is here:





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





You have no price signals, you have no pricing mechanism, you have no market,


Not needed.





you have no centralized planning,


It is not precluded, and would most likely emerge out of necessity.





you have no form of remuneration according to contribution, etc. and as such you are completely unable to respect and consider the total effort put forth. Workers and consumers will receive all the same in terms of remuneration according to the effort put in


Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above.





because you disregard bulk material produced.


The bulk (and/or finished) material produced should *not* be valuated in any kind of way because it was all derived from natural resources -- resources that would be openly accessible to all in a post-capitalist world, since all *private* accumulations would be nullified.





You cannot give pay bonuses, rewards, and so on because you oppose an according to contribution system. Your system cannot guarantee quality because you have no intra-sectoral competition between workplaces and labors in the form of Socialist competition or otherwise.


Not necessary.





Your "liberated labor" also has absolutely no reason, incentive, or otherwise to put it much, if any, effort at all as they are not being remunerated according to effort or contribution but being remunerated according to need REGARDLESS of effort or contribution.


Not true -- again, demands vs. labor credits, and not a problem, even if *you* seem to think it would be.

[Theophys]

As a preface I'm going to note that I stopped short of a full response -- while I appreciate the peer review, many of your points are redundant.

I will look through the remaining content of your post and try to extract out any discrete points that have *not* been covered here. It would be helpful for the exchange if you could keep track, as well, of what's been clarified and what hasn't.

Right.



Yes, granted, but any revolutionary would quickly point out that it's a double-edged sword -- while capitalism's fevered dynamic in world history is irrefutable, it also commodifies lives every day and reduces people to numbers in someone else's calculations.
People will always need to be reduced to numbers for any economic calculation and planning to take place. I do not see any way around this until subsistence production was the dominant mode of production.



You obviously *overstate* capitalism's importance, especially now that it has produced the means by which to finally and decisively *bury* it, and move on to better, *socialized* social relations of production.

That's what was said in 1917. Look what happened. To bury it, you need a proper alternative that will attract support and be superior to Capitalism.



As I spelled-out in my previous response the model is flexible, and is open to perspective and emphasis, and to varying actual conditions -- you may see it from the "according to production" viewpoint if you like.

Right, then I do not see how it is "according to need", the whole point of it being mentioned.



This is all well and good, and you have made more than clear that you subscribe to this stance. Just keep in mind that others -- those to the left of your market socialism -- will prefer to emphasize the overarching socialized relations of production, including central planning, as the main initiative towards satisfying individualistic consumerism, on a mass scale.

Central planning will accompany my system in order to prevent the anarchy of production that takes place under Capitalist markets.



No, I certainly don't accept your claims that you have "refuted" my stance, nor is my position any kind of "problem" -- you are being too dismissive from the relative (market-socialist) position that you occupy.
I wonder why.


Keep going -- you're more than welcome to keep digging-in on the project of building a pedestal to capitalism.

Right.



You *may* choose to ignore the *content* of my words, if you like -- it's an act of willful forfeiting on your part.

Never do I forfeit anything. The "content" of your words made no sense, as I have shown, that's the issue, but I still did attempt to address it from what I seemingly understood from that broken English.



If objective material conditions can at least provide for the basics of life and living to everyone, through socialized production, then there would no longer be any material basis for wage labor of any kind -- your interpreting here would *not* be valid.

Actually there would still be every material basis for wage labor as long as any commodity in demand cannot be met through automation. When you supply the daily bread and water of people, they will still want butter, milk, computers, consoles, televisions, etc. You will need a system of distribution that allows you to distribute "fairly" according to contribution in order to reward and encourage production.



I will correct it accordingly: '[E]ssentially that if a locality can't provide its own labor then it needs to "buy" and [mass-prioritize a proposal to request] [liberated] labor from [anyone, anywhere] by paying them [in labor credits] and incurring a public debt according to contribution.'

Thanks. That essentially means that your system resorts to a system of remuneration "according to contribution" but not on the question of consumption. You leave remuneration according to contribution to labor notes used for projects, I do not see why this remuneration according to contribution should not expand into the sphere of consumption as well, especially as a transitional phase. Nevertheless, this act of buying labor is actually wage labor unless you can somehow determine the actual value of someone's labor-power and remunerate it fully. As for the public debt, how is that going to be repaid? You never explained this.



The key word here is 'if' -- meaning that it's conditional based on actual conditions.

And since that "if" will be the inevitable case in many localities that cannot supply it owns labor or has had its labor sent away or bought by other localities then my point remains.



It all depends on actual conditions.

Conditions which you need to base on today and the worst, not on dreams of goals which you may never achieve.



"Never" -- ?

You presume to know everything there is to know about future actual conditions, well in advance.

No, I just presume that conditions for any theory should base themselves on the reality today and take the worst aspects of society or expectations if they are to ever succeed. To base your claims on the worst of what we have today then you are safer than basing your claims on what we do not have today and you plan to create out of thin air such as super-production, super-abundance, and so on which you take for granted.



Sheer assumption on your part.

A realistic assumption unless you can create every single type of factory for every single type of product for each and every locality with enough labor for every single machine. Since that will not be the case, then my assumptions lay on solid ground.



Yes, for the *mass* scales of policy over *mass* production -- anything that people can pull off on a more ad hoc basis would be doable on unused (open-source) assets and resources.

Excuse me? How is that even a reply to what I said? I stated that the individual priority lists become aggregate sums of those individuals' priority lists which in turn leads to the unfulfillment of individual priorities on an individual basis.



Then, to run with this scenario of yours, it would merely be an *interim* situation, with further efforts required to fulfill outstanding demand -- more organization would be needed to make the additional thousands of products that are being demanded.

(But you'd rather stick to a defeatist stance, to mire the scenario down in fatalism.)

Your scenario is already mired in fatalism. Defeatism of destructive theories is necessary as long as you can provide a viable alternative. More organization would be needed to make additional products, but no more organization can be provided out of thin air as all organization is based on meeting the other priorities or the localities are already in huge public debts trying to attract labor. This "interim" period of yours is not so much an "interim" as it can be a permanent issue as in the case in the USSR where no amount of additional organization could solve the issues of shortages. You cannot simply say "we'll have more organization and solve it", because that will never happen otherwise the same would have happened in every single country where shortages exist. You can speak of this in theory of what you want to happen, but this will never be the case in real-life, it's too cumbersome, problematic, and non-existent. Even this organization may not even take place at all due to the unpopularity of the product while other priorities dominate the spheres of production.



'First come, first served' and a random lottery system are two *different* things.

Not really, the only difference is that in one of them people are randomly selected and the other people are randomly selected on who kills the other first to get there first out of thousands if not millions. At least in the lottery system people get the rare chance to actually get selected.



More fatalism and sensationalism in service to it.

I see nothing wrong with resorting to fatalism when speaking of fatalistic theories. Nevertheless, that is not a proper reply to my criticism of the both systems above. Try harder.



No, because you're being condescending to liberated labors' own history of self-organization, particularly that which enabled it to overthrow capitalism in a worldwide revolution -- the precedent for the post-capitalist socialized-production social order. Certainly such a self-organized population the world over would not "unemploy" itself and starve -- or any other kind of nightmare scenario from your imagination -- because it would actually collectively preside over a post-class-division world.

"Liberated" labor is only able to organize when the situation and material conditions allow for it to temporarily do so, when the entire proletariat is electrified, such as in the case of severe dramatic and emotional scenarios as can be seen during and directly after revolutions. After that instances, the proletariat and other "liberated" labor fall back into the shadow of their own accords. The self-organization only takes place during revolution, riots, strikes, and so on, but then they disappear. This self-organized population does not choose to unemploy and starve itself, that happens due to the civil wars and the revolutions with all the disorganization of the "self-organized" population. They do not have a single hive mind, they have millions of minds with trillions of different ideas, beliefs, solutions, etc. They cannot just "choose" to be employed and well-fed just as your system "chooses" to solve everything by "making it happen", especially if the scale is "the world over". It would be pure chaos to be left alone, that's why vanguard parties are necessary.



More fatalistic sensationalism.

More ignoring of arguments in favor of accusations. My argument is a valid concern which would prove to be detrimental to your system if left unchecked.



Your contentions here *require* a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolution world -- specifics which you do not, and could not possibly, have.


They only require reality and no magic, the former which you have nothing to do with and the latter which you depend on. Specifics have NOTHING to do with the argument I made. This is a general conclusion of your system and what you said, unless you somehow expect people to turn into magical beings of some sort that would solve any and all problems on Earth. I'm worried about your system, especially if you cannot and will not reply to proper criticisms of it.



Good! And I don't *want* to, either -- !

If you cannot determine which personal property is in use and which isn't then how the FUCK do you expect to take away personal property if left unused according to your system? That only leaves us with two conclusions: you will take everything regardless of use or you will not take anything away form anyone.



Okay, so be it. You just "gamed" the system and "won" the right to your personal property, indefinitely. I would personally not give a shit one way or the other, unless greater, more-important mass concerns were to overlap here.

And that's why your system is a disaster. You do not give a shit? Then why the hell would you even put into place such a policy of taking away unused property if you do not "give a shit one way or the other" if people "game" and "win" the system and you do nothing about it? Do you think I would be the only person to do so and that others will not do the same?



Here's my position on the issue, from a past thread:

Ogod.



[H]ow much slack [would] the people of such a world [grant] to the domain of *sentiment* -- would personal possessions *increase*, in a hoarding kind of way, for expanding and expansive personal reasons

This you have no problem with if people can "game" and "win" the system.



or would society frown on such harboring of sentimentality, since all items themselves would be freely available anyway -- ?

Yes, all items will be freely available because we live in a magical world of super-productivity, super-abundance, and automation for every single product. No. Society will frown upon it BECAUSE these products are given ferely without any restrictions. When a person sees another abusing the system and hoarding these goods at the expense of others who would not recieve them as a result then he will be frowned upon. If that "frowning upon" proves to be of no use and the individual in question still abuses the system and takes everything, then further action will be taken to stop him. If the legal system cannot do anything about it then people will take it into their own hands in the most gruesome ways possible - lynching.



A formal economy would be good to preserve and encourage individuality, but from a strictly material standpoint wouldn't be absolutely *necessary*, as the degree of socialized life increased. Doubtless there would have to be some complex balancing of the two, in all aspects.

Socialized life can never replace individuality. The individual is unique in that he has a mind of his own with actual demands and needs that rarely change, society does not. The individual is the only one that knows what he needs, wants, and desires.



With the edit I provided, your words are a good description of how a post-capitalist social reality would be, and it is also the main implication of my model. Our foresight cannot predict to what lengths of cooperation a self-liberated labor force would go to, so to try to predict exactly *which* exotic / luxury / specialty goods would or would not be produced, is sheer folly.

And here we see him resort to a religious means of ambiguous interpretation. You claim that people will simply "make it happen" when there is absolutely no means by which to "make it happen" nor any basis for them to "make it happen". Since exactly our "foresight cannot predict to what lengths of cooperation a self-liberated labor force would go to" then that is exactly why you CANNOT take the best and expect the best as a given for your society as you have previously done. I, on the other hand, prefer to base my "foresight" on history and today to bring out a conclusion. If the society of the future happens to create a "socialist humanity" then so be it, but in the very high chance that it does not then I can and have already accounted for it.




What these parts *mean* is that people's demands will be *qualified*, first by *themselves*, according to personal priorities, then within the general popular context, and finally by available liberated labor, which must also take objective material realities -- material availability -- into account.

What are you trying to say, really? That demand will be "qualified" on multiple scales before production takes place? By "qualified" I think you mean "determined/based on".


So what is your point because that has nothing to do with what I had said? That deals with the DEMAND part of the issue, not the PRODUCTION and incentives FOR PRODUCTION of exotic, hard to produce, and rare goods.



I appreciate your imagination on *this* part, and will note that such workers would have to solidly *organize* to such an extent -- hypothetically -- or else *other* liberated laborers would fill in the gaps, more in line with popular demand.

What? I understood little from that. Please use actual English. I think you tried to say that if people resort to such an abuse of the system as I have explained then other workers would replace them? If labor is liberated then to replace it would to coerce it and force it into realms which it does not desire/want. Liberated labor should be able to act freely as it wants, not as society wants it to act or else it is not liberated. These workers who are abusing the system will inevitably organize to abuse it for their own interests at the expense of other strangers, obviously. If other "liberated" workers attempt to fill in the gaps, then the organized workers would stop them just as the organized workers of today attempt to stop strikebreakers, but much more violently. That is, of course, if there is even a reason for those workers to even work in the first place. They are not getting paid nor is there any reason for tehm to work as distribution is "according to NEED" not "according to contribution/work/input".




Again, this is more assumption on your part, given unknowable future specifics.

Assumption that bases itself on your own assumptions and theories which is quite valid as a criticism as opposed to your own false assumptions which you base your entire system upon. I am making a valid argument which you, again, ignore and avoid. I am giving actual reasons as to why "exotic goods" would not be produced, you need to address them or concede the point as you have done so above.



Yes, I do -- it is here:

Surveys are not a proper means by which to calculate anything. Individual subjective views of difficulty, risk, hazards, etc. have nothing to do with the actual job and its difficulty, risk, hazards, etc. especially if it is the workers themselves determining this. Hell, even my argument remains, you do not even include effort, which was the main point. Oh and no, you cannot determine effort by surveys made by individuals EXTERNAL to the workplace and cannot do the same without restrictions for individualists INTERNAL to the workplace lest they abuse it to maximize utility and benefits to themselves at no expense to others.



Not needed.

Actually they are needed, otherwise your system is a disaster UNLESS you have super-productive, infinite resources, super-abundance, and full or almost full automation.



It is not precluded, and would most likely emerge out of necessity.

Just as a rationing system would rise out of necessity in order to deal with the scarcities of your system.



Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above.

Incorrect? YOUR reply is incorrect. The excerpts above make absolutely NO mention of effort and no means by which to properly measure effort. Laborers are consumers and vice versa. What "liberated" laborers receive in labor credits they cannot use for consumption, their consumption demands are the SAME as the consumers' demands. People will not receive goods based on amount of effort put it. Consumers do not nor do the "liberated" laborers. Oh and do I even need to remind you that your "labor-notes" have nothing to do with consumption and thus have nothing to do with the argument and point that I made?



The bulk (and/or finished) material produced should *not* be valuated in any kind of way because it was all derived from natural resources -- resources that would be openly accessible to all in a post-capitalist world, since all *private* accumulations would be nullified.

Bullshit. That is the most ridiculous shit I have ever heard. Natural resources ARE SCARCE. They cannot be made openly accessible to all unless you want widespread environmental destruction and abuse of nature. They need to be properly rationed and managed by skilled workers that know what they're doing. The last thing I'd like to see are a bunch of unskilled rabble trying to extract resources from an oil rig or lumber mill and blowing or killing themselves in the process and the rest of the facility and workers. Materials produced MUST, not should, they MUST be valuated PURELY BECAUSE they are derived from FINITE and LIMITED natural resources. We need to impose restrictions and ration the consumption of these resources in order prevent their depletion. Private accumulations WILL NOT be nullified, they will remain and be allowed as long as they can "game" and "win" the system since you evidently "do not give a shit" if they do. You speak as if private accumulations are the reasons for scarcity and problems today rather than it is demand outweighing supply and the scarcity of resources. Ridiculous. Go take a few courses in economics and learn why we have rationing and monetary systems.



Not necessary.

Actually, yes necessary. Without intra-sectoral competition, you cannot have varied goods in order to attract consumers and thus profit to one specific company which is the most appealing but instead your system only wants to produce unified and bland low quality goods in large quantities in order to satisfy demand as what happened in the USSR just for the sake of satisfying demand with absolutely no other incentive such as attracting consumers, increasing profits, etc.



Not true -- again, demands vs. labor credits, and not a problem, even if *you* seem to think it would be.
For the last time, your "labor notes" have NOTHING to do with consumption, they have to do with managing projects as some form of useless currency which no one would have any use for.

[ckaihatsu]

As a preface I'm going to note that I stopped short of a full response -- while I appreciate the peer review, many of your points are redundant.

I will look through the remaining content of your post and try to extract out any discrete points that have *not* been covered here. It would be helpful for the exchange if you could keep track, as well, of what's been clarified and what hasn't.





Right.





Yes, granted, but any revolutionary would quickly point out that it's a double-edged sword -- while capitalism's fevered dynamic in world history is irrefutable, it also commodifies lives every day and reduces people to numbers in someone else's calculations.





People will always need to be reduced to numbers for any economic calculation and planning to take place. I do not see any way around this until subsistence production was the dominant mode of production.


By 'subsistence production', are you relenting and acknowledging a possible liberated mass production for the sake of satisfying mass humane needs -- ?





You obviously *overstate* capitalism's importance, especially now that it has produced the means by which to finally and decisively *bury* it, and move on to better, *socialized* social relations of production.





That's what was said in 1917. Look what happened. To bury it, you need a proper alternative that will attract support and be superior to Capitalism.


You're welcome.





As I spelled-out in my previous response the model is flexible, and is open to perspective and emphasis, and to varying actual conditions -- you may see it from the "according to production" viewpoint if you like.





Right, then I do not see how it is "according to need", the whole point of it being mentioned.


Okay, well, this could be a breakthrough in the deadlock....

I mean to indicate that actual conditions will be the overwhelmingly characterizing factor -- if, in implementing the model, a locality is more liberated-labor-*supplying*, then it would be 'according to contribution' in the sense of there being much organized *production*, even to highly nuanced -- as for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods -- extents.

Obversely, if a locality is more liberated-labor-*demanding*, then its main characteristic would be 'according to need', most probably resulting in an overall mass production geared towards supplying greatest-common-denominator, humane needs, and *not* for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods.





This is all well and good, and you have made more than clear that you subscribe to this stance. Just keep in mind that others -- those to the left of your market socialism -- will prefer to emphasize the overarching socialized relations of production, including central planning, as the main initiative towards satisfying individualistic consumerism, on a mass scale.





Central planning will accompany my system in order to prevent the anarchy of production that takes place under Capitalist markets.


Certainly, and it's appreciated in the same sense that a genuinely benevolent technocratic administration (superstructure) would be a solid improvement over what we have now under capitalism.

Many, though, would find much to critique in the way of *any* kind of bureaucratic collectivism, including a technocratic or market-socialist one.





If objective material conditions can at least provide for the basics of life and living to everyone, through socialized production, then there would no longer be any material basis for wage labor of any kind -- your interpreting here would *not* be valid.





Actually there would still be every material basis for wage labor as long as any commodity in demand cannot be met through automation. When you supply the daily bread and water of people, they will still want butter, milk, computers, consoles, televisions, etc. You will need a system of distribution that allows you to distribute "fairly" according to contribution in order to reward and encourage production.


I agree with your premise here -- fortunately, the prospect of a continued mass automated production is very good and very realistic, technologically speaking.

Services -- as distinct from the production of goods -- could remain very much on a negotiated and quasi-competitive basis, hence the whole 'labor credits' method and system that resembles today's cash. Where the providing of (liberated) services happens to leverage / effect the mass production of goods, such goods would be distributed according to pre-planned specifications ('demand'), and would *not* be exchangeable for labor credits or any other material consideration.





I will correct it accordingly: '[E]ssentially that if a locality can't provide its own labor then it needs to "buy" and [mass-prioritize a proposal to request] [liberated] labor from [anyone, anywhere] by paying them [in labor credits] and incurring a public debt according to contribution.'





Thanks. That essentially means that your system resorts to a system of remuneration "according to contribution" but not on the question of consumption.


Yes, correct.





You leave remuneration according to contribution to labor notes used for projects,


Labor 'credits', yes.





I do not see why this remuneration according to contribution should not expand into the sphere of consumption as well, especially as a transitional phase.


It's because, given a *sufficient* supply ("surplus", or "abundance") of mass-produced goods, consumption would not be in a 'one-to-one' ratio with the liberated labor supplied for the production -- because of the material-leveraging effect of automation.

In other words it would be *meaningless* to try to even *index* consumption according to bulk labor provided for that production and consumption, much less to try to *ration* consumption according to either material output or finite liberated labor provided. Such attempts would be more trouble than they're worth, as long as there was enough ('abundant') production to address that corresponding 'demand' for it.

This is why the only economic quantifying process -- using labor credits -- is kept strictly within the domain of liberated labor *only*, de-hinged from bulk production and consumption of resulting goods.





Nevertheless, this act of buying labor is actually wage labor unless you can somehow determine the actual value of someone's labor-power and remunerate it fully. As for the public debt, how is that going to be repaid? You never explained this.


It's *not* wage labor because there could not be any 'blackmail' or coercion against the self-liberated population -- as over the means of their life and living -- because the population would have already liberated the *means* of decent life and living -- mass production -- for themselves, collectively, as part and parcel of the revolution that overthrows the rule of capital.

The tracking of liberated labor effort put forth would then be a purely 'internal' matter, worldwide, as through labor credits, with the material results of mass-produced goods meant solely for mass consumption, *not* for 'exchange value' in any sense of the term.

A locality's public debt of labor credits would be a simple, special case in that a locality's formal *political* standing, or credibility, would suffer the more it used *others'* liberated labor while at the same time not bringing in enough labor credits from within its own population to offset that (external) debt. An increasing debt would be an objective indicator that the locality is also far less able, if at all, to fund sufficient liberated labor for any given project, no matter *how* popularly supported by mass demand.





The key word here is 'if' -- meaning that it's conditional based on actual conditions.





And since that "if" will be the inevitable case in many localities that cannot supply it owns labor or has had its labor sent away or bought by other localities then my point remains.


Nope, sorry -- again you're insisting on a case of specifics ('inevitable') that *cannot* be surmised. You only belie your own pessimism with such an invention of circumstances.





It all depends on actual conditions.





Conditions which you need to base on today and the worst, not on dreams of goals which you may never achieve.


Or, more constructively, how about basing those feasible conditions on 'today and better' -- ?





"Never" -- ?

You presume to know everything there is to know about future actual conditions, well in advance.





No, I just presume that conditions for any theory should base themselves on the reality today and take the worst aspects of society or expectations if they are to ever succeed. To base your claims on the worst of what we have today then you are safer than basing your claims on what we do not have today and you plan to create out of thin air such as super-production, super-abundance, and so on which you take for granted.


Sheer pessimism on your part.





Sheer assumption on your part.





A realistic assumption unless you can create every single type of factory for every single type of product for each and every locality with enough labor for every single machine. Since that will not be the case, then my assumptions lay on solid ground.


Or, there will be a *gradient* of production across all types of mass demands, with less fulfillment as specialization / difficulty / luxury increases.

Given that *demand* for specialized goods is *itself* specialized, or more-constrained than that for average, basic, goods, there could very well be a rough *corresponding* of available liberated labor to specialized demand.





Yes, for the *mass* scales of policy over *mass* production -- anything that people can pull off on a more ad hoc basis would be doable on unused (open-source) assets and resources.





Excuse me? How is that even a reply to what I said? I stated that the individual priority lists become aggregate sums of those individuals' priority lists which in turn leads to the unfulfillment of individual priorities on an individual basis.


In other words, smaller-scale autonomous production may be just the thing to fill in that which mass-aggregated-driven mass production does *not* address.





Then, to run with this scenario of yours, it would merely be an *interim* situation, with further efforts required to fulfill outstanding demand -- more organization would be needed to make the additional thousands of products that are being demanded.

(But you'd rather stick to a defeatist stance, to mire the scenario down in fatalism.)





Your scenario is already mired in fatalism. Defeatism of destructive theories is necessary as long as you can provide a viable alternative. More organization would be needed to make additional products,




but no more organization can be provided out of thin air as all organization is based on meeting the other priorities or the localities are already in huge public debts trying to attract labor.


This is where *you're* positing impossible, fatalistic conditions arbitrarily, simply to summarily dismiss any potential feasible possibilities that *may* (positively) exist.

(And, as a matter of technical accuracy, any locality that has run up a sizeable debt of labor credits would simply be at a political standstill until its own population addressed the outstanding debt by agreeing to work for labor credits, as provided-for in the demand-driven proposals and policy packages of *other* localities.)





This "interim" period of yours is not so much an "interim" as it can be a permanent issue as in the case in the USSR where no amount of additional organization could solve the issues of shortages. You cannot simply say "we'll have more organization and solve it", because that will never happen otherwise the same would have happened in every single country where shortages exist. You can speak of this in theory of what you want to happen, but this will never be the case in real-life, it's too cumbersome, problematic, and non-existent. Even this organization may not even take place at all due to the unpopularity of the product while other priorities dominate the spheres of production.


You seem to think that the record books of history provide *all* combinations and outcomes that are potentially possible -- as though the world going forward is *historically* determined, entirely.

If everyone thought this way then the world *would* be fatally bound to the fate of what has previously transpired, even if only once, and all possible futures would have to endlessly repeat the precedent, whatever it happened to be.





'First come, first served' and a random lottery system are two *different* things.





Not really, the only difference is that in one of them people are randomly selected and the other people are randomly selected on who kills the other first to get there first out of thousands if not millions. At least in the lottery system people get the rare chance to actually get selected.


(I have the urge to thank you here for your fascinating, consistently dark imagination. Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature.)





No, because you're being condescending to liberated labors' own history of self-organization, particularly that which enabled it to overthrow capitalism in a worldwide revolution -- the precedent for the post-capitalist socialized-production social order. Certainly such a self-organized population the world over would not "unemploy" itself and starve -- or any other kind of nightmare scenario from your imagination -- because it would actually collectively preside over a post-class-division world.





"Liberated" labor is only able to organize when the situation and material conditions allow for it to temporarily do so, when the entire proletariat is electrified, such as in the case of severe dramatic and emotional scenarios as can be seen during and directly after revolutions. After that instances, the proletariat and other "liberated" labor fall back into the shadow of their own accords. The self-organization only takes place during revolution, riots, strikes, and so on, but then they disappear. This self-organized population does not choose to unemploy and starve itself, that happens due to the civil wars and the revolutions with all the disorganization of the "self-organized" population. They do not have a single hive mind, they have millions of minds with trillions of different ideas, beliefs, solutions, etc. They cannot just "choose" to be employed and well-fed just as your system "chooses" to solve everything by "making it happen", especially if the scale is "the world over". It would be pure chaos to be left alone, that's why vanguard parties are necessary.


If vanguardism is called-for, then I would support such an approach to the question of political organization.

The means of mass (industrial) production *must* be wielded by the proletariat if such hurdles are to be surmounted.





More fatalistic sensationalism.





More ignoring of arguments in favor of accusations.


I'm not *accusing* -- I'm *characterizing* and *dismissing* your baseless, arbitrary, dark conclusions.





My argument is a valid concern which would prove to be detrimental to your system if left unchecked.


---





Your contentions here *require* a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolution world -- specifics which you do not, and could not possibly, have.





They only require reality and no magic, the former which you have nothing to do with and the latter which you depend on. Specifics have NOTHING to do with the argument I made. This is a general conclusion of your system and what you said, unless you somehow expect people to turn into magical beings of some sort that would solve any and all problems on Earth. I'm worried about your system, especially if you cannot and will not reply to proper criticisms of it.


---





Good! And I don't *want* to, either -- !





If you cannot determine which personal property is in use and which isn't then how the FUCK do you expect to take away personal property if left unused according to your system? That only leaves us with two conclusions: you will take everything regardless of use or you will not take anything away form anyone.


Again, you're imputing some kind of agency onto my person in particular where none exists, or could possibly exist. In the context of the 'communist supply & demand' model I would be a liberated laborer, like anyone else, under no duress to contribute work, and with a certain personal possession of labor credits, or none, and some personal possessions. I would be able to participate in all political matters, as for those concerned with liberated mass production, and would be able to submit my daily personal prioritized political demands, like anyone else.





Okay, so be it. You just "gamed" the system and "won" the right to your personal property, indefinitely. I would personally not give a shit one way or the other, unless greater, more-important mass concerns were to overlap here.





And that's why your system is a disaster. You do not give a shit? Then why the hell would you even put into place such a policy of taking away unused property if you do not "give a shit one way or the other" if people "game" and "win" the system and you do nothing about it? Do you think I would be the only person to do so and that others will not do the same?


You're not seeing that it could very well *not* be an issue of *any* concern to anyone else. Consider that the act of everyone "hoarding" everything they could within sight, every day, indefinitely, would result in folly as no one could realistically *control* everything they've laid claim to, in realtime, since we are physically constrained to *one location* in physical space at any given moment.





Here's my position on the issue, from a past thread:





Ogod.





[H]ow much slack [would] the people of such a world [grant] to the domain of *sentiment* -- would personal possessions *increase*, in a hoarding kind of way, for expanding and expansive personal reasons





This you have no problem with if people can "game" and "win" the system.


Go for it. Change your very politics in the process of that pursuit.





or would society frown on such harboring of sentimentality, since all items themselves would be freely available anyway -- ?





Yes, all items will be freely available because we live in a magical world of super-productivity, super-abundance, and automation for every single product. No. Society will frown upon it BECAUSE these products are given ferely without any restrictions. When a person sees another abusing the system and hoarding these goods at the expense of others who would not recieve them as a result then he will be frowned upon. If that "frowning upon" proves to be of no use and the individual in question still abuses the system and takes everything, then further action will be taken to stop him. If the legal system cannot do anything about it then people will take it into their own hands in the most gruesome ways possible - lynching.


Again you fail to disappoint the audience with your sparklingly dark imagination.





A formal economy would be good to preserve and encourage individuality, but from a strictly material standpoint wouldn't be absolutely *necessary*, as the degree of socialized life increased. Doubtless there would have to be some complex balancing of the two, in all aspects.





Socialized life can never replace individuality. The individual is unique in that he has a mind of his own with actual demands and needs that rarely change, society does not. The individual is the only one that knows what he needs, wants, and desires.


Agreed.





With the edit I provided, your words are a good description of how a post-capitalist social reality would be, and it is also the main implication of my model. Our foresight cannot predict to what lengths of cooperation a self-liberated labor force would go to, so to try to predict exactly *which* exotic / luxury / specialty goods would or would not be produced, is sheer folly.





And here we see him resort to a religious means of ambiguous interpretation. You claim that people will simply "make it happen" when there is absolutely no means by which to "make it happen" nor any basis for them to "make it happen".


Not true -- the proletariat's control of mass production would be the material basis.





Since exactly our "foresight cannot predict to what lengths of cooperation a self-liberated labor force would go to" then that is exactly why you CANNOT take the best and expect the best as a given for your society as you have previously done.


Then you're misunderstanding. I'm not trying to *predict* *anything*.





I, on the other hand, prefer to base my "foresight" on history and today to bring out a conclusion. If the society of the future happens to create a "socialist humanity" then so be it, but in the very high chance that it does not then I can and have already accounted for it.


Your "accounting for the very high chance that a society of the future does not create a socialist humanity" is simply political conservatism on the part of you and your politics.





What these parts *mean* is that people's demands will be *qualified*, first by *themselves*, according to personal priorities, then within the general popular context, and finally by available liberated labor, which must also take objective material realities -- material availability -- into account.





What are you trying to say, really? That demand will be "qualified" on multiple scales before production takes place? By "qualified" I think you mean "determined/based on".


Yes -- what about that part do you find unclear -- ?





So what is your point because that has nothing to do with what I had said? That deals with the DEMAND part of the issue, not the PRODUCTION and incentives FOR PRODUCTION of exotic, hard to produce, and rare goods.


Here's back to your point:





The workers share absolutely no relationship as in the case of kin altruism or small-scale mutual aid and altruism to allow the workers to even produce this difficult to manufacture and scarce exotic goods and services.


Okay, fair enough -- agreed.





These workers will still receive the same goods and services whether they produce enough or not because they receive according to need, not according to contribution.


This is true, in a sense -- since 'mass demand' is de-linked from any and all work efforts, one's contribution of work effort is not directly linked-to, or does not directly determine, what one receives in the way of consumption. Rather, since, by definition, all of society and its production would be *collectivized*, it would be a *collective* process that mediates exactly what work is performed and how the resulting material output is distributed.





I appreciate your imagination on *this* part, and will note that such workers would have to solidly *organize* to such an extent -- hypothetically -- or else *other* liberated laborers would fill in the gaps, more in line with popular demand.





What? I understood little from that. Please use actual English. I think you tried to say that if people resort to such an abuse of the system as I have explained then other workers would replace them? If labor is liberated then to replace it would to coerce it and force it into realms which it does not desire/want. Liberated labor should be able to act freely as it wants, not as society wants it to act or else it is not liberated. These workers who are abusing the system will inevitably organize to abuse it for their own interests at the expense of other strangers, obviously. If other "liberated" workers attempt to fill in the gaps, then the organized workers would stop them


Or they *wouldn't* (be able to stop them), depending on actual conditions / circumstances.





just as the organized workers of today attempt to stop strikebreakers, but much more violently.


Point taken.





That is, of course, if there is even a reason for those workers to even work in the first place. They are not getting paid nor is there any reason for tehm to work as distribution is "according to NEED" not "according to contribution/work/input".


So here then is the outstanding question: *Would* a liberated labor force provide any labor if there was nothing coercing them to do so, *and* their personal material needs were being adequately supplied 'according to need' -- ?

I, obviously, would say 'yes', based on an interpretation of humanity / human nature that says that people would autonomously work at socially valuable tasks *independently* of external indicators or influences.





Again, this is more assumption on your part, given unknowable future specifics.





Assumption that bases itself on your own assumptions and theories which is quite valid as a criticism as opposed to your own false assumptions which you base your entire system upon. I am making a valid argument which you, again, ignore and avoid. I am giving actual reasons as to why "exotic goods" would not be produced, you need to address them or concede the point as you have done so above.


Okay, to return to your point:





Your system is a DISASTER, but your dogmatism has seemingly blinded you to that fact. Now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today, the exotic goods and services determined by the available laborers, assets, and resources of your system then these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced, WILL NOT be produced, have no means by which to rationally and most effectively allocate these goods, and have no means by which to ensure the loyalty and faithfulness of the producers to the consumers.


I characterized this as an assumption because you are simply asserting a contention -- by what means are you concluding that 'available laborers, assets, and resources' would mean that 'these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced [and] WILL NOT be produced' -- ?





Yes, I do -- it is here:





Surveys are not a proper means by which to calculate anything. Individual subjective views of difficulty, risk, hazards, etc. have nothing to do with the actual job and its difficulty, risk, hazards, etc.


So you're saying that the workers themselves are *not* the best judges over working conditions -- ?





especially if it is the workers themselves determining this. Hell, even my argument remains, you do not even include effort, which was the main point.


'Effort' is *implied* by 'difficulty and/or hazard' -- *times* actual labor hours.





Oh and no, you cannot determine effort by surveys made by individuals EXTERNAL to the workplace


This would be exit surveys of workers themselves, at those respective work roles -- there is nothing that indicates, or corresponds to *your* (faulty) interpretation of 'surveys made by individuals EXTERNAL to the workplace'.





and cannot do the same without restrictions for individualists INTERNAL to the workplace lest they abuse it to maximize utility and benefits to themselves at no expense to others.


Okay, so you're saying that, on a scale of 1 to 10, *everyone* is just going to put down a '10' for 'most difficult' for *whatever* work role they just did, just to 'maximize utility and benefits to themselves at no expense to others' -- ? So then *how exactly* would such exaggeration maximize utility and benefits to themselves in this way?





You have no price signals, you have no pricing mechanism, you have no market,






Not needed.





Actually they are needed, otherwise your system is a disaster UNLESS you have super-productive, infinite resources, super-abundance, and full or almost full automation.


Nope. I disagree.





It is not precluded, and would most likely emerge out of necessity.





Just as a rationing system would rise out of necessity in order to deal with the scarcities of your system.


Or, more positively, instead of a rationing system, production would be increased to fulfill demand.





Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above.





Incorrect? YOUR reply is incorrect. The excerpts above make absolutely NO mention of effort and no means by which to properly measure effort.





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived


In other words, exit surveys at every formally defined work role would tally people's estimations of it, on a standardized scale -- like '1 through 10'. The average scale for any given formal work role -- '1 through 10' -- would be the number that's *multiplied* to any actual labor hours performed, by anyone, to determine the *rate of labor credits* handed-over per labor hour for that respective labor role.

So, for example, if 1,000 workers at 'tuna fish harvesting' responded with an average of '6' for that work role, then that work role would have a multiplier of 6 for every labor hour, for labor credits, meaning that 6 labor credits would have to be handed over for every labor hour worked for 'tuna fish harvesting'.





Laborers are consumers and vice versa. What "liberated" laborers receive in labor credits they cannot use for consumption, their consumption demands are the SAME as the consumers' demands. People will not receive goods based on amount of effort put it. Consumers do not nor do the "liberated" laborers. Oh and do I even need to remind you that your "labor-notes" have nothing to do with consumption and thus have nothing to do with the argument and point that I made?


Yes, as explained earlier, contribution of work is de-linked from fulfillment of demand.





The bulk (and/or finished) material produced should *not* be valuated in any kind of way because it was all derived from natural resources -- resources that would be openly accessible to all in a post-capitalist world, since all *private* accumulations would be nullified.





Bullshit. That is the most ridiculous shit I have ever heard. Natural resources ARE SCARCE. They cannot be made openly accessible to all unless you want widespread environmental destruction and abuse of nature. They need to be properly rationed and managed by skilled workers that know what they're doing. The last thing I'd like to see are a bunch of unskilled rabble trying to extract resources from an oil rig or lumber mill and blowing or killing themselves in the process and the rest of the facility and workers.


It's interesting that you assume that a post-capitalist liberated labor force would distribute itself inappropriately, to where unskilled workers would be attempting to do work they are not ready to do.





Materials produced MUST, not should, they MUST be valuated PURELY BECAUSE they are derived from FINITE and LIMITED natural resources. We need to impose restrictions and ration the consumption of these resources in order prevent their depletion.




Private accumulations WILL NOT be nullified, they will remain and be allowed as long as they can "game" and "win" the system since you evidently "do not give a shit" if they do.


Now you're conflating 'personal possessions' with 'private accumulations' -- the former refers to use-value for one's person *only*, while the latter has to do with the use of capital to direct productive activity.





You speak as if private accumulations are the reasons for scarcity and problems today rather than it is demand outweighing supply and the scarcity of resources.


If this is what you stand by then you are *not* a revolutionary.





Ridiculous. Go take a few courses in economics and learn why we have rationing and monetary systems.


Pass -- thanks.





Not necessary.





Actually, yes necessary. Without intra-sectoral competition, you cannot have varied goods in order to attract consumers and thus profit to one specific company which is the most appealing but instead your system only wants to produce unified and bland low quality goods in large quantities in order to satisfy demand as what happened in the USSR just for the sake of satisfying demand with absolutely no other incentive such as attracting consumers, increasing profits, etc.


Or, if production is allowed to happen at various scales, there may be those who would autonomously 'innovate' different, various approaches to a given 'problem'. Broader co-administration over liberated mass production could certainly take up alternative, innovated approaches to product design as a matter of administrative politics.





Your "liberated labor" also has absolutely no reason, incentive, or otherwise to put it much, if any, effort at all as they are not being remunerated according to effort or contribution but being remunerated according to need REGARDLESS of effort or contribution.





Not true -- again, demands vs. labor credits, and not a problem, even if *you* seem to think it would be.





For the last time, your "labor notes" have NOTHING to do with consumption, they have to do with managing projects


True.





as some form of useless currency which no one would have any use for.


Contending something does not make it so.

[Theophys]

By 'subsistence production', are you relenting and acknowledging a possible liberated mass production for the sake of satisfying mass humane needs -- ?


No, I'm referring to a primitive mode of production that bases itself on local decentralized and isolated production by each for his own/family.



You're welcome.


What do you mean "you're welcome"? I just said that your system will end up like the Utopian dreams of the Bolsheviks when faced with reality: glass shattering on concrete.



Okay, well, this could be a breakthrough in the deadlock....


Hopefully.



I mean to indicate that actual conditions will be the overwhelmingly characterizing factor -- if, in implementing the model, a locality is more liberated-labor-*supplying*, then it would be 'according to contribution' in the sense of there being much organized *production*, even to highly nuanced -- as for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods -- extents.

Obversely, if a locality is more liberated-labor-*demanding*, then its main characteristic would be 'according to need', most probably resulting in an overall mass production geared towards supplying greatest-common-denominator, humane needs, and *not* for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods.


And that made absolutely no sense at all. I'm serious, I'm not trying to ignore anything at all, I actually do not understand what you're trying to say. You're the only person I have debated with thus far that I cannot understand what the hell he's talking about. Not because of you having advanced English, but of resorting intentionally to mystification, obfuscation, abstraction, and creating new terms which have absolutely no meaning to anyone else but you. This nothing more than an argument from verbosity logical fallacy, look it up. You do not want to make others understand what you're talking about and instead intentionally use such fallacies to confuse your opponent without allowing him to know what the fuck you're talking about.

Wait so if a locality has a large supply of labor then it would be an according to contribution system, but when it has a high demand on labor then it is an according to need system? I just... What? "Liberated-labor-*demanding" I interpreted to mean "labor demanding" and thus a high demand on labor and so on for the issue of supply. If one locality has a high supply of labor then why would it need an "according to contribution" system in your model? An "according to contribution" system is necessary in cases of scarcity, in this case scarcity of labor, to reward production, productivity, create incentives, and attract labor. This would be completely not necessary for localities with a huge supply of labor. A locality with a high demand on labor would seek to attract labor and thus should resort to an "according to contribution" system in order to reward efficiency, productivity, contribution, etc. to make do with the few laborers it has at its disposal and maximize what it can reap from them. This is on the question of labor and attracting it, not on the question of consumption, of course.

On the question of consumption, you'll still need an "according to contribution" system as long as you use labor, have no super-productivity, have no super-abundance, and even if you have finite resources. This gets more important if those conditions apply to specific goods, such as luxury goods which would need to be rationed either way.

But then you speak of a locality with a high demand on labor focusing on basic needs rather than luxury goods whilst implementing an "according to need" system and entirely ignoring "according to contribution". That is a disaster. Firstly, an "according to need" system encourages consumption and demand by removing any and all restrictions on demand. Secondly, such a system does not utilize its labor force to the maximum capability possible and thus make every use of what it has but instead gives them no incentive to produce and rewards them all the same regardless if they produce anything properly, effectively, in large amounts, etc. Thirdly, in a locality with a high demand on labor would generally thus have a low supply of labor and ergo machinery left unmanned, a situation of underproduction, and so on making an "according to need" system not viable and an "according to contribution" system a NECESSITY.

As such, however you twist it, it's a disaster, but of course that's from what I interpreted from that horrible butchery of the English language.



Certainly, and it's appreciated in the same sense that a genuinely benevolent technocratic administration (superstructure) would be a solid improvement over what we have now under capitalism.

Many, though, would find much to critique in the way of *any* kind of bureaucratic collectivism, including a technocratic or market-socialist one.


Let them. I'd like to see their alternative.



I agree with your premise here -- fortunately, the prospect of a continued mass automated production is very good and very realistic, technologically speaking.


An assumption which I am not ready to base anything on. There are still numerous under-developed and developing countries, only advanced countries have hints of automated production and yet they still require the massive use of labor.



Services -- as distinct from the production of goods -- could remain very much on a negotiated and quasi-competitive basis, hence the whole 'labor credits' method and system that resembles today's cash. Where the providing of (liberated) services happens to leverage / effect the mass production of goods, such goods would be distributed according to pre-planned specifications ('demand'), and would *not* be exchangeable for labor credits or any other material consideration.


Yes, if that labor credits were actually resembling today's money, but you stated that labor-credits have nothing to do with consumption. I do not understand how they are similar to today's cash if they cannot be used in consumption. I still do not understand what you mean to use labor-credits for? To allocate production? That would already be done if labor-credits were used in consumption by allowing the careful and rational allocation of resources and small-scale management with each purchase of a good. Again I see no justification behind such a system.



Yes, correct.

Labor 'credits', yes.


Then there's no point of it. Credits "according to contribution" and for consumption would be a much more preferable alternative to this attempted primitive simulation of it. Such credits would allocate production according to demand, allow rational and careful consumption rather than haphazard unrestricted consumption "according to need", create a proper feedback mechanism, reward production/efficiency/productivity/contribution, and so on.



It's because, given a *sufficient* supply ("surplus", or "abundance") of mass-produced goods, consumption would not be in a 'one-to-one' ratio with the liberated labor supplied for the production -- because of the material-leveraging effect of automation.

In other words it would be *meaningless* to try to even *index* consumption according to bulk labor provided for that production and consumption, much less to try to *ration* consumption according to either material output or finite liberated labor provided. Such attempts would be more trouble than they're worth, as long as there was enough ('abundant') production to address that corresponding 'demand' for it.

This is why the only economic quantifying process -- using labor credits -- is kept strictly within the domain of liberated labor *only*, de-hinged from bulk production and consumption of resulting goods.


And all of that is based on the false assumption that we will super-productivity, super-production, full automation, and the existence of infinite resources. There is absolutely no guarantee that we will have any of that, which you base off of Capitalism's results. In fact, there is absolutely no guarantee that supply will always or by default outweigh demand, especially in an unrestricted, open, "according to need" system. Even if you have all those false assumptions in your system, you will still need a means by which to calculate costs, determine efficiency, determine labor and resource saving methods, determine consumer preference, create varying goods, create consumer goods, etc. etc. Thus it would by every means be NECESSARY and VITAL to index consumption and ration it.

You yourself speak of the false assumption when you state that all of that, all of your reasons against "according to contribution", all of your reasons for your system are hinged on the simple note that they can work "as long as there was enough ('abundant') production to address that corresponding 'demand' for it".

That is the dream of every economist, yes it doesn't happen. That's what the Soviet Socialists dreamed of, yet it did not happen. That's what Marx and Engels dreamed of, yet it did not happen. That's what Lenin, Bukharin, and Trotsky dreamed of, yet it did not happen. Since there numerous instances of that condition not taking place, then we cannot proceed on the same footing lest we end up in disaster. You cannot guarantee abundance of anything to supply any demand.

We need to also remember that even if we have super-productivity and super-abundance, we still have the issue of finite resources. Any constant demand, any demand at all that is constant WILL deplete resources, it's only a matter of amount and time. Without any means of rationing resources and limiting consumption, demand will skyrocket. Individuals who had nothing will want "everything", there is absolutely no reason for them not to and every reason for them to do so.



It's *not* wage labor because there could not be any 'blackmail' or coercion against the self-liberated population -- as over the means of their life and living -- because the population would have already liberated the *means* of decent life and living -- mass production -- for themselves, collectively, as part and parcel of the revolution that overthrows the rule of capital.


There doesn't need to be coercion or blackmailing for wage labor to exist for be as such. Wage labor merely requires workers being paid in return for their services, such as your labor credits for production. If I were to pay a well-off individual to run errands for me, he would do it because he sees a benefit in doing so that outweighs the costs, not because he's coerced or blackmailed, but that is still wage labor. Under Capitalism coercion in that aspect takes place due to the lack of alternatives and the ever existent reserve army of labor. Oh and people cannot "liberate" mass production because there is no guarantee that they would have "mass production" that would do away with scarcities.



The tracking of liberated labor effort put forth would then be a purely 'internal' matter, worldwide, as through labor credits, with the material results of mass-produced goods meant solely for mass consumption, *not* for 'exchange value' in any sense of the term.


Still paying them for their labor, still taking away the fruits of their labor, still wage labor.



A locality's public debt of labor credits would be a simple, special case in that a locality's formal *political* standing, or credibility, would suffer the more it used *others'* liberated labor while at the same time not bringing in enough labor credits from within its own population to offset that (external) debt. An increasing debt would be an objective indicator that the locality is also far less able, if at all, to fund sufficient liberated labor for any given project, no matter *how* popularly supported by mass demand.


Who issues labor credits? Does the locality even need to pay back debts? If so to who? Who decides when labor credits are to be sued and on where/who and for what reasons? Can't the locality simply print labor credits to offset the debt since inflation wouldn't be much of an issue to it as it is a locality and only concerned with itself? What if laborers decide to flock to wherever the most labor-credits are found leaving the rest of the localities, against their wishes, with little to no labor and thus forced to undergo massive debts and borrowing from other localities in order to attract some labor thus putting huge swathes of localities under the control of a few? Yes, you actually need to consider those.



Nope, sorry -- again you're insisting on a case of specifics ('inevitable') that *cannot* be surmised. You only belie your own pessimism with such an invention of circumstances.


My case of "specifics that cannot be surmised" are much more real and are to be considered than what you are suggesting in terms of super-productivity, super-abundance, automation, and so on. I prefer to be a critic and a pessimist rather than a Utopian with nothing to base anything on but Utopian adventurist idealism and dreams. My pessimism is based on economic theory, models, and concepts used today, not on false assumptions, hopes and dreams that will never happen. That specific case needs to be addressed by you in order to defend your system, should you ignore it then you voluntarily concede the point yourself. You cannot by any means disregard a specific case that would prove to be a problem for your system. We need to take into consideration the possibility of it taking place and the need to address it.



Or, more constructively, how about basing those feasible conditions on 'today and better' -- ?


I prefer on "today" not on "better" because we have "today" but have absolutely no basis for "better". You base your theory on "today" whilst having nothing to do with "today" and on "better" whilst having absolutely no basis for the "better". That's why you are a Utopian daydreamer using false assumptions in order to build a Utopia.



Sheer pessimism on your part.


Better reality than sheer Utopianism.



Or, there will be a *gradient* of production across all types of mass demands, with less fulfillment as specialization / difficulty / luxury increases.


Given that *demand* for specialized goods is *itself* specialized, or more-constrained than that for average, basic, goods, there could very well be a rough *corresponding* of available liberated labor to specialized demand.


"Sheer assumptions and Utopianism on your part"

Thus production would be acting regardless of consumer demand and priorities because some goods are "specialized, difficult, and luxurious". This "less fulfillment" will lead to disasters in your system with workers seeing no need to produce the difficult products beyond supplying their own needs, resorting to black markets to sell these highly demanded goods, and leading to mass starvation/scarcity as these products are "less fulfilled". This returns us to the problem of your system on the question of demand, priorities, and the meeting of specialized demand.



In other words, smaller-scale autonomous production may be just the thing to fill in that which mass-aggregated-driven mass production does *not* address.


No it does not. Small scale autonomous production cannot fill what mass production cannot, especially not on the same scale, productivity, technology, audience, or quality. There is absolutely no reason for small scale autonomous production to take place unless they are being paid for it or receive rewards for doing so. They have no reason to get out of the way and start their own workplace to create niche products.



This is where *you're* positing impossible, fatalistic conditions arbitrarily, simply to summarily dismiss any potential feasible possibilities that *may* (positively) exist.


Yes, just as any other critic attempts to critique a system by giving examples of what can arise to prove to be problems in your own system. This is what may very well take place in real-life unless you can summon organization every time you need it from thin air. Since that would not be the case then you are limited in what you can organize, especially as individuals are already cumbered with numerous other organizations that they have no spare time. Your system would essentially be nothing more than thousands of meetings and organizations filling up the spare time of each and every individual. Your mess of organization can simply be solved by introducing a pricing mechanism and/or market.



(And, as a matter of technical accuracy, any locality that has run up a sizeable debt of labor credits would simply be at a political standstill until its own population addressed the outstanding debt by agreeing to work for labor credits, as provided-for in the demand-driven proposals and policy packages of *other* localities.)


Or until that population moves to another locality that is much more richer and can sustain itself leaving their old locality to rot. They have absolutely no reason to pay the debts of their locality or dig it out of the ditch that it has thrown itself into.



You seem to think that the record books of history provide *all* combinations and outcomes that are potentially possible -- as though the world going forward is *historically* determined, entirely.


No, but they would provide enough combinations and outcomes to show that your system is a disaster, especially on the question of the false assumptions of yours and the Utopian organization nonsense of yours.



If everyone thought this way then the world *would* be fatally bound to the fate of what has previously transpired, even if only once, and all possible futures would have to endlessly repeat the precedent, whatever it happened to be.


"History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as farce". I wonder who said that? =) Now, we need to learn from the mistakes of the past, something which you clearly are not capable of doing, and one of those mistakes is expecting the results of Capitalist or super-productivity and whatnot to arise simply because your system has the name "Socialist" or "Communist" just as the Bolshevik and every other revolutionary movement imagined.



(I have the urge to thank you here for your fascinating, consistently dark imagination. Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature.)


I love how you disregard what I said and yet ignore what you say when it comes to your "fascinating", "consistently" bright Utopian "imagination". "Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature". That is not a counter-argument.



If vanguardism is called-for, then I would support such an approach to the question of political organization.


At least that's sound.



The means of mass (industrial) production *must* be wielded by the proletariat if such hurdles are to be surmounted.


Local scale production needs large scale planning or else these local productive forces would be stuck with a barely existent view over production and planning. This would lead to an anarchy of production, something that would be done away with through large-scale central planning. If you merely allow the proletariat to "wield" the means of mass production without any central planning or guiding force then you would lead to the anarchy of production and disaster, if not complete disconnection with the outside world. We're talking about billions of workplaces all over the entire world, they cannot operate by themselves without either markets or central planning.



I'm not *accusing* -- I'm *characterizing* and *dismissing* your baseless, arbitrary, dark conclusions.


Dismissing my arguments against your system rather than counter-argument simply by characterizing them. That is nothing more than resorting to a logical fallacy.



Your contentions here *require* a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolution world -- specifics which you do not, and could not possibly, have.


THAT'S what you accuse my contentions of? WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR FALSE ASSUMPTIONS? Your ENTIRE THEORY is based off of a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolutionary world, specifics which YOU DO NOT CAN COULD NOT POSSIBLE HAVE! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT AND YET ACCUSE ME OF IT? I just can't believe this shit I'm reading. My entire contentions are based off of YOUR Utopian system, NOT the other way around.



Again, you're imputing some kind of agency onto my person in particular where none exists, or could possibly exist. In the context of the 'communist supply & demand' model I would be a liberated laborer, like anyone else, under no duress to contribute work, and with a certain personal possession of labor credits, or none, and some personal possessions. I would be able to participate in all political matters, as for those concerned with liberated mass production, and would be able to submit my daily personal prioritized political demands, like anyone else.


How the fuck did you just ignore the entire point? The point was NOT that YOU had any power to do anything, but that your SYSTEM had the power to do so. The point was that HOW are you going to determine, "you" here as in the one making up the ridiculous theory, determine what personal property is in use and what isn't. Specifically, "If you cannot determine which personal property is in use and which isn't then how the FUCK do you expect to take away personal property if left unused according to your system? That only leaves us with two conclusions: you will take everything regardless of use or you will not take anything away form anyone."



You're not seeing that it could very well *not* be an issue of *any* concern to anyone else. Consider that the act of everyone "hoarding" everything they could within sight, every day, indefinitely, would result in folly as no one could realistically *control* everything they've laid claim to, in realtime, since we are physically constrained to *one location* in physical space at any given moment.


Actually it would be an issue and a huge concern. Suppose this were to happen today where we can take whatever we want with no restrictions. People would storm the stores and loot everything taking as much as they can and filling their entire houses and surroundings with those products. On the scale of billions, this would be less of an issue of location and time as it is not one or two people that are taking the products and hoarding them, but billions of people taking the products and hoarding them. You cannot do anything about it nor stop it, you cannot even repossess the products that are used or not used. In your system on the world scale, people can take everything they need, multiple cars, multiple TVs, multiple computers, multiple consoles, etc. leaving others without these items thanks to their selfishness. So yes, this would be an issue and a huge concern whether you like it or not. You, of course, will not address this and merely call it pessimism and entirely disregard it, thus showing, again, that your system is a disaster that cannot even solve the problems that it creates nor does it want to.



Go for it. Change your very politics in the process of that pursuit.


Do I even need to say anything? Really, do I even need to say anything? He's presenting a system where you can "game" it and "win" it, abuse it and corrupt it, with ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCES. What the fuck. Are you trying to argue from a moral viewpoint here by playing on my political morality? That's ridiculous.



Again you fail to disappoint the audience with your sparklingly dark imagination.


Again you fail to disappoint the audience with your complete disregard to devastating problems in your own system and dismissal of your opponent's arguments by merely referring to them being "dark imaginations".



Agreed.


If you agree with this then you agree with the entire conclusion that the individual is much more preferable over society for basing concepts, theories, and entire systems on him. Thus your earlier criticism (or what is someone else?) of rational choice theory, individualism, economism, and my basis of my system on individuals are null and void.



Not true -- the proletariat's control of mass production would be the material basis.


Oh my lord. Utopian imaginations everywhere. The proletariat's control of mass production IS NOT THE BASIS. The basis is super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation, etc. etc. If you somehow claim that the proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those then I challenge you to prove it.



Then you're misunderstanding. I'm not trying to *predict* *anything*.


You're speaking of your post-Capitalist Utopian society and trying to predict what will happen and how things will go with all that "mass consciousness" bullshit. So yes, you ARE predicted, and thus my point remains.




Your "accounting for the very high chance that a society of the future does not create a socialist humanity" is simply political conservatism on the part of you and your politics.


Of course it's political conservatism! I am not a Utopian adventurist idealist that cannot learn from neither reality or the past, such as yourself! That is exactly why I proceed slowly but surely and effectively rather than resort to suicide as in your case. That political conservatism is the opposite of your Utopian imaginations. I do not base anything on Utopian imaginations.



Here's back to your point:

-

Okay, fair enough -- agreed.


Good. Then you will need to address that argument.



This is true, in a sense -- since 'mass demand' is de-linked from any and all work efforts, one's contribution of work effort is not directly linked-to, or does not directly determine, what one receives in the way of consumption. Rather, since, by definition, all of society and its production would be *collectivized*, it would be a *collective* process that mediates exactly what work is performed and how the resulting material output is distributed.


Thus there is no reason for anyone to work. Good job. Oh and that won't take place collectively, just merely individuals dropping out of work, slacking, and eventually people follow suit. Given the option today people would rather stay at home or go on vacations rather than work in boring and dull jobs. The reason why they do these boring and dull jobs today is because they are paid to do it and only with that payment are they able to buy whatever they need. This concept does not exist in your system, instead they'll just get what they need regardless of their work, effort, efficiency, productivity, or contribution. Individuals have NO DIRECT influence on the outcome of what they receive, they have NO CONTROL on what they receive, instead they depend on complete disconnected strangers for what they receive. Such a system can never last for long and will inevitably collapse. An according to contribution system, on the other hand allows workers to judge what they want to receive and how much based on their DIRECT influence of the outcome through increased contribution and payment.



Or they *wouldn't* (be able to stop them), depending on actual conditions / circumstances.


What do you honestly think will happen if they are not able to stop them? That they will simply get along just fine? No. Conflict will take place. If they would not be able to stop them then it will lead to conflict. Without a central authoritative entity such as a state, but with almost complete decentralization, autonomy, etc. then the conflict may very well reach a regional scale. The slackers may attract friends, families, supporters, and sympathizers and vice versa. They would see it as an attack on workers' autonomy and control over the means of production by the communes or other groups such as strikebreakers or whatnot.



Point taken.


Right.



So here then is the outstanding question: *Would* a liberated labor force provide any labor if there was nothing coercing them to do so, *and* their personal material needs were being adequately supplied 'according to need' -- ?


Firstly, they can provide labor without coercion, they merely need an incentive to do so. Incentives are not coercion.
Secondly, there is no guarantee that you will be able to adequately supply them according to need.
Thirdly, if their needs were met then they would have absolutely no reason to work unless coerced or incentivized to do otherwise. This is especially a problem because as I had explained previously, they have absolutely no direct influence or feedback on the outcome of others' production or what they receive. If they increase their efforts, productivity, contribution, efficiency, etc. then they do not get remunerated respectively, but they would not receive anything at all in return.



I, obviously, would say 'yes', based on an interpretation of humanity / human nature that says that people would autonomously work at socially valuable tasks *independently* of external indicators or influences.


Yeah and you obviously believe in God. You even believe people love each other and only want to hug each other rather than bomb and tear the shit out of each other before decapitating them and ripping their hearts out. Keep living in that Disney fantasy world of yours, leave real-life for the rest of us.




Okay, to return to your point:

I characterized this as an assumption because you are simply asserting a contention -- by what means are you concluding that 'available laborers, assets, and resources' would mean that 'these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced [and] WILL NOT be produced' -- ?


I based my criticism on YOUR assumptions, not the other way around. I am concluding them to mean that on the basis of the arguments I have already put forth such as the lack of existence of incentives, no remuneration according to contribution, no reason to produce them, no rewards for production, they will still receive what they need REGARDLESS of what they produce or if they produce, etc. etc. Read it again, "now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today [...]". Now reply properly.



So you're saying that the workers themselves are *not* the best judges over working conditions -- ?


Due to bias, no.



'Effort' is *implied* by 'difficulty and/or hazard' -- *times* actual labor hours.


Difficulty and hazard have NOTHING to do with effort. Effort has to do with the amount of labor put in, its quality and quanitity if you may. If a job is difficult and hazardous then I do not need to have put in more effort, but merely took more time, wasted more time, sped through it, carefully worked through it, used skill and thus less effort, used techniques, etc. Difficulty is not synonymous with effort, especially when it comes to the question of experience in work and skill



This would be exit surveys of workers themselves, at those respective work roles -- there is nothing that indicates, or corresponds to *your* (faulty) interpretation of 'surveys made by individuals EXTERNAL to the workplace'.


And thus exactly why it's more of a problem than external judgement of the workplace: Bias. The workers in the workplace can abuse the survey and the system by maximizing scores on difficulty and hazard to increase their benefits and rewards.



Okay, so you're saying that, on a scale of 1 to 10, *everyone* is just going to put down a '10' for 'most difficult' for *whatever* work role they just did, just to 'maximize utility and benefits to themselves at no expense to others' -- ? So then *how exactly* would such exaggeration maximize utility and benefits to themselves in this way?


Yes. And then how is that even a question? Labor credits are paid based on difficulty/hazard times actual labor hours. To maximize the labor credits received they would then maximize the scale in order to receive the maximum amount of labor credits possible. How did you not conclude this yourself is that actual question.



Nope. I disagree.


That is not a counter-argument.



Or, more positively, instead of a rationing system, production would be increased to fulfill demand.


Yeah, by magically calling for the Production Gods to increase production. If production were so easily or magically increased to fulfill demand then any command economy would be able to create ungodly amounts of production to fulfill any and all demand. History shows otherwise.



In other words, exit surveys at every formally defined work role would tally people's estimations of it, on a standardized scale -- like '1 through 10'. The average scale for any given formal work role -- '1 through 10' -- would be the number that's *multiplied* to any actual labor hours performed, by anyone, to determine the *rate of labor credits* handed-over per labor hour for that respective labor role.


Still makes no mention of effort.



So, for example, if 1,000 workers at 'tuna fish harvesting' responded with an average of '6' for that work role, then that work role would have a multiplier of 6 for every labor hour, for labor credits, meaning that 6 labor credits would have to be handed over for every labor hour worked for 'tuna fish harvesting'.


Still makes no mention of effort. Nevertheless, why would they in shit's name assign a multiplier of SIX instead of TEN and thus maximize the labor credits multiplier? This is ridiculous. This takes from the ridiculous idea of Parecon.



Yes, as explained earlier, contribution of work is de-linked from fulfillment of demand.


Then as I had said, YOU are incorrect. Observe the context:


I said: "you have no form of remuneration according to contribution, etc. and as such you are completely unable to respect and consider the total effort put forth. Workers and consumers will receive all the same in terms of remuneration according to the effort put in"


You replied: "Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above."


I replied: "Incorrect? YOUR reply is incorrect. The excerpts above make absolutely NO mention of effort and no means by which to properly measure effort. Laborers are consumers and vice versa. What "liberated" laborers receive in labor credits they cannot use for consumption, their consumption demands are the SAME as the consumers' demands. People will not receive goods based on amount of effort put it. Consumers do not nor do the "liberated" laborers. Oh and do I even need to remind you that your "labor-notes" have nothing to do with consumption and thus have nothing to do with the argument and point that I made?"


You then said: "Yes, as explained earlier, contribution of work is de-linked from fulfillment of demand."


Thus consumption is THE SAME for both workers and consumers who BOTH receive according to need REGARDLESS of contribution. That was the entire point. You argued otherwise at first by saying "Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above."




It's interesting that you assume that a post-capitalist liberated labor force would distribute itself inappropriately, to where unskilled workers would be attempting to do work they are not ready to do.


What part of "resources that would be openly accessible to all in a post-capitalist world" do you simply not understand from your OWN statement? This is also the issue in the case of the apply farm and unrestricted access to the means of production. Unskilled workers will decide to go there because you cannot prevent them, and thus unskilled workers would be attempting to do work they are not ready to do just as I wish to pick apples or disrupt production by producing whatever I want using publicly owned means of production.



Now you're conflating 'personal possessions' with 'private accumulations' -- the former refers to use-value for one's person *only*, while the latter has to do with the use of capital to direct productive activity.


Honestly after all that abstract phrase making you resort to, I no longer know what you mean by anything.



If this is what you stand by then you are *not* a revolutionary.


First of all, No True Scotsman logical fallacy. I do not care what people on Revleft call me as I've seen people call each other numerous blanket terms whilst I was a lurker and so far I've been called both a Stalinist and a revisionist and whatever else people come up with in an attempt to bring any fodder for their arguments.


Secondly, you already noticed above that I had "conflat[ed] 'personal possessions' with 'private accumulations'" and should have automatically realized the context and known that I had been referring to personal possessions which I believed what you were referring to.



Pass -- thanks.
Typical.



Or, if production is allowed to happen at various scales, there may be those who would autonomously 'innovate' different, various approaches to a given 'problem'. Broader co-administration over liberated mass production could certainly take up alternative, innovated approaches to product design as a matter of administrative politics.
Yeah, because there is every reason to do so instead of play video games at home and go on vacations at the expense of others for free.



True.
Thus I return to my previous point: "Your "liberated labor" also has absolutely no reason, incentive, or otherwise to put it much, if any, effort at all as they are not being remunerated according to effort or contribution but being remunerated according to need REGARDLESS of effort or contribution."



Contending something does not make it so.
But contending something with proper arguments does.

[ckaihatsu]

By 'subsistence production', are you relenting and acknowledging a possible liberated mass production for the sake of satisfying mass humane needs -- ?





No, I'm referring to a primitive mode of production that bases itself on local decentralized and isolated production by each for his own/family.


Okay.





You're welcome.





What do you mean "you're welcome"? I just said that your system will end up like the Utopian dreams of the Bolsheviks when faced with reality: glass shattering on concrete.


-Whatever-





Okay, well, this could be a breakthrough in the deadlock....





Hopefully.





I mean to indicate that actual conditions will be the overwhelmingly characterizing factor -- if, in implementing the model, a locality is more liberated-labor-*supplying*, then it would be 'according to contribution' in the sense of there being much organized *production*, even to highly nuanced -- as for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods -- extents.

Obversely, if a locality is more liberated-labor-*demanding*, then its main characteristic would be 'according to need', most probably resulting in an overall mass production geared towards supplying greatest-common-denominator, humane needs, and *not* for more-specialty / luxury / exotic goods.





And that made absolutely no sense at all. I'm serious, I'm not trying to ignore anything at all, I actually do not understand what you're trying to say. You're the only person I have debated with thus far that I cannot understand what the hell he's talking about. Not because of you having advanced English, but of resorting intentionally to mystification, obfuscation, abstraction, and creating new terms which have absolutely no meaning to anyone else but you. This nothing more than an argument from verbosity logical fallacy, look it up. You do not want to make others understand what you're talking about and instead intentionally use such fallacies to confuse your opponent without allowing him to know what the fuck you're talking about.




Wait so if a locality has a large supply of labor then it would be an according to contribution system, but when it has a high demand on labor then it is an according to need system?


No, the overall method remains the same regardless, according to the model -- I was just trying to accommodate your one-sided *perspective* on it....





I just... What? "Liberated-labor-*demanding" I interpreted to mean "labor demanding" and thus a high demand on labor and so on for the issue of supply.


Yes.





If one locality has a high supply of labor then why would it need an "according to contribution" system in your model?


There'd be no fundamental change, but if you'd like to focus on the *supply* of labor then many labor credits would be pooled this way among those in the population of a particular locality that tended to be 'ambitious'. (A larger pool of labor credits would confer proportionately more liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward.)





An "according to contribution" system is necessary in cases of scarcity, in this case scarcity of labor, to reward production, productivity, create incentives, and attract labor.


Only within the context of your *market*-oriented mechanistics -- my model posits a more-autonomous spirit of initiative that can be responsive to outstanding demand, particularly *mass* demand.





This would be completely not necessary for localities with a huge supply of labor. A locality with a high demand on labor would seek to attract labor and thus should resort to an "according to contribution" system


You're not considering that 'mass demand' does *not necessarily* require a huge supply of (liberated) labor to be put forth. The more efficient -- automated -- the mass production process is, the greater the magnitude of material productivity is, for the fulfillment of basic needs and beyond.





in order to reward efficiency, productivity, contribution, etc. to make do with the few laborers it has at its disposal and maximize what it can reap from them. This is on the question of labor and attracting it, not on the question of consumption, of course.


Again, you're stuck in the 'market' mentality here.





On the question of consumption, you'll still need an "according to contribution" system as long as you use labor, have no super-productivity, have no super-abundance, and even if you have finite resources. This gets more important if those conditions apply to specific goods, such as luxury goods which would need to be rationed either way.


You're being repetitive -- your contentions here are based on assumptions over specifics.





But then you speak of a locality with a high demand on labor focusing on basic needs rather than luxury goods whilst implementing an "according to need" system and entirely ignoring "according to contribution". That is a disaster.


(More repetition and assumptions over specifics.)





Firstly, an "according to need" system encourages consumption and demand by removing any and all restrictions on demand.


Demand is restricted by the willingness of available liberated labor.





Secondly, such a system does not utilize its labor force to the maximum capability possible and thus make every use of what it has but instead gives them no incentive to produce and rewards them all the same regardless if they produce anything properly, effectively, in large amounts, etc.


Not true -- you're ignoring the 'difficulty/hazard' index in the 'communist supply & demand' model.





Thirdly, in a locality with a high demand on labor would generally thus have a low supply of labor and ergo machinery left unmanned, a situation of underproduction, and so on making an "according to need" system not viable and an "according to contribution" system a NECESSITY.


More assumptions. More constructively, organization could be generalized over greater geographies, with greater efficiencies used, to increase *productivity* to fulfill outstanding demand.





As such, however you twist it, it's a disaster, but of course that's from what I interpreted from that horrible butchery of the English language.


---





Certainly, and it's appreciated in the same sense that a genuinely benevolent technocratic administration (superstructure) would be a solid improvement over what we have now under capitalism.

Many, though, would find much to critique in the way of *any* kind of bureaucratic collectivism, including a technocratic or market-socialist one.





Let them. I'd like to see their alternative.


You're talking to him.





I agree with your premise here -- fortunately, the prospect of a continued mass automated production is very good and very realistic, technologically speaking.





An assumption which I am not ready to base anything on. There are still numerous under-developed and developing countries, only advanced countries have hints of automated production and yet they still require the massive use of labor.


Which is why a worldwide proletarian revolution is necessary.





Services -- as distinct from the production of goods -- could remain very much on a negotiated and quasi-competitive basis, hence the whole 'labor credits' method and system that resembles today's cash. Where the providing of (liberated) services happens to leverage / effect the mass production of goods, such goods would be distributed according to pre-planned specifications ('demand'), and would *not* be exchangeable for labor credits or any other material consideration.





Yes, if that labor credits were actually resembling today's money, but you stated that labor-credits have nothing to do with consumption.




I do not understand how they are similar to today's cash if they cannot be used in consumption.


Correct -- the referencing of today's cash is a loose association of meaning, to describe the circulation and payment aspects, from liberated labor, to liberated labor.





I still do not understand what you mean to use labor-credits for? To allocate production? That would already be done if labor-credits were used in consumption


Nope, sorry -- nice try, though.





by allowing the careful and rational allocation of resources and small-scale management with each purchase of a good. Again I see no justification behind such a system.


(More market-mentality here.)





Yes, correct.

Labor 'credits', yes.





Then there's no point of it. Credits "according to contribution" and for consumption would be a much more preferable alternative to this attempted primitive simulation of it. Such credits would allocate production according to demand, allow rational and careful consumption rather than haphazard unrestricted consumption "according to need", create a proper feedback mechanism, reward production/efficiency/productivity/contribution, and so on.


(Repetitive.)





It's because, given a *sufficient* supply ("surplus", or "abundance") of mass-produced goods, consumption would not be in a 'one-to-one' ratio with the liberated labor supplied for the production -- because of the material-leveraging effect of automation.

In other words it would be *meaningless* to try to even *index* consumption according to bulk labor provided for that production and consumption, much less to try to *ration* consumption according to either material output or finite liberated labor provided. Such attempts would be more trouble than they're worth, as long as there was enough ('abundant') production to address that corresponding 'demand' for it.

This is why the only economic quantifying process -- using labor credits -- is kept strictly within the domain of liberated labor *only*, de-hinged from bulk production and consumption of resulting goods.





And all of that is based on the false assumption that we will super-productivity, super-production, full automation, and the existence of infinite resources.


No, there doesn't have to be -- all that's materially required is a *gradient*, from level-humane-fulfillment, upwards.





There is absolutely no guarantee that we will have any of that, which you base off of Capitalism's results. In fact, there is absolutely no guarantee that supply will always or by default outweigh demand, especially in an unrestricted, open, "according to need" system. Even if you have all those false assumptions in your system, you will still need a means by which to calculate costs, determine efficiency, determine labor and resource saving methods, determine consumer preference, create varying goods, create consumer goods, etc. etc. Thus it would by every means be NECESSARY and VITAL to index consumption and ration it.


Nope -- I've explained why we can do better than *any* instance of the market mechanism.





You yourself speak of the false assumption


It's not a 'false' assumption if the reality is as you describe it here:





when you state that all of that, all of your reasons against "according to contribution", all of your reasons for your system are hinged on the simple note that they can work "as long as there was enough ('abundant') production to address that corresponding 'demand' for it".





That is the dream of every economist, yes it doesn't happen. That's what the Soviet Socialists dreamed of, yet it did not happen. That's what Marx and Engels dreamed of, yet it did not happen. That's what Lenin, Bukharin, and Trotsky dreamed of, yet it did not happen. Since there numerous instances of that condition not taking place, then we cannot proceed on the same footing lest we end up in disaster. You cannot guarantee abundance of anything to supply any demand.


Well, look at *today's* technological productivities versus those of a *century* ago....





We need to also remember that even if we have super-productivity and super-abundance, we still have the issue of finite resources.


You're conflating 'finite' with 'unavailable' -- an unjustifiable assumption.





Any constant demand, any demand at all that is constant WILL deplete resources, it's only a matter of amount and time. Without any means of rationing resources and limiting consumption, demand will skyrocket. Individuals who had nothing will want "everything", there is absolutely no reason for them not to and every reason for them to do so.


Resources can also be replenished.





It's *not* wage labor because there could not be any 'blackmail' or coercion against the self-liberated population -- as over the means of their life and living -- because the population would have already liberated the *means* of decent life and living -- mass production -- for themselves, collectively, as part and parcel of the revolution that overthrows the rule of capital.





There doesn't need to be coercion or blackmailing for wage labor to exist for be as such.


Yes, there does -- capitalism denies a person-proportionate share of the world's resources even though we were all born into it the same. Capitalism institutes private property, which denies most people any use or share of very powerful, productive capacities.





Wage labor merely requires workers being paid in return for their services, such as your labor credits for production. If I were to pay a well-off individual to run errands for me, he would do it because he sees a benefit in doing so that outweighs the costs, not because he's coerced or blackmailed, but that is still wage labor.


But it's because the average person does not own (financially productive) capital that they must sell their own labor power, with no other option for participating in the global economy.





Under Capitalism coercion in that aspect takes place due to the lack of alternatives and the ever existent reserve army of labor. Oh and people cannot "liberate" mass production because there is no guarantee that they would have "mass production" that would do away with scarcities.


So you'd prefer to not even try -- defeatism.





The tracking of liberated labor effort put forth would then be a purely 'internal' matter, worldwide, as through labor credits, with the material results of mass-produced goods meant solely for mass consumption, *not* for 'exchange value' in any sense of the term.





Still paying them for their labor, still taking away the fruits of their labor, still wage labor.


I'll let you make your own coffin here -- *who* exactly are you referring to as this sinister boogeyman amongst the self-liberated proletariat -- ?





A locality's public debt of labor credits would be a simple, special case in that a locality's formal *political* standing, or credibility, would suffer the more it used *others'* liberated labor while at the same time not bringing in enough labor credits from within its own population to offset that (external) debt. An increasing debt would be an objective indicator that the locality is also far less able, if at all, to fund sufficient liberated labor for any given project, no matter *how* popularly supported by mass demand.





Who issues labor credits? Does the locality even need to pay back debts? If so to who?


These are all administrative functions.





Who decides when labor credits are to be sued and on where/who and for what reasons?


That would be according to any given locality, by the regular process of mass-prioritization.





Can't the locality simply print labor credits to offset the debt since inflation wouldn't be much of an issue to it as it is a locality and only concerned with itself?


Nope, because there's no exchange-value in the labor credits -- they can only represent a limited amount of past liberated labor performed, according to their face value. Once passed-onward, for *new* labor done, the transfer of labor credits closes out that past work done and labor-organizing authority exercised, one-time.





What if laborers decide to flock to wherever the most labor-credits are found leaving the rest of the localities, against their wishes, with little to no labor and thus forced to undergo massive debts and borrowing from other localities in order to attract some labor thus putting huge swathes of localities under the control of a few? Yes, you actually need to consider those.


Sure -- let's walk through this.... On Day 1, *no one* has any labor credits and any and all localities must *issue debt* in order to make any new production happen. All that would be required to eliminate debt would be for Locality A to do 'x' amount of labor for Locality B, while Locality B does *proportionate*, 'x' amount of labor for Locality A. The 'x' amounts of labor credits issued from debt from each respective locality would *cancel out*. (It's like saying 'A' will pay off the debt of 'B' with its own liberated labor if 'B' does the *same* amount of work, to pay off the debt of 'A'.)





Nope, sorry -- again you're insisting on a case of specifics ('inevitable') that *cannot* be surmised. You only belie your own pessimism with such an invention of circumstances.





My case of "specifics that cannot be surmised" are much more real and are to be considered than what you are suggesting in terms of super-productivity, super-abundance, automation, and so on. I prefer to be a critic and a pessimist rather than a Utopian with nothing to base anything on but Utopian adventurist idealism and dreams. My pessimism is based on economic theory, models, and concepts used today, not on false assumptions, hopes and dreams that will never happen.


You're preferring to be instructed by today's market system, rather than *breaking* with it to allow better options to make themselves available to you -- hence your fatalism regarding *non-market* approaches.





That specific case needs to be addressed by you in order to defend your system, should you ignore it then you voluntarily concede the point yourself. You cannot by any means disregard a specific case that would prove to be a problem for your system. We need to take into consideration the possibility of it taking place and the need to address it.


No, I am not obligated to address bullshit hypothetical specifics from yourself.





Or, more constructively, how about basing those feasible conditions on 'today and better' -- ?





I prefer on "today" not on "better" because we have "today" but have absolutely no basis for "better". You base your theory on "today" whilst having nothing to do with "today" and on "better" whilst having absolutely no basis for the "better". That's why you are a Utopian daydreamer using false assumptions in order to build a Utopia.


No, rather I'm *springboarding* from today's technological capabilities, to welcome better possible social relations to control all of it.





Sheer pessimism on your part.





Better reality than sheer Utopianism.


This, then, is the crux of our differences -- status quo 'pragmatism' versus the potentialities of revolution.





Or, there will be a *gradient* of production across all types of mass demands, with less fulfillment as specialization / difficulty / luxury increases.

Given that *demand* for specialized goods is *itself* specialized, or more-constrained than that for average, basic, goods, there could very well be a rough *corresponding* of available liberated labor to specialized demand.





"Sheer assumptions and Utopianism on your part"

Thus production would be acting regardless of consumer demand and priorities because some goods are "specialized, difficult, and luxurious".


No, liberated labor would be informed of consumer demand.





This "less fulfillment" will lead to disasters in your system with workers seeing no need to produce the difficult products beyond supplying their own needs,


Again you're making blanket contentions over unknowable specifics.





resorting to black markets to sell these highly demanded goods, and leading to mass starvation/scarcity as these products are "less fulfilled".


"Mass starvation" because 'specialized, difficult, and luxurious' goods are in question -- ? Nice scare tactics -- you're the master of it.





This returns us to the problem of your system on the question of demand, priorities, and the meeting of specialized demand.


Nope -- I've addressed it.





In other words, smaller-scale autonomous production may be just the thing to fill in that which mass-aggregated-driven mass production does *not* address.





No it does not. Small scale autonomous production cannot fill what mass production cannot, especially not on the same scale, productivity, technology, audience, or quality. There is absolutely no reason for small scale autonomous production to take place unless they are being paid for it or receive rewards for doing so.


Yes, in labor credits -- the scale makes no difference. If greater productivities are to be realized then greater efforts at mass organization must be put forth, for it.





They have no reason to get out of the way and start their own workplace to create niche products.


Well, they certainly *might*, considering that no one could deny them access to their proportionate share of mass-production implements (or lesser).





This is where *you're* positing impossible, fatalistic conditions arbitrarily, simply to summarily dismiss any potential feasible possibilities that *may* (positively) exist.





Yes, just as any other critic attempts to critique a system by giving examples of what can arise to prove to be problems in your own system. This is what may very well take place in real-life unless you can summon organization every time you need it from thin air.


Well, a *regular* system of political organization would already be in place -- the framework that I've provided.





Since that would not be the case then you are limited in what you can organize, especially as individuals are already cumbered with numerous other organizations that they have no spare time. Your system would essentially be nothing more than thousands of meetings and organizations filling up the spare time of each and every individual. Your mess of organization can simply be solved by introducing a pricing mechanism and/or market.


Nope -- more boogeyman tactics on your part.





(And, as a matter of technical accuracy, any locality that has run up a sizeable debt of labor credits would simply be at a political standstill until its own population addressed the outstanding debt by agreeing to work for labor credits, as provided-for in the demand-driven proposals and policy packages of *other* localities.)





Or until that population moves to another locality that is much more richer and can sustain itself leaving their old locality to rot. They have absolutely no reason to pay the debts of their locality or dig it out of the ditch that it has thrown itself into.


Yes, I addressed this very concern quite recently, on another thread:





Given that a locality is treated as a cohesive entity for the purposes of political and economic needs and demands, and that a locality may not actually *remain* cohesive, [...] the question may arise how a locality's accumulated debt of labor credits would then be handled if its own population is continually dispersing and re-forming.

So one could argue that a locality could just announce all kinds of local projects and production runs, run up a sizeable debt of labor credits to pay the liberated laborers, and then after enjoying the benefits of that labor its residents would simply disperse from the locality, leaving it uninhabited and in debt.

To address this potential scenario there could be a regulation that ties all individuals, by name, to any given locality -- any individual who would want to leave the locality would have to either pay their individually-proportionate share of the locality's outstanding debt of labor credits, or else -- for exceptional circumstances -- that same portion of debt would be assigned to that individual for wherever they happened to be after leaving.

On the converse, if someone wanted to move *to* a locality that had a debt, they would implicitly be assuming their individually-proportionate share of that locality's total debt of labor credits.

Localities would only be able to *issue* and *work off* debts in their locality's name -- liberated laborers holding labor credits of their own in a locality that has no debt are considered as individuals with their own personal labor credits, with none of those labor credits seen as being with the locality as a whole, as might be imagined.





You seem to think that the record books of history provide *all* combinations and outcomes that are potentially possible -- as though the world going forward is *historically* determined, entirely.





No, but they would provide enough combinations and outcomes to show that your system is a disaster, especially on the question of the false assumptions of yours and the Utopian organization nonsense of yours.


Only in your own surmising.





If everyone thought this way then the world *would* be fatally bound to the fate of what has previously transpired, even if only once, and all possible futures would have to endlessly repeat the precedent, whatever it happened to be.





"History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as farce". I wonder who said that? =) Now, we need to learn from the mistakes of the past, something which you clearly are not capable of doing, and one of those mistakes is expecting the results of Capitalist or super-productivity and whatnot to arise simply because your system has the name "Socialist" or "Communist" just as the Bolshevik and every other revolutionary movement imagined.


No, I demonstrably do more than just name-drop and make up pretend facts about productivity.





(I have the urge to thank you here for your fascinating, consistently dark imagination. Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature.)





I love how you disregard what I said and yet ignore what you say when it comes to your "fascinating", "consistently" bright Utopian "imagination". "Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature". That is not a counter-argument.


I've addressed your position thoroughly and repeatedly.





If vanguardism is called-for, then I would support such an approach to the question of political organization.





At least that's sound.





The means of mass (industrial) production *must* be wielded by the proletariat if such hurdles are to be surmounted.





Local scale production needs large scale planning or else these local productive forces would be stuck with a barely existent view over production and planning. This would lead to an anarchy of production, something that would be done away with through large-scale central planning. If you merely allow the proletariat to "wield" the means of mass production without any central planning or guiding force then you would lead to the anarchy of production and disaster, if not complete disconnection with the outside world. We're talking about billions of workplaces all over the entire world, they cannot operate by themselves without either markets or central planning.


Agreed, except that markets can be transcended given current abilities of productivity.





I'm not *accusing* -- I'm *characterizing* and *dismissing* your baseless, arbitrary, dark conclusions.





Dismissing my arguments against your system rather than counter-argument simply by characterizing them. That is nothing more than resorting to a logical fallacy.


I am not obligated to *like* your politics, so, besides the arguments I've provided I will also characterize your market-affinity as I find appropriate.





Your contentions here *require* a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolution world -- specifics which you do not, and could not possibly, have.





THAT'S what you accuse my contentions of? WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR FALSE ASSUMPTIONS? Your ENTIRE THEORY is based off of a knowledge of specifics in a post-revolutionary world, specifics which YOU DO NOT CAN COULD NOT POSSIBLE HAVE! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT AND YET ACCUSE ME OF IT? I just can't believe this shit I'm reading. My entire contentions are based off of YOUR Utopian system, NOT the other way around.


No, I do not assume *any* specifics of *any* scenario within the context of the model I've provided.





Again, you're imputing some kind of agency onto my person in particular where none exists, or could possibly exist. In the context of the 'communist supply & demand' model I would be a liberated laborer, like anyone else, under no duress to contribute work, and with a certain personal possession of labor credits, or none, and some personal possessions. I would be able to participate in all political matters, as for those concerned with liberated mass production, and would be able to submit my daily personal prioritized political demands, like anyone else.





How the fuck did you just ignore the entire point? The point was NOT that YOU had any power to do anything, but that your SYSTEM had the power to do so. The point was that HOW are you going to determine, "you" here as in the one making up the ridiculous theory, determine what personal property is in use and what isn't. Specifically, "If you cannot determine which personal property is in use and which isn't then how the FUCK do you expect to take away personal property if left unused according to your system? That only leaves us with two conclusions: you will take everything regardless of use or you will not take anything away form anyone."


Again, if a post-capitalist society had any pressing issues with its policy concerning personal possessions, such would come to the fore as a current topic, for resolution.





You're not seeing that it could very well *not* be an issue of *any* concern to anyone else. Consider that the act of everyone "hoarding" everything they could within sight, every day, indefinitely, would result in folly as no one could realistically *control* everything they've laid claim to, in realtime, since we are physically constrained to *one location* in physical space at any given moment.





Actually it would be an issue and a huge concern. Suppose this were to happen today where we can take whatever we want with no restrictions. People would storm the stores and loot everything taking as much as they can and filling their entire houses and surroundings with those products. On the scale of billions, this would be less of an issue of location and time as it is not one or two people that are taking the products and hoarding them, but billions of people taking the products and hoarding them. You cannot do anything about it nor stop it, you cannot even repossess the products that are used or not used. In your system on the world scale, people can take everything they need, multiple cars, multiple TVs, multiple computers, multiple consoles, etc. leaving others without these items thanks to their selfishness. So yes, this would be an issue and a huge concern whether you like it or not. You, of course, will not address this and merely call it pessimism and entirely disregard it, thus showing, again, that your system is a disaster that cannot even solve the problems that it creates nor does it want to.


'Looting' is only meaningful in the context of a private-property-based economics that restricts access to productivity based on one's existing ownership of capital. In a *post*-capitalist context 'looting' would be meaning-*less* since the institution of private ownership would no longer exist. Consider the current public sector -- can anyone "own" a public park, or an e-book that's in the public domain -- ? Just expand *everything* to the public domain, including control over goods and mass production, and have a system for popular and liberated-labor-based control over it all -- like with the model I've provided.





Go for it. Change your very politics in the process of that pursuit.





Do I even need to say anything? Really, do I even need to say anything? He's presenting a system where you can "game" it and "win" it, abuse it and corrupt it, with ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCES. What the fuck. Are you trying to argue from a moral viewpoint here by playing on my political morality? That's ridiculous.


No -- it's just that you're not understanding the differences in social relations from a world of private ownership, to a wholly publicly-controlled one.





Again you fail to disappoint the audience with your sparklingly dark imagination.





Again you fail to disappoint the audience with your complete disregard to devastating problems in your own system and dismissal of your opponent's arguments by merely referring to them being "dark imaginations".


You recklessly favor your own market-clinging approach by *not* addressing my alternative model *neutrally* -- instead you posit your own arbitrary nightmare specifics, thereby artificially undermining it. Likewise I could flippantly say that, with markets, people will find human meat to be the cheapest, and so market forces would produce a cannibalistic dog-eat-dog world of person-eat-person -- but it would be too assumptive of many variables and factors *within* the context of market forces, and so I *don't* contend those conclusions.





Socialized life can never replace individuality. The individual is unique in that he has a mind of his own with actual demands and needs that rarely change, society does not. The individual is the only one that knows what he needs, wants, and desires.





Agreed.





If you agree with this then you agree with the entire conclusion that the individual is much more preferable over society for basing concepts, theories, and entire systems on him. Thus your earlier criticism (or what is someone else?) of rational choice theory, individualism, economism, and my basis of my system on individuals are null and void.


The market-based approach is not the *only* method of enabling individual-based choice -- the point is to empower individualism, as in consumerism, while *collectivizing* mass production.





Not true -- the proletariat's control of mass production would be the material basis.





Oh my lord. Utopian imaginations everywhere. The proletariat's control of mass production IS NOT THE BASIS. The basis is super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation, etc. etc. If you somehow claim that the proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those then I challenge you to prove it.


There is no 'proof' -- you're asking for 'proof' of something objective that does not yet exist. One's politics speak not to the way things *are* currently, but rather to how things *should* be. I am letting you know that a worldwide proletarian control of mass production would *enable* a bottom-up mass control over productivity and distribution.





Then you're misunderstanding. I'm not trying to *predict* *anything*.





You're speaking of your post-Capitalist Utopian society and trying to predict what will happen and how things will go with all that "mass consciousness" bullshit. So yes, you ARE predicted, and thus my point remains.


No, I hereby disavow any and all claims -- if they exist -- to predictions of a future reality.





Your "accounting for the very high chance that a society of the future does not create a socialist humanity" is simply political conservatism on the part of you and your politics.





Of course it's political conservatism! I am not a Utopian adventurist idealist that cannot learn from neither reality or the past, such as yourself! That is exactly why I proceed slowly but surely and effectively rather than resort to suicide as in your case. That political conservatism is the opposite of your Utopian imaginations. I do not base anything on Utopian imaginations.





Here's back to your point:





The workers share absolutely no relationship as in the case of kin altruism or small-scale mutual aid and altruism to allow the workers to even produce this difficult to manufacture and scarce exotic goods and services.





Okay, fair enough -- agreed.





Good. Then you will need to address that argument.


Yes, I did already -- I agree that workers do *not* have tight-knit, location-dependent interests in common. Proletarian interests in common are over the *world's* capacity for mass production.





This is true, in a sense -- since 'mass demand' is de-linked from any and all work efforts, one's contribution of work effort is not directly linked-to, or does not directly determine, what one receives in the way of consumption. Rather, since, by definition, all of society and its production would be *collectivized*, it would be a *collective* process that mediates exactly what work is performed and how the resulting material output is distributed.





Thus there is no reason for anyone to work. Good job.


That's your *own* interpretation and conclusion -- again you're agreeing with yourself by imputing specifics according to your choosing. The lack of a *market* motivation does *not* mean that people would automatically turn into jellyfish and just slowly die on the beach.





Oh and that won't take place collectively, just merely individuals dropping out of work, slacking, and eventually people follow suit. Given the option today people would rather stay at home or go on vacations rather than work in boring and dull jobs. The reason why they do these boring and dull jobs today is because they are paid to do it and only with that payment are they able to buy whatever they need. This concept does not exist in your system, instead they'll just get what they need regardless of their work, effort, efficiency, productivity, or contribution.


In a populist consumerist context anyone could request / demand *anything*, but there could only be realization / fulfillment of that if sufficient numbers of the same performed in the capacity / social roles of liberated labor, to actually effect the necessary production.





Individuals have NO DIRECT influence on the outcome of what they receive,


They *could* -- it could be d.i.y., on publicly available implements of (mass) production. Or, they could *organize* for small-scale or larger-scale (mass) production, appropriately.





they have NO CONTROL on what they receive, instead they depend on complete disconnected strangers for what they receive.





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property





Such a system can never last for long and will inevitably collapse.


(More hollow-ringing contentions.)





An according to contribution system, on the other hand allows workers to judge what they want to receive and how much based on their DIRECT influence of the outcome through increased contribution and payment.


A 'point' system, essentially.





[Y]ou [said] that if people resort to such an abuse of the system as I have explained then other workers would replace them? If labor is liberated then to replace it would to coerce it and force it into realms which it does not desire/want. Liberated labor should be able to act freely as it wants, not as society wants it to act or else it is not liberated. These workers who are abusing the system will inevitably organize to abuse it for their own interests at the expense of other strangers, obviously. If other "liberated" workers attempt to fill in the gaps, then the organized workers would stop them





Or they *wouldn't* (be able to stop them), depending on actual conditions / circumstances.





What do you honestly think will happen if they are not able to stop them? That they will simply get along just fine? No. Conflict will take place. If they would not be able to stop them then it will lead to conflict. Without a central authoritative entity such as a state, but with almost complete decentralization, autonomy, etc. then the conflict may very well reach a regional scale. The slackers may attract friends, families, supporters, and sympathizers and vice versa. They would see it as an attack on workers' autonomy and control over the means of production by the communes or other groups such as strikebreakers or whatnot.


And...?





So here then is the outstanding question: *Would* a liberated labor force provide any labor if there was nothing coercing them to do so, *and* their personal material needs were being adequately supplied 'according to need' -- ?





Firstly, they can provide labor without coercion, they merely need an incentive to do so. Incentives are not coercion.


I disagree that abstract-valuation-based 'incentives' is the only possible way that liberated laborers would feel motivated to provide their labor, in accordance with mass requests.





Secondly, there is no guarantee that you will be able to adequately supply them according to need.


Do you mean me *personally*, or do you mean 'according to the model' -- please be clear here. Again, I'm not making *predictions*, although you obviously don't hesitate to do that yourself.





Thirdly, if their needs were met then they would have absolutely no reason to work unless coerced or incentivized to do otherwise. This is especially a problem because as I had explained previously, they have absolutely no direct influence or feedback on the outcome of others' production or what they receive.


You make it sound as though journalism would somehow cease to exist.





Propagation

communist administration -- A political culture, including channels of journalism, history, and academia, will generally track all known assets and resources -- unmaintained assets and resources may fall into disuse or be reclaimed by individuals for personal use only





If they increase their efforts, productivity, contribution, efficiency, etc. then they do not get remunerated respectively, but they would not receive anything at all in return.


They *would* get proportionately more labor credits for more labor hours of work -- and, as consumers, we could ask what is it that they have *requested*, according to their daily prioritized demands -- ?





I, obviously, would say 'yes', based on an interpretation of humanity / human nature that says that people would autonomously work at socially valuable tasks *independently* of external indicators or influences.





Yeah and you obviously believe in God.


Nope -- atheist.





You even believe people love each other and only want to hug each other rather than bomb and tear the shit out of each other before decapitating them and ripping their hearts out. Keep living in that Disney fantasy world of yours, leave real-life for the rest of us.


Dramatic!





Okay, to return to your point:





Your system is a DISASTER, but your dogmatism has seemingly blinded you to that fact. Now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today, the exotic goods and services determined by the available laborers, assets, and resources of your system then these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced, WILL NOT be produced, have no means by which to rationally and most effectively allocate these goods, and have no means by which to ensure the loyalty and faithfulness of the producers to the consumers.





I characterized this as an assumption because you are simply asserting a contention -- by what means are you concluding that 'available laborers, assets, and resources' would mean that 'these exotic goods have NO reason to be produced [and] WILL NOT be produced' -- ?





I based my criticism on YOUR assumptions, not the other way around. I am concluding them to mean that on the basis of the arguments I have already put forth such as the lack of existence of incentives, no remuneration according to contribution, no reason to produce them, no rewards for production, they will still receive what they need REGARDLESS of what they produce or if they produce, etc. etc.


Well, if "it" -- whatever -- is not actually *produced* by liberated labor then it would not *exist* to be used or consumed by *anyone*.





Read it again, "now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today [...]". Now reply properly.


You're not being clear here.





So you're saying that the workers themselves are *not* the best judges over working conditions -- ?





Due to bias, no.





'Effort' is *implied* by 'difficulty and/or hazard' -- *times* actual labor hours.





Difficulty and hazard have NOTHING to do with effort. Effort has to do with the amount of labor put in, its quality and quanitity if you may. If a job is difficult and hazardous then I do not need to have put in more effort, but merely took more time, wasted more time, sped through it, carefully worked through it, used skill and thus less effort, used techniques, etc. Difficulty is not synonymous with effort, especially when it comes to the question of experience in work and skill


All of these factors would be under administrative supervision:





Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions





This would be exit surveys of workers themselves, at those respective work roles -- there is nothing that indicates, or corresponds to *your* (faulty) interpretation of 'surveys made by individuals EXTERNAL to the workplace'.





And thus exactly why it's more of a problem than external judgement of the workplace: Bias. The workers in the workplace can abuse the survey and the system by maximizing scores on difficulty and hazard to increase their benefits and rewards.


However "exaggerated" the survey responses might be, it would all be scored 'on the curve', meaning that the values given would all be relative.





Okay, so you're saying that, on a scale of 1 to 10, *everyone* is just going to put down a '10' for 'most difficult' for *whatever* work role they just did, just to 'maximize utility and benefits to themselves at no expense to others' -- ? So then *how exactly* would such exaggeration maximize utility and benefits to themselves in this way?





Yes. And then how is that even a question? Labor credits are paid based on difficulty/hazard times actual labor hours. To maximize the labor credits received they would then maximize the scale in order to receive the maximum amount of labor credits possible. How did you not conclude this yourself is that actual question.


(Ditto.)





Or, more positively, instead of a rationing system, production would be increased to fulfill demand.





Yeah, by magically calling for the Production Gods to increase production.


They're called 'liberated laborers' -- no need to deify them. (Grin)





If production were so easily or magically increased to fulfill demand then any command economy would be able to create ungodly amounts of production to fulfill any and all demand. History shows otherwise.


I'm not saying it would be 'easy' -- it's just that that's how it would be done.





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





If production were so easily or magically increased to fulfill demand then any command economy would be able to create ungodly amounts of production to fulfill any and all demand. History shows otherwise.


You can draw any conclusions you like from history, but conflating past results with future potentialities is just being recklessly facile.





In other words, exit surveys at every formally defined work role would tally people's estimations of it, on a standardized scale -- like '1 through 10'. The average scale for any given formal work role -- '1 through 10' -- would be the number that's *multiplied* to any actual labor hours performed, by anyone, to determine the *rate of labor credits* handed-over per labor hour for that respective labor role.





Still makes no mention of effort.


'Effort' is distinguished according to the definition of any given work role -- standardized and regulated. If you mean it in the *subjective* (personal) sense, I addressed that above.





So, for example, if 1,000 workers at 'tuna fish harvesting' responded with an average of '6' for that work role, then that work role would have a multiplier of 6 for every labor hour, for labor credits, meaning that 6 labor credits would have to be handed over for every labor hour worked for 'tuna fish harvesting'.





Still makes no mention of effort. Nevertheless, why would they in shit's name assign a multiplier of SIX instead of TEN and thus maximize the labor credits multiplier? This is ridiculous. This takes from the ridiculous idea of Parecon.


You seem to think that *everyone*, for absolutely *all* work roles, regardless of actual hazard or difficulty, would just summarily assign a '10' to it.





Yes, as explained earlier, contribution of work is de-linked from fulfillment of demand.





Then as I had said, YOU are incorrect. Observe the context:


I said: "you have no form of remuneration according to contribution, etc. and as such you are completely unable to respect and consider the total effort put forth. Workers and consumers will receive all the same in terms of remuneration according to the effort put in"


You replied: "Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above."


I replied: "Incorrect? YOUR reply is incorrect. The excerpts above make absolutely NO mention of effort and no means by which to properly measure effort. Laborers are consumers and vice versa. What "liberated" laborers receive in labor credits they cannot use for consumption, their consumption demands are the SAME as the consumers' demands. People will not receive goods based on amount of effort put it. Consumers do not nor do the "liberated" laborers. Oh and do I even need to remind you that your "labor-notes" have nothing to do with consumption and thus have nothing to do with the argument and point that I made?"


You then said: "Yes, as explained earlier, contribution of work is de-linked from fulfillment of demand."


Thus consumption is THE SAME for both workers and consumers who BOTH receive according to need REGARDLESS of contribution.




That was the entire point. You argued otherwise at first by saying "Incorrect. Consumers receive based on their daily iterated economic / political demands, while liberated laborers receive labor credits, per the excerpt above."


I'll address the crux of your argument, here:





Thus consumption is THE SAME for both workers and consumers who BOTH receive according to need REGARDLESS of contribution.


Consumption *varies* on an individual-by-individual basis, according to what any individual has requested with their daily prioritized list of demands, subject to actual liberated production. As active liberated laborers, individuals would receive increased amounts of labor credits in proportion to increased labor hours at approved, funded work roles.





It's interesting that you assume that a post-capitalist liberated labor force would distribute itself inappropriately, to where unskilled workers would be attempting to do work they are not ready to do.





What part of "resources that would be openly accessible to all in a post-capitalist world" do you simply not understand from your OWN statement?


You are obviously interpreting this according to your own assumptions about specifics within.





This is also the issue in the case of the apply farm and unrestricted access to the means of production. Unskilled workers will decide to go there because you cannot prevent them, and thus unskilled workers would be attempting to do work they are not ready to do just as I wish to pick apples or disrupt production by producing whatever I want using publicly owned means of production.


"I" cannot prevent them -- ? Do you mean me *personally*, or else what *do* you mean by including my person within this contention of yours? You're inserting your own defeatist scenarios again.





Private accumulations WILL NOT be nullified, they will remain and be allowed as long as they can "game" and "win" the system since you evidently "do not give a shit" if they do.





Now you're conflating 'personal possessions' with 'private accumulations' -- the former refers to use-value for one's person *only*, while the latter has to do with the use of capital to direct productive activity.





Honestly after all that abstract phrase making you resort to, I no longer know what you mean by anything.





You speak as if private accumulations are the reasons for scarcity and problems today rather than it is demand outweighing supply and the scarcity of resources.





If this is what you stand by then you are *not* a revolutionary.





First of all, No True Scotsman logical fallacy. I do not care what people on Revleft call me as I've seen people call each other numerous blanket terms whilst I was a lurker and so far I've been called both a Stalinist and a revisionist and whatever else people come up with in an attempt to bring any fodder for their arguments.





Secondly, you already noticed above that I had "conflat[ed] 'personal possessions' with 'private accumulations'" and should have automatically realized the context and known that I had been referring to personal possessions which I believed what you were referring to.





Pass -- thanks.





Typical.





Or, if production is allowed to happen at various scales, there may be those who would autonomously 'innovate' different, various approaches to a given 'problem'. Broader co-administration over liberated mass production could certainly take up alternative, innovated approaches to product design as a matter of administrative politics.





Yeah, because there is every reason to do so instead of play video games at home and go on vacations at the expense of others for free.


Enjoy.





For the last time, your "labor notes" have NOTHING to do with consumption, they have to do with managing projects





True.





Thus I return to my previous point: "Your "liberated labor" also has absolutely no reason, incentive, or otherwise to put it much, if any, effort at all as they are not being remunerated according to effort or contribution but being remunerated according to need REGARDLESS of effort or contribution."


(Addressed above.)





Contending something does not make it so.





But contending something with proper arguments does.


No, that would be a fetish of formalism -- what counts is the *content* of one's position.

[Theophys]

Can you stop making so many quotes in your post? I have to keep deleting over 20 lines of space between each one word or one liner you make as a reply. It's annoying.

Your entire post is nothing more than one words, one liners, or complete disregard of my arguments by hand waving them. Whatever. I'll treat you accordingly.




-Whatever-
Makes no arguments.




No, the overall method remains the same regardless, according to the model -- I was just trying to accommodate your one-sided *perspective* on it....


Which doesn't work nor makes any sense at all.



There'd be no fundamental change, but if you'd like to focus on the *supply* of labor then many labor credits would be pooled this way among those in the population of a particular locality that tended to be 'ambitious'. (A larger pool of labor credits would confer proportionately more liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward.)


What the hell did you just reply to? This was the question: "If one locality has a high supply of labor then why would it need an "according to contribution" system in your model?"

I didn't ask if there was a fundamental change or not, but I asked why would it resort to an according to contribution system if it has no labor scarcities? You did not answer that at all. They ALREADY have a large supply of labor, they have no more need for any more "liberated-labor brokering power".



Only within the context of your *market*-oriented mechanistics -- my model posits a more-autonomous spirit of initiative that can be responsive to outstanding demand, particularly *mass* demand.


Mystical fable nonsense here.
There is no such thing as a "more-autonomous spirit of initiative", next you'll start speaking of magical ghosts and fairies that will guide your system. I already explained why "mass-autonomous spirit of initiative" won't work when I spoke of altruism, mutual aid, etc. on the large-scale.



You're not considering that 'mass demand' does *not necessarily* require a huge supply of (liberated) labor to be put forth. The more efficient -- automated -- the mass production process is, the greater the magnitude of material productivity is, for the fulfillment of basic needs and beyond.


Actually I am considering that, but YOU are not considering that YOU DO NOT HAVE FULL AUTOMATION and thus require a huge supply of labor, especially if you are going to meet the demands of every single person on Earth for free.




Again, you're stuck in the 'market' mentality here.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're being repetitive -- your contentions here are based on assumptions over specifics.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



(More repetition and assumptions over specifics.)


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Demand is restricted by the willingness of available liberated labor.


Thus since you have absolutely no means by which to ensure available "liberated" labor is willing to work for free then demand is restricted by every means.



Not true -- you're ignoring the 'difficulty/hazard' index in the 'communist supply & demand' model.


Which has nothing to do with consumption. No one really cares about labor credits if they cannot be used for consumption nor rewarded according to contribution. Difficulty/hazard I already critiqued as being not enough, but obviously you handwaved it somewhere.



More assumptions.


And he's the one talking about assumptions. :laugh:



More constructively, organization could be generalized over greater geographies, with greater efficiencies used, to increase *productivity* to fulfill outstanding demand.


Oh and we'll all live happily ever after. Hey, you know, I'll make a new system called Everything-Is-Possiblism. My new system has organization which could be generalized over greater geographies, with greater efficiencies used, to increase *productivity* to fulfill outstanding demand. Like it? We also have puppies, unicorns, and ponies which will be created if there's an organization for it with mass outstanding demand. In EIP, everyone will work for free because they like working for free. People will eat all the food they want because my EIP system will meet their every need regardless of reality. If there's anything they need, ever, they will just "make it happen".

EIP- Where everything is possible! I'll start a new tendency thanks to you.



You're talking to him.


BAHAHAHA! :laugh:
Sorry, I meant someone that actually has his head on Earth in reality with an actually viable alternative.



Which is why a worldwide proletarian revolution is necessary.


Keep dreaming like the Bolsheviks did. You'll get slapped in the face by reality.



Correct -- the referencing of today's cash is a loose association of meaning, to describe the circulation and payment aspects, from liberated labor, to liberated labor.


If that's what you think cash is today then I really do not wonder why your system is such a disaster. Money is a necessity, it is not simply a means of circulation and payment from laborer to laborer, but a means by which to accumulate value, allow for trade exchange, work as a means of payment, calculate commodities, create prices, reward contribution, and a thousand and one things which would be useless in your system.



Nope, sorry -- nice try, though.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



(More market-mentality here.)


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



(Repetitive.)


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, there doesn't have to be -- all that's materially required is a *gradient*, from level-humane-fulfillment, upwards.


No. You either have the proper material conditions for an "according to need" system or you don't.



Nope -- I've explained why we can do better than *any* instance of the market mechanism.


And I've explained to you exactly why you cannot through numerous arguments.



It's not a 'false' assumption if the reality is as you describe it here:


And the fucking issue is that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH, THERE IS NO ABUNDANCE. There is no infinite source of resources, there is no abundance for every single product, we do not have super-productivity, we CANNOT have your system which depends on all those impossible scenarios that we have no achieved.



Well, look at *today's* technological productivities versus those of a *century* ago....


Ignores my argument. Nevertheless, that's due to Capitalism.



You're conflating 'finite' with 'unavailable' -- an unjustifiable assumption.


Finite has nothing to do with unavailable nor did I conflate the two. Go ahead and show me how I did. The only "unjustifiable assumption" is YOU assuming that I conflated finite with unavailable.



Resources can also be replenished.


Not all resources can be replenished, no.



Yes, there does -- capitalism denies a person-proportionate share of the world's resources even though we were all born into it the same. Capitalism institutes private property, which denies most people any use or share of very powerful, productive capacities.


We were not all born into it the same nor are we all the same. Even Marx himself acknowledged this when he claimed that socially necessary labor-time is to be used instead of per-hour payment regardless of contribution or the social average. Capitalism restricts the means of production, but that is why we oppose it. I believe that Capitalism is justified, though, in restricting access to all goods based on money and price.



But it's because the average person does not own (financially productive) capital that they must sell their own labor power, with no other option for participating in the global economy.


That has nothing to do with anything. I do not care if they own "capital" or not, they are still wage laborers if they are paid for their labor. What you're referring to is wage slavery. I did not speak of wage slavery here. Your system STILL has wage labor and that has nothing to do with what you said above.-



So you'd prefer to not even try -- defeatism.


If your nonsense in theory cannot work then it would not even get off the ground in real-life and instantly end up in disaster and mass extinction. Yes, defeatism of ridiculous ideas. I love defeating them. Nevertheless, this disregards my arguments yet again.



I'll let you make your own coffin here -- *who* exactly are you referring to as this sinister boogeyman amongst the self-liberated proletariat -- ?


You, your system, the communes, and anyone that hires wage laborers and forces them to be as such without any viable alternative whilst also forcibly taking away the fruits of their labor.



These are all administrative functions.


That answered nothing at all. I will ask again, who issues labor credits? Does the locality even need to pay back debts? If so to who?



That would be according to any given locality, by the regular process of mass-prioritization.


This also explains nothing. Who decides what specific type or means of production would be used? Who decides which technology, etc.? Mass prioritization has nothing to do with these specifics.



Nope, because there's no exchange-value in the labor credits -- they can only represent a limited amount of past liberated labor performed, according to their face value. Once passed-onward, for *new* labor done, the transfer of labor credits closes out that past work done and labor-organizing authority exercised, one-time.


Actually they do have exchange-value but it is over virtual and artificial "projects". Furthermore, if they had no exchange-value then that does not mean that they cannot be printed. Furthermore, if localities do not print labor credits then who the hell does? A central printing press? Who determines how much should be printed and on what basis?



Sure -- let's walk through this.... On Day 1, *no one* has any labor credits and any and all localities must *issue debt* in order to make any new production happen. All that would be required to eliminate debt would be for Locality A to do 'x' amount of labor for Locality B, while Locality B does *proportionate*, 'x' amount of labor for Locality A. The 'x' amounts of labor credits issued from debt from each respective locality would *cancel out*. (It's like saying 'A' will pay off the debt of 'B' with its own liberated labor if 'B' does the *same* amount of work, to pay off the debt of 'A'.)


This is extremely ridiculous. Again another disaster whilst attempting to do away with money. All of this hassle could simply be prevented by discovering something called "money". Look it up. Your system is a DISASTER. Locality A happens to be composed of solely farm work, while locality B is composed of difficult and risky jobs that far outweigh locality A's with a scarcity of workers due to the risk and difficulty involved making the workers prefer safer work with a stable pay. Locality B has to spend much, much more labor credits in order to satisfy any outstanding demand on its own products by hiring wage laborers from other localities. People are not paying for Locality B's products, they are receiving them for free and yet Locality B is paying FOR the consumers and going into a public debt because of that. This is a disaster, it would discourage production severely, not that your system can even sustain itself in the first place. Why would these localities even want to pay off debt and not create their own labor credits? Why would they want to host any difficult and risky workplaces that would repel all but the most desperate or determined workers? Why would the workers even care if their locality is in a debt? Workers aren't affected by their locality being in a debt as their consumption is not affected at all nor is their consumption dependent upon labor credits directly. I see no possible way of having your system work in real-life. However I try to look at it, it's an impossibility.



You're preferring to be instructed by today's market system, rather than *breaking* with it to allow better options to make themselves available to you -- hence your fatalism regarding *non-market* approaches.


There are no better options, especially not yours. I prefer to be instructed by markets, artificial or otherwise, yes. I do not "break" with them because I'm no motherfucking window-breaking garden-planting Anarcho-Kiddy trying a new revolutionary method to destroy society. I've already realized that your system is an impossibility and do not bother "breaking" anything for the sake of breaking. Fatalism regarding disaster approaches, yes indeed.



No, I am not obligated to address bullshit hypothetical specifics from yourself.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, rather I'm *springboarding* from today's technological capabilities, to welcome better possible social relations to control all of it.


You're not "springboarding"; you're basing your ENTIRE SYSTEM ON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS. You do away with the social relations of today in favor of new social relations whilst entirely keep everything good about this system (its results) and doing away with what create those "good" things (the results). That's Utopianism and ignorance at their best.



This, then, is the crux of our differences -- status quo 'pragmatism' versus the potentialities of revolution.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. But you mean "status quo pragmatism versus ultra-leftist Utopian idealist fairyland adventurism".



No, liberated labor would be informed of consumer demand.


Which wouldn't be fulfilled because some products are "specialized, difficult, and luxurious" with absolutely no incentive to produce them or waste time on them.



Again you're making blanket contentions over unknowable specifics.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



"Mass starvation" because 'specialized, difficult, and luxurious' goods are in question -- ? Nice scare tactics -- you're the master of it.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.
And no, it's not because luxury goods are in question, because you entire system is in question.



Nope -- I've addressed it.


No you haven't. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Yes, in labor credits -- the scale makes no difference. If greater productivities are to be realized then greater efforts at mass organization must be put forth, for it.


Absolute Utopianism that follows the "make it happen" ideals of this Utopian.



Well, they certainly *might*, considering that no one could deny them access to their proportionate share of mass-production implements (or lesser).


Yes because in your EIP (Everything-Is-Possible) system, they'll get everything they need, even mass expensive and large-scale technologically advanced rare machinery that eat air and shit out rainbows. No. You cannot by any means give out means of production or any to such an extent that you can satisfy all niche products and demand.



Well, a *regular* system of political organization would already be in place -- the framework that I've provided.


Which still cannot summon organization from thin air. No matter how much organization you have, you cannot simply "make it happen", you need a material basis for everything. Limitations will exist and problems will exists, none of which you take into consideration at all. If we were all to take your EIP system and turn it into our then we'd all imagine lovable Utopians from nationstates.com. So no, your political organization and its system are not the answer.



Nope -- more boogeyman tactics on your part.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Yes, I addressed this very concern quite recently, on another thread:


Oh fascinating! "Liberated" laborers my ass. This is nothing but a system of oppression that removes any and all exit capabilities and forces exploitation. People cannot leave your system without paying what the locality wants them to pay. This means that your enslaved laborers are forced to buy their freedom by resorting to wage labor in order to simply leave a locality or else they're stuck in a locality that is falling apart because of other people. You prevent individuals from leaving unless they pay for there freedom, this leads to mass exploitation by forcing individuals with no or low labor notes to be forced to remain in their system until they pay WHATEVER the locality wants. The locality can very well abuse this by forcing individuals to remain in their locality and increase the debt continuously or artificially until members are unable to leave, are discouraged to leave, or can leave but would be essentially stripped clean of their labor notes. With no exit strategy, you are doing nothing more than exploiting your enslaved laborers. These enslaved laborers are forced to pay off the debt causes by OTHERS in their locality. It is not by any means an individual's fault if he was simply born into such a locality. This is worse than the border restrictions of today as you force these enslaved laborers to pay off the debts of their entire locality. Simply fucking ridiculous.



Only in your own surmising.


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, I demonstrably do more than just name-drop and make up pretend facts about productivity.


Actually you do nothing BUT "name-drop" and make up pretend facts about productivity, abundance, organization, magic, and automation as you have clearly demonstrated so far.



I've addressed your position thoroughly and repeatedly.


Actually no, you have not. You have done nothing but ignore my arguments with pitiful and pathetic handwaving claims like:
"(I have the urge to thank you here for your fascinating, consistently dark imagination. Your vignettes speak volumes about your outlook on human nature.)"

And this entire post of yours.



Agreed, except that markets can be transcended given current abilities of productivity.


No they cannot unless we have:

1) Full or almost full automation
2) Infinite resources
3) Abundance in everything
4) Super-productivity

Now prove it.



I am not obligated to *like* your politics, so, besides the arguments I've provided I will also characterize your market-affinity as I find appropriate.


As you find appropriate? By resorting to fucking logical fallacies? Yeah, that sounds very mature, logical, and gives you a whole lot of reputation. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, I do not assume *any* specifics of *any* scenario within the context of the model I've provided.


The specifics are:
1) Full or almost full automation
2) Infinite resources
3) Abundance in everything
4) Super-productivity



Again, if a post-capitalist society had any pressing issues with its policy concerning personal possessions, such would come to the fore as a current topic, for resolution.

Everything-Is-Possible. That is not a solution in your model, you are doing nothing more than claiming "I can't answer this so I'll just leave it to my Utopia to 'make it happen'".



'Looting' is only meaningful in the context of a private-property-based economics that restricts access to productivity based on one's existing ownership of capital. In a *post*-capitalist context 'looting' would be meaning-*less* since the institution of private ownership would no longer exist. Consider the current public sector -- can anyone "own" a public park, or an e-book that's in the public domain -- ? Just expand *everything* to the public domain, including control over goods and mass production, and have a system for popular and liberated-labor-based control over it all -- like with the model I've provided.


Looting would not be "meaning-*less*". If I were to enter a public means of production, destroy it and take whatever goods I want then that is looting. If I were to break into a factory and steal all the machinery or party that I want then that is looting, unless you consider that legal in which case... :laugh: But nevertheless, in EIP, everything is possible, even looting is legal and non-existent because looting obviously depends on private property and didn't even exist before Capitalism such as during looting raids of the Mongols and barbarians. No they cannot own a public park but they can loot the public park and take benches, statues, ornaments, etc. E-books can't be looted unless every single copy is taken, or just the original before mass "production". Your model, again, is ridiculous, stop trying to present it as something serious.



No -- it's just that you're not understanding the differences in social relations from a world of private ownership, to a wholly publicly-controlled one.


No, I understand that perfectly, YOU do not understand what looting means nor the thousands of disasters in your system. Instead of realizing the problems in your system, you seem to think that the problem lies with me not understanding the difference between private and public ownership. Pathetic. Nevertheless, your reply has nothing to do with what I said on you allowing people to game the system, abuse it, and "win" it basing the consequences on only being moral issues between the person and his mind.



You recklessly favor your own market-clinging approach by *not* addressing my alternative model *neutrally* -- instead you posit your own arbitrary nightmare specifics, thereby artificially undermining it.


Let people judge the debate. By pointing to real specifics that can and will take place in your system, that is enough for me to destroy your useless system bit by bit.



Likewise I could flippantly say that, with markets, people will find human meat to be the cheapest, and so market forces would produce a cannibalistic dog-eat-dog world of person-eat-person -- but it would be too assumptive of many variables and factors *within* the context of market forces, and so I *don't* contend those conclusions.


You can say that, but we have markets today and human meat is expensive. Since human meat is expensive with extremely low and marginal demand on it then it won't lead to a "cannibalistic dog-eat-dog world of person-eat-person". Next.



The market-based approach is not the *only* method of enabling individual-based choice -- the point is to empower individualism, as in consumerism, while *collectivizing* mass production.


Your EIP system does not empower the individual, ESPECIALLY on the question of consumerism. Markets, artificial or otherwise, are the best means by which to allow for individual decision-making. You CAN empower the individual and collectivize mass production but that would be approaching my suggest system. Empowering the individual and collectivizing mass production cannot happen in your system as I have shown time and time again by explaining the disasters of your system on the individual AND the collective be it on the issue of collective decision-making, inhibiting individual demand by aggregate demand, etc. etc.



There is no 'proof' -- you're asking for 'proof' of something objective that does not yet exist. One's politics speak not to the way things *are* currently, but rather to how things *should* be. I am letting you know that a worldwide proletarian control of mass production would *enable* a bottom-up mass control over productivity and distribution.


You seem unable to read, here, I'll help you out. I asked you to prove that "proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those [super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation]". The question is not about a worldwide proletarian control of mass production but on the question of you making the claim that they are a material basis for "making it happen", a magical term for "I don't know".



No, I hereby disavow any and all claims -- if they exist -- to predictions of a future reality.


Thus his entire theory falls apart as soon as he realizes, if ever, that all his theorizing is based on false assumptions of the future.



Yes, I did already -- I agree that workers do *not* have tight-knit, location-dependent interests in common. Proletarian interests in common are over the *world's* capacity for mass production.


*facepalm*

This keeps getting worse and worse. if workers cannot have local interests in common then HOW THE HELL can they have international and worldwide interests in common? That they all want mass production? Sure, and they all want free stuff too. Rainbows and unicorns as well. The thing is, that will not happen because each individual has absolutely no reason to produce nor contribute at all, they have no reason to work efficiently, productively, or even prevent waste as everything is free and there is absolutely no means by which to calculate costs or prices.



That's your *own* interpretation and conclusion -- again you're agreeing with yourself by imputing specifics according to your choosing. The lack of a *market* motivation does *not* mean that people would automatically turn into jellyfish and just slowly die on the beach.


The specifics all of which are possible and will happen should your system ever take place. The lack of a market does not mean that they will die like jellyfish on the beach, but it means that their production will NOT be able to satisfy demand and will end up with a situation similar to that of the USSR.



In a populist consumerist context anyone could request / demand *anything*, but there could only be realization / fulfillment of that if sufficient numbers of the same performed in the capacity / social roles of liberated labor, to actually effect the necessary production.


What you're saying is essentially that they can demand whatever they want, but without "sufficient numbers" they won't get their demand satisfied. Good job on that lovely system of yours. People can demand whatever they want but they will never be satisfied unless sufficient numbers are present. This returns us the the numerous problems I have poitned out in this system ranging from the unfulfillment of demand, unfulfillment of the individual's specific demands and priorities, the control fo the collective over the individual, and so on.



They *could* -- it could be d.i.y., on publicly available implements of (mass) production. Or, they could *organize* for small-scale or larger-scale (mass) production, appropriately.


No they do not. DIY has nothing to do with mass and specialized production or else we'll start producing our own computers from complete scratch. Organization has nothing to do with the point I was making that producers have no direct influence on the society's output. You can organize all you want, you won't have enough supporters given the MASSIVE amounts of organizations being formed in order to count for the millions of desired products which cannot be magically produced for your EIP theory's pleasure. The publicly available means of production would already be used for mass production, they wouldn't remain idle without any production taking place.



(More hollow-ringing contentions.)


Make replace that tin can of a head? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



A 'point' system, essentially.


Yes.



And...?


What the hell do you mean "And...?" THAT IS THE POINT. Conflict and wars will arise worse than today's wars and conflicts purely due to the many converging contradictions with no uniting central authority to relieve any tension or act as a medium of control to ease tensions and contradictions.



I disagree that abstract-valuation-based 'incentives' is the only possible way that liberated laborers would feel motivated to provide their labor, in accordance with mass requests.


Show me any other alternative that is not the EIP theory of yours, one that is viable. You can incentivize the individuals, rely on kin altruism, or resort to massive problems.



Do you mean me *personally*, or do you mean 'according to the model' -- please be clear here. Again, I'm not making *predictions*, although you obviously don't hesitate to do that yourself.


Your model. You = the one pushing forward the model = the model. That's how it's generally used in such a context.



You make it sound as though journalism would somehow cease to exist.


You make it sound as though "journalism" is the solution. The issue here is not feedback from journalism, but feedback that could potentially bankrupt a cooperative which forces the cooperates to fix their shit or go broke. You also did not answer the first part of the statement: "Thirdly, if their needs were met then they would have absolutely no reason to work unless coerced or incentivized to do otherwise. "



They *would* get proportionately more labor credits for more labor hours of work -- and, as consumers, we could ask what is it that they have *requested*, according to their daily prioritized demands -- ?


They get nothing from those labor credits except in order to buy their freedom from their owners, the locality, the community, or the commune. The labor credits they cannot buy any consumer goods with and would essentially be completely useless. Individuals themselves would not desire to start production facilities, they do not really care about that shit.



Nope -- atheist.


It's a reference to your EIP system and you believing in miracles to make it happen.



Dramatic!


Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Well, if "it" -- whatever -- is not actually *produced* by liberated labor then it would not *exist* to be used or consumed by *anyone*.


Yes, because out of thousands of reasons THAT is the only reason why something would not be produced. But of course in Everything-Is-Possible, there would be no shortages, no scarcities, no lack of productivity, no strikes (yes, if they disagree with the collective for instance or act in solidarity), no inefficiencies, no underproduction, etc. etc. So no, you still did not answer the issue because you disregard other reasons for the lack of production as in the case of the USSR.



You're not being clear here.


I was being clear, I was taking your false assumptions determined by you in your system as conditions for my criticism. What's not to get? "now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today [...]" this means that if we take your false assumptions which we do not have today such as super-productivity, super-abundance, etc. etc. which you take as a given for your system.



All of these factors would be under administrative supervision:


Lol? You want to assign certain appointed agencies to take over administrative supervision? And I thought your system was already prone to massive problems and corruptions, now you want to personally-appointed decentralized and local administrative supervision agencies FOR EACH AND EVERY SINGLE PROJECT!? That is completely nonviable and illogical. There is no audit agency, there is no means by which to "watch the watchers".



However "exaggerated" the survey responses might be, it would all be scored 'on the curve', meaning that the values given would all be relative.


Yes, a straight line rather than a curve, which is why you used the quotes as everyone will rate their workplaces a 10 in order to maximize labor credits, "profits" and utility.



(Ditto.)


(Ditto.)



They're called 'liberated laborers' -- no need to deify them. (Grin)


Enslaved laborers as you have proven. Enslaved by the locality to geographical areas.



I'm not saying it would be 'easy' -- it's just that that's how it would be done.


That's how it would be done in your EIP system, wait till you try it out in real-life. You have not take a single course in economics, no wonder you're still stuck in that Utopian whimsical "everything-is-possible" phase.



You can draw any conclusions you like from history, but conflating past results with future potentialities is just being recklessly facile.


No, we need to learn from the past to judge our actions in the future. The Bolsheviks expected an EIP system, they ended up with the USSR and its shortages, much like your case.



'Effort' is distinguished according to the definition of any given work role -- standardized and regulated. If you mean it in the *subjective* (personal) sense, I addressed that above.


You did not address that above and you cannot standardize nor regulate it according to effort.



You seem to think that *everyone*, for absolutely *all* work roles, regardless of actual hazard or difficulty, would just summarily assign a '10' to it.


Yes.



I'll address the crux of your argument, here:

Consumption *varies* on an individual-by-individual basis, according to what any individual has requested with their daily prioritized list of demands, subject to actual liberated production. As active liberated laborers, individuals would receive increased amounts of labor credits in proportion to increased labor hours at approved, funded work roles.


So in other words, consumption has nothing to do with labor-credits, and work thus has nothing to do with consumption, ergo consumers and producers receive the same in terms of consumption. Essentially you just argued on my side. Good job.



You are obviously interpreting this according to your own assumptions about specifics within.




"I" cannot prevent them -- ? Do you mean me *personally*, or else what *do* you mean by including my person within this contention of yours? You're inserting your own defeatist scenarios again.


YOU as in your MODEL, as in you, the person who came up with the model.



Enjoy.


Dat system. I just... :laugh: I'm quite surprised how this guy doesn't realize the laughable nonsense that is his system. All those charts and zit volcanoes, still he cannot find how ridiculous this shit is.



(Addressed above.)


No you did not.



No, that would be a fetish of formalism -- what counts is the *content* of one's position.


If that content holds no water when put against arguments then it does not count at all. You can stay with your EIP system for all I care, I'll keep doing my part in criticizing it until you get it into your head.

[BIXX]

Can you stop making so many quotes in your post? I have to keep deleting over 20 lines of space between each one word or one liner you make as a reply. It's annoying.

You do that all the time, dude.

Also, everything you say seems to be based in a deep mistrust of workers, which puts you in an objectively anti-worker stance.

[Strannik]

I don't have time to address all interesting points in this thread, but I'd like to point a few things out.

It seems to me, that both capitalist free marketers and market socialists make a false assumption from correct premises. It is absolutely true, that every system, in order to control itself and maintain stability, needs to have a feedback function that contains all its states. But it is absolutely false, that money/price mechanism is only or even a very good mechanism for such a feedback function.

For capitalism the problem is simple. Market choices reflect social preferences only as long as money is spread evenly through the system. With each exchange however, the money accumulates and in the end we have again a few individuals trying to guess social needs - without ability nor motivation to do so - since they already possess everything there is.

All great communists, I think, have recognized the need for feedback from the whole economy and the necessity for spreading the control function through the system.
"To each according to their need" is from "Critique of Gotha program" and has to be read in that context. The context, I think, is Marx criticizing an utopian program.

For the conditon "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" he sets a precondition - "work has become life's prime want".

When work, not consumption, has become the prime means through which we actualize our social existence, then the question is not "who should get the luxury commodity for which labor effort". The question is "who should get the resources for producing their particular dream project" There's nothing "moralistic" about it, just good old egoism. If the only way to achieve social status is some kind of production, then the possibility to produce is the "scarce commodity" that must be measured.

Labour credits have the problem that they also tend to accumulate (although not as ridiculously as money). Also, they do separate the man from their labour, no question about that.

I think that a better feedback system would be something that can be both given and taken back, so the society could immediately change course when necessary. We could try to crowd-source a task list, constantly updating it according to each individual's preferences. Or give everyone personal 24 hours a day "means of production user time" which could then both be given to anyone or taken back as necessary. These would be more socialistic systems of measure, I think.

Oh and diamonds are just a rare form of carbon. In a few years we can probably produce them as cheaply as glass so they are not a very good example of luxury goods.

[ckaihatsu]

Can you stop making so many quotes in your post? I have to keep deleting over 20 lines of space between each one word or one liner you make as a reply. It's annoying.


I only include them for proper context and readability, so it's definitely warranted.

Also, since your little jabs and rhetorical comments are unwelcome I'll be excluding them in my responses, at my discretion, preferring to focus on any actual points.





There'd be no fundamental change, but if you'd like to focus on the *supply* of labor then many labor credits would be pooled this way among those in the population of a particular locality that tended to be 'ambitious'. (A larger pool of labor credits would confer proportionately more liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward.)





What the hell did you just reply to? This was the question: "If one locality has a high supply of labor then why would it need an "according to contribution" system in your model?"


Okay, a locality could certainly be self-sufficient, if it happened to have a relatively high percentage of its population as active liberated laborers. This would equate to a more-industrious locality, with a larger volume of ongoing labor credit turnover, all internally.

It's not my responsibility to translate my method / model into terms or a paradigm of your choosing. You may wish to make such assertions here, but I think they'd probably just be repetitions of the dogmatic contentions you've been repeatedly putting forth.





I didn't ask if there was a fundamental change or not, but I asked why would it resort to an according to contribution system if it has no labor scarcities? You did not answer that at all. They ALREADY have a large supply of labor, they have no more need for any more "liberated-labor brokering power".


You're not understanding how the circulation of labor credits works -- yes, if a locality's liberated laborers were so chummy that everything could be kept informal and sheerly voluntary, internally, then perhaps the system of labor credits would be obviated. But if the locality's population numbered in the thousands or millions there'd be enough complexity to warrant a per-person accounting of labor supplied, going forward. This is how the use of circulating labor credits, as described in the model, would be useful.





Only within the context of your *market*-oriented mechanistics -- my model posits a more-autonomous spirit of initiative that can be responsive to outstanding demand, particularly *mass* demand.





Mystical fable nonsense here.





There is no such thing as a "more-autonomous spirit of initiative", next you'll start speaking of magical ghosts and fairies that will guide your system. I already explained why "mass-autonomous spirit of initiative" won't work when I spoke of altruism, mutual aid, etc. on the large-scale.


We have differing conceptions of human nature.





You're not considering that 'mass demand' does *not necessarily* require a huge supply of (liberated) labor to be put forth. The more efficient -- automated -- the mass production process is, the greater the magnitude of material productivity is, for the fulfillment of basic needs and beyond.





Actually I am considering that, but YOU are not considering that YOU DO NOT HAVE FULL AUTOMATION and thus require a huge supply of labor, especially if you are going to meet the demands of every single person on Earth for free.


Okay, in the absence of *fully* automated production, productivity would be more-dependent on the participation and cooperation of liberated labor, to greater extents as automation is lacking, as you're noting.





Demand is restricted by the willingness of available liberated labor.





Thus since you have absolutely no means by which to ensure available "liberated" labor is willing to work for free then demand is restricted by every means.


To clarify, there is nothing in the model that depends on altruism. Voluntary liberated labor -- an inherent implication of communism -- is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward, for increasing labor hours performed for assigned work.

Also, everything would boil down to actual existing conditions, certainly -- I can't pretend to know what those conditions might be. The usefulness of this method / model that I developed and am advocating is in the way that it structures dynamic considerations for the inherently disparate interests of (liberated) labor, its self-administration, and popular demand, respectively.





What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way,




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=11269





Not true -- you're ignoring the 'difficulty/hazard' index in the 'communist supply & demand' model.





Which has nothing to do with consumption.


Correct -- again, the participation of liberated labor is *economically unrelated* to any and all material consumption.





No one really cares about labor credits if they cannot be used for consumption nor rewarded according to contribution.


You're ignoring that the earning of labor credits confers increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going forward. Consumption is provided for through the prioritized mass demands aspect.





Difficulty/hazard I already critiqued as being not enough, but obviously you handwaved it somewhere.


Then perhaps you should posit your own definition / construction of 'effort'.





More constructively, organization could be generalized over greater geographies, with greater efficiencies used, to increase *productivity* to fulfill outstanding demand.





Oh and we'll all live happily ever after. Hey, you know, I'll make a new system called Everything-Is-Possiblism. My new system has organization which could be generalized over greater geographies, with greater efficiencies used, to increase *productivity* to fulfill outstanding demand. Like it? We also have puppies, unicorns, and ponies which will be created if there's an organization for it with mass outstanding demand. In EIP, everyone will work for free because they like working for free. People will eat all the food they want because my EIP system will meet their every need regardless of reality. If there's anything they need, ever, they will just "make it happen".


Yeah, *any* right-winger can be blithely dismissive this way, but then they (you) also have to *disregard* the actual technological productivities that exist *today*, with such material potential being wielded by the world's collective (ex-)proletariat of a post-capitalist social order. The way you disregard this existing productive potential is by implying some kind of apocalypse between now and then, conveniently laying-waste to such existing technological productivities.





Correct -- the referencing of today's cash is a loose association of meaning, to describe the circulation and payment aspects, from liberated labor, to liberated labor.





If that's what you think cash is today then I really do not wonder why your system is such a disaster. Money is a necessity, it is not simply a means of circulation and payment from laborer to laborer, but a means by which to accumulate value, allow for trade exchange, work as a means of payment, calculate commodities, create prices, reward contribution, and a thousand and one things which would be useless in your system.


Well, it's clear now -- you are *not* anti-commodity-production, so you are arguably even in the camp of market socialism.





No, there doesn't have to be -- all that's materially required is a *gradient*, from level-humane-fulfillment, upwards.





No. You either have the proper material conditions for an "according to need" system or you don't.


'Need' is a component *variable* that will vary in actual reality -- you keep presuming to know what that actual 'need', or demand, will be, when in fact it's unknowable from today's vantage point. In terms of current material productivities, it's entirely realistic to say that the world's basic humane needs *could* be supplied, and more, given the abolition of capitalism. You're preferring to be glass-half-empty here, summarily saying that the material productivities would *not* be sufficient.





Nope -- I've explained why we can do better than *any* instance of the market mechanism.





And I've explained to you exactly why you cannot through numerous arguments.


Here again you show a clear inclination for the market system itself, even over the reformist approach of market socialism.





Well, look at *today's* technological productivities versus those of a *century* ago....





Ignores my argument. Nevertheless, that's due to Capitalism.


Sure, but of what *relevance* is that fact -- ? Likewise, we can definitively say that we are formed according to the blueprint of DNA, but saying it says nothing about everything that *derives* from it.





We need to also remember that even if we have super-productivity and super-abundance, we still have the issue of finite resources.





You're conflating 'finite' with 'unavailable' -- an unjustifiable assumption.





Finite has nothing to do with unavailable nor did I conflate the two. Go ahead and show me how I did. The only "unjustifiable assumption" is YOU assuming that I conflated finite with unavailable.


You're implying that the fact of finite resources would be a *problem*, as in there being materials *unavailable* due to their finite quantities.





Resources can also be replenished.





Not all resources can be replenished, no.


---





Yes, there does -- capitalism denies a person-proportionate share of the world's resources even though we were all born into it the same. Capitalism institutes private property, which denies most people any use or share of very powerful, productive capacities.





We were not all born into it the same nor are we all the same. Even Marx himself acknowledged this when he claimed that socially necessary labor-time is to be used instead of per-hour payment regardless of contribution or the social average.


The problematic with the policy of socially necessary labor time -- which you'll appreciate -- is that it can't *differentiate* on the *range* of goods and services from 'need' to 'want'. So while it's fine for everyone when they're in the same boat, with uniform humane 'needs', there's no way for that approach to address more-discretionary luxury / specialty / exotic 'wants', on a necessarily per-individual basis.





Capitalism restricts the means of production, but that is why we oppose it.


With your market triumphalism you've been giving everyone just cause for hesitation regarding your use of the term 'we'.





I believe that Capitalism is justified, though, in restricting access to all goods based on money and price.


Enjoy.





But it's because the average person does not own (financially productive) capital that they must sell their own labor power, with no other option for participating in the global economy.





That has nothing to do with anything.


Yes, it has everything to do with everything -- it describes the class division.





I do not care if they own "capital" or not, they are still wage laborers if they are paid for their labor.


Okay, but we have to look at what proportion of their income and livelihood is derived from returns on capital investments, and what proportion is based on their own wage labor.





What you're referring to is wage slavery. I did not speak of wage slavery here. Your system STILL has wage labor and that has nothing to do with what you said above.-


No, it's not wage labor because there's no *commodification* of labor in the model -- commodification is avoided by keeping the domain of (liberated) labor *separate* from the domain of mass demand and mass consumption. There's no convertibility of liberated-labor-representing 'labor credits' for anything material, as for goods.





I'll let you make your own coffin here -- *who* exactly are you referring to as this sinister boogeyman amongst the self-liberated proletariat -- ?





You, your system, the communes, and anyone that hires wage laborers and forces them to be as such without any viable alternative whilst also forcibly taking away the fruits of their labor.


So then you *are* directing your animosity at me *personally*, and not limiting yourself to a critique of the model. Again, my involvement, if such would be possible, would be on-par with anyone else. There is no basis for any exploitation of labor in the model, as you're accusing.





These are all administrative functions.





That answered nothing at all. I will ask again, who issues labor credits? Does the locality even need to pay back debts? If so to who?


Okay -- as I mentioned, a locality (or any other population-membership-defined grouping, such as 'household', 'labor organization', 'region', 'continent', and/or 'world') is able to issue a debt of labor credits, which introduces that number of them into circulation. While the debt can later be closed-out, the number of labor credits issued remains in circulation, in absolutely identical quantity, propagating forward indefinitely.

The locality doesn't *need* to pay back debts in any kind of absolute way, but its *political standing* (credibility) will doubtlessly suffer to the degree of its outstanding debt -- the debt shows that the locality *has* directly used, or exploited, the liberated labor of others outside its own population, without reciprocating for those liberated services provided.





That would be according to any given locality, by the regular process of mass-prioritization.





This also explains nothing. Who decides what specific type or means of production would be used? Who decides which technology, etc.? Mass prioritization has nothing to do with these specifics.


Certainly. The specifics are entirely determined by prioritized mass demands -- as over the particulars of any given proposals and policy packages -- down to any minute scale of specificity. So, for example, if two competing options for a production policy differ by only one foot difference in physical space, for site placement, those two options could themselves be mass-prioritized by those in the locality to arrive at a final mass decision.





Nope, because there's no exchange-value in the labor credits -- they can only represent a limited amount of past liberated labor performed, according to their face value. Once passed-onward, for *new* labor done, the transfer of labor credits closes out that past work done and labor-organizing authority exercised, one-time.





Actually they do have exchange-value but it is over virtual and artificial "projects".


No, incorrect -- again you're trying to inject your *own* preferences into the 'communist supply & demand' model instead of addressing the model itself. Recall that all (mass) production is pre-planned, so 'projects' are drawn-up, discussed, revised, spun-off, and finally decided-on by the regular process of daily mass-prioritization. This means that there is *no* system of abstract monetary valuations, or even merit points, whatsoever -- instead it's a *political economy*, with the final checks-and-balances power residing in those liberated laborers who possess labor credits, either individually or group-pooled -- (from actual past labor completed).

So no manifestation of exchange value can be found here -- policy packages will specify discrete work *roles* for any given project or production run, but only the labor-credits-possessing liberated laborers have the per-labor-credit authority to select and fund incoming liberated laborers, for the work roles specified in the mass-approved production policy package.





Furthermore, if they had no exchange-value then that does not mean that they cannot be printed. Furthermore, if localities do not print labor credits then who the hell does? A central printing press? Who determines how much should be printed and on what basis?

These are all administrative policy specifics that -- as with the disuse-of-personal-possessions-time-limit issue -- *I* don't have to address myself. But, for the sake of illustration and explanation I could put forth an *example*.... Perhaps *every* entity, at *any* scale of social organization ( entity / household, local, regional, continental, global ) would find cause to issue an initial debt of labor credits in their respective name(s), particularly to fund the liberated labor for a novel project or production run. So there could very well be numerous differently-'branded' kinds of labor credits in circulation everywhere, originating from various entity-authorities.

The mechanics / logistics of such shouldn't be of any concern -- since the function of using labor credits would be as a worldwide 'internal' matter of social organizational convenience, there wouldn't be all of the privacy-paranoid interests around the system of labor credits that is so prevalent for the private-ownership-based interests of today. In other words, perhaps the people of such a society would choose to just have a public wiki page for every individual and entity, with labor-credit recordkeeping made fully public for each and all, for public convenience.

Note that the labor credits wouldn't lend themselves to hoarding or avarice since they would be useless -- like capital in this way -- if kept *out* of circulation. Here's from another thread on the topic:





One would think that the "sound use" of labor credits would be demonstrated by having, at the end of production "more" of them than at the beginning.





Sure -- from an individualistic point of view one certainly *could* make this their aim. One could work and accumulate labor credits to no end, and decide *not* to pass them along for their intended purpose of funding further liberated labor, for projects.

This would effectively be the forfeiting of liberated-labor-brokering political power, since others passed along their labor credits to enable *your* work, but you're not making use of the political power in the labor credits *you* earned -- you're taking them out of circulation and indirectly encouraging a like amount of the labor you've just done, to be done *again*, so as to get that number of labor credits back into circulation.

One can see here that, from the *locality's* point of view, it's not the most beneficial mode of operation -- for the sake of simplicity, let's say it's "Day 1" and you were the first person to perform liberated labor. It would necessarily be at the cost of a debt to the locality -- you complete the work, as pre-planned, and receive your labor credits. You sit on them, leaving the locality with material work done, benefitting everyone in the locality (presumably), but with a debt and no labor credits in circulation to effect new liberated labor. The locality would have to *increase* its debt to get more work going, to pay others (or you), so that it would have some labor credits among its people, presumably in circulation.

If this happened routinely -- that you simply work for the sake of stockpiling 'souvenir' labor credits -- it would be noted by those liberated laborers who were pro-actively involved in labor provisioning and *did* pass along their labor credits, thereby taking part in the liberated-labor-brokering *political* aspect -- you would be considered to be outside the circles of 'regular liberated labor business', so to speak. While other liberated laborers might be neutral, at best, on this behavior, it would definitely not be seen favorably by the locality as a whole since the *collective* interest is to keep labor credits circulating and to not have to accrue debt for the sake of someone's personal stockpiling.


---





Sure -- let's walk through this.... On Day 1, *no one* has any labor credits and any and all localities must *issue debt* in order to make any new production happen. All that would be required to eliminate debt would be for Locality A to do 'x' amount of labor for Locality B, while Locality B does *proportionate*, 'x' amount of labor for Locality A. The 'x' amounts of labor credits issued from debt from each respective locality would *cancel out*. (It's like saying 'A' will pay off the debt of 'B' with its own liberated labor if 'B' does the *same* amount of work, to pay off the debt of 'A'.)





This is extremely ridiculous. Again another disaster whilst attempting to do away with money. All of this hassle could simply be prevented by discovering something called "money". Look it up. Your system is a DISASTER.




Locality A happens to be composed of solely farm work, while locality B is composed of difficult and risky jobs that far outweigh locality A's with a scarcity of workers due to the risk and difficulty involved making the workers prefer safer work with a stable pay. Locality B has to spend much, much more labor credits in order to satisfy any outstanding demand on its own products by hiring wage laborers from other localities.


Okay, here's where your misconception is: Work roles are not associated with any particular *locality* -- sure, they might *tend* to be with a particular geographical space, such as uranium ore mining for Locality B (for example), but even so, the *work roles* are *independent* of any given locality or set of liberated laborers.

Localities are basically *demand*-oriented, on the premise that those who decide to reside in long-term proximity to each other will generally benefit from pooling their needs and demands together, for requested production. A locality or other entity has a politically *populist* basis, not a *labor* basis, since the people of its population may or may not also be liberated laborers. So a locality doesn't have "its own products" as though it were a manufacturing hub -- rather somewhere like Locality B might be *generally known* for being around uranium ore mines, and so many of its people could be known for regularly taking on the risky and difficult work roles of uranium mining and associated tasks -- but that does not necessarily mean that the people of Locality B are *selling* anything, or that the locality is under any obligation to *provide* uranium ore to anyone else who may potentially need it.

So, to correct the parameters of your scenario: Many people in several nearby localities are demanding uranium ore from the geographical area in and around Locality B. Locality A in particular -- known for its people who do nothing but farmwork -- has formally mass-demanded (as an entity) 'x' amount of uranium ore for its energy needs. Locality B has *no* obligation -- or role, even -- to address Locality A's formal demand since *any* locality or entity is not an organization of liberated labor in any way. Instead, it would be solely the prerogative of Locality A to fill in the details of what would be required to make that production of uranium ore happen. These particulars would be part of the formal demand itself -- its locality-approved policy package -- that would specify 'y' number of uranium-miner work roles, for 'z' duration, at 'w' rate of labor credits per hour.

The people of Locality A know that the people of Locality B have a long history of doing uranium ore mining, so Locality A would probably notify the people of Locality B as to this formal policy package and its approved provisions. Locality A might *also* broadcast this information even *more widely*, to wherever else they think it would be well-received and effective.

The people of Locality A have been mostly self-sufficient so far, thanks to their farm-based environs and productivity, but have also managed to fan out to other localities in the past to provide their liberated farm labor for other localities, too. Many, but not most, people of Locality A have thus amassed considerable amounts of labor credits to their names as a result, and so have estimated that they have an appropriate bulk number of them to cover the uranium-ore-mining liberated labor that is called-for by Locality A's mass-approved policy package. Additionally, several of the people of Locality A have formally noted that they themselves would be fine with doing whatever they can to appropriately cover as many of the work roles as possible, so as to reduce the amount of liberated labor requested from -- and labor credits needed for -- the liberated laborers of Locality B, and beyond.

Since the overall societal context is one of a post-capitalist communism, no one and no entity / locality would *own*, *lease*, or *sell* any equipment (productive assets) or resulting goods from any productive process -- if uranium resources happened to be in the same geographic area as Locality B that would merely be incidental and would be meaningless in terms of Locality B as an entity. All the liberated laborers ultimately selected (by those from Locality A possessing requisite amounts of labor credits) would be *sourcing* from natural uranium reserves that -- because of communism -- would belong to *no one*. And, likewise, the *products* of that project's labor process -- the uranium -- would be first and foremostly controlled by those liberated laborers who did the actual work of sourcing it, as a checks-and-balances dynamic. In reality, of course, the workers would be fulfilling the formal policy package, and would receive the designated labor credits at the completion of their tasks. The workers, as individuals, would probably not have any *personal* interests in the products of their labors, but if they did they could simply either be formally written-into the policy package, or they could simply take what they liked for personal usage on a first-served basis, increasing total production to also fulfill the policy package as well.





People are not paying for Locality B's products, they are receiving them for free and yet Locality B is paying FOR the consumers and going into a public debt because of that.


No, as just detailed -- localities / entities have no function as enterprises, as you're suggesting.





This is a disaster, it would discourage production severely, not that your system can even sustain itself in the first place. Why would these localities even want to pay off debt and not create their own labor credits? Why would they want to host any difficult and risky workplaces that would repel all but the most desperate or determined workers?


No 'hosting' necessary -- all assets and resources would be openly available, with active usage determined according to formal, mass-approved policy packages, and by nothing else.





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only




Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions





Why would the workers even care if their locality is in a debt?


Because the fact of outstanding locality debt would cut against the locality's political sovereignty, in relations with neighboring localities and beyond. So while a locality's people -- as liberated laborers -- would be under no obligation to put forth any of the labor credits they possessed towards paying off their locality's debt, and could even *continue* to work wherever as individual liberated laborers for *more* labor credits, their locality as a whole would probably be at a political standstill -- as for initiating projects and coordinating efforts -- because the locality *could not* fund anything like that while it remained 'in the hole' economically.





Workers aren't affected by their locality being in a debt as their consumption is not affected at all nor is their consumption dependent upon labor credits directly.


Correct.





I see no possible way of having your system work in real-life. However I try to look at it, it's an impossibility.


I hope my clarifications here will encourage a re-examination on your part.

For the sake of time and length I will stop here, but will keep the rest of your post on hand, to finish responding-to later....

[Theophys]

You do that all the time, dude.

Also, everything you say seems to be based in a deep mistrust of workers, which puts you in an objectively anti-worker stance.
Why does this guy pop up in every thread I post in with something negative to say about me? :laugh: Do I really have to destroy his every claim to make him shut up every time?

I was referring to Ckaihatsu quoting me, quoting himself, and a thousand other quotes and then replies to all those with a one liner, not that he's arguing point by point but that he's filling his post with thousands of quotes which have little to do with the reply. He quotes himself, quotes me once or twice, and THEN replies. When I try to reply I end up with one liners with over 10-20 empty spaces between each as a filler for the quotes. Nevertheless, that has nothing to do with you, now scurry off.

The last thing I'd like to see is some populist Utopian "Anarcho-Communist" with a cheesy signature accuse me of an "anti-worker" stance.

Speaking of which, I'd love to debate you and your pathetic theory, but I've got too many long-winded debates to handle at once on here (see my post history) and on other forums, but you can go ahead and take a look at my blog post which include critiques of Anarchism.



I only include them for proper context and readability, so it's definitely warranted.

You can open a new tab with the other posts as a context and read them.



Also, since your little jabs and rhetorical comments are unwelcome I'll be excluding them in my responses, at my discretion, preferring to focus on any actual points.

Right.



Okay, a locality could certainly be self-sufficient, if it happened to have a relatively high percentage of its population as active liberated laborers. This would equate to a more-industrious locality, with a larger volume of ongoing labor credit turnover, all internally.

Listen, since labor credits have nothing to do with remuneration according to CONTRIBUTION then it has nothing to do with a system based on the remuneration "according to contribution". Get it now? A locality that is self-sufficient does not answer anything as that was not the issue.



It's not my responsibility to translate my method / model into terms or a paradigm of your choosing. You may wish to make such assertions here, but I think they'd probably just be repetitions of the dogmatic contentions you've been repeatedly putting forth.

Neither is it my responsibility to have to translate your nonsense and made up words into English every time just so that I can barely understand what you're trying to imply. Oh and I'm not the dogmatic one, you are with your false assumptions purely based on dogmatism rather than reality and credible theory.



You're not understanding how the circulation of labor credits works -- yes, if a locality's liberated laborers were so chummy that everything could be kept informal and sheerly voluntary, internally, then perhaps the system of labor credits would be obviated. But if the locality's population numbered in the thousands or millions there'd be enough complexity to warrant a per-person accounting of labor supplied, going forward. This is how the use of circulating labor credits, as described in the model, would be useful.

You think you can solve the issue of complexity of millions of individuals merely by imposing a labor credits system as the one you speak of here? Laughable, that is not a solution. The question of complexity needs to be addressed on the issues of decision-making and the problems that pertain to collective decision-making, the question of allocating resources to the most loyal, contribution, and deserving members, rationing resources to prevent mass consumption and waste in the chaos of millions, being able to track pricing signals, being able to track supply and demand of commodities INCLUDING the costs incurred to measure efficiency, viable alternatives, and so on. You cannot do any of that. Your perverted labor credits system cannot answer any of these issue. The problem lies in the field of consumption as well as in the field of production, you neglect the former in favor of ignorantly butchering the latter. Again, the issue of labor credits is not the sole problem nor does it solve anything at all except perhaps primitively attempting to create a crude investment model.



We have differing conceptions of human nature.

Yes, yours is completely Utopian and based on expecting the best of humanity knowing very well that such an imagination is not reality.



Okay, in the absence of *fully* automated production, productivity would be more-dependent on the participation and cooperation of liberated labor, to greater extents as automation is lacking, as you're noting.

No, the cooperation and participation of your enslaved labor is not the solution. The enslaved laborers cannot magically solve this, they need a thousand and one accounting mechanisms, economic calculation, and so on in order to merely manage a thousand products, imagine trillions of different products. In the absence of fully automated production, you would require the utmost productivity from each and every member of society in order to be able to meet the bare minimum of the vast and unrestricted demand of billions of people all over the world (no restrictions such as a pricing mechanism on consumption meaning that anyone can take whatever he wants without question as opposed to being restricted to taking as much as they contribute or around that).



To clarify, there is nothing in the model that depends on altruism. Voluntary liberated labor -- an inherent implication of communism -- is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward, for increasing labor hours performed for assigned work.

Your entire model depends on altruism. Altruism is the basis behind mutual aid, cooperation, mass consciousness, and organization. Altruism is the basis behind your production model of failure. In the field of production, you expect individuals to produce FOR others without any reason or incentive to do so except for the benefit of others (altruism). In the field of consumption, you expect people to only consume what they REALLY need for the benefit of their community lest they lead to scarcity. Enslaved-labor brokering power has nothing to do with consumption and thus does not solve anything but on the issue of investment which it reduces to its most primitive and crude form. That's also not taking into consideration that the amount of paid labor credits per hour would be maximized in order to maximize labor credit income unless you have an objective committee to do this for you, but you don't, you want the very workers who work there to do this with all their emotional incentives, biases, etc. to maximize labor credits.



Also, everything would boil down to actual existing conditions, certainly -- I can't pretend to know what those conditions might be. The usefulness of this method / model that I developed and am advocating is in the way that it structures dynamic considerations for the inherently disparate interests of (liberated) labor, its self-administration, and popular demand, respectively.

The same could be said about any command economy, decentralized economy, and even markets where should any problems arise, they would be solved 'in theory' but in reality they end up to be disastrous in their implications. The same could be said specifically about the USSR where they initially used the same EIP nonsense that you do now by stating that should any shortages take place in X, they would merely allocate labor to X, a much simpler and streamlined "solution" than your mess of decentralization. Yet, what happened in real-life? We saw what happened with massive shortages that went unsolved even when the government and society were able to allocate labor, commodities, factories, etc. to where they were needed. They did not take into consideration the SPECIFICS which you ignore right now and thus reality slapped them in the face. Your model is not a solution, it is a disaster that fails even in theory as it depends on nothing but false assumptions and a EIP model where should a problem arise it would be merely solved by people cooperating or organizing (as if that will happen). your system is nothing but ultra-leftist Utopian adventurist idealism that will lead to suicide. Any system at all can make an EIP assumption, such as "it structures dynamic considerations for the inherently disparate interests of (liberated) labor, its self-administration, and popular demand, respectively", but the problem is that it will not happen because people honestly do not give a shit about organizing or cooperating as you imagine they will for every single problem or issue.



Correct -- again, the participation of liberated labor is *economically unrelated* to any and all material consumption.

Thus the participation of enslaved labor has nothing to do with according to contribution models nor does it and its labor credits of yours solve ANY of the problems and issues which I presented throughout this thread.



You're ignoring that the earning of labor credits confers increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going forward. Consumption is provided for through the prioritized mass demands aspect.

Every time you say "going forward" you make me think of a robot iterating those words. Nevertheless, the prioritization of mass demands I have already shown to be a disaster, especially on the question of the individual's specific priorities not being shared by the collective and thus his most important demands and priorities would go unfulfilled. You tried to "solve" this by resorting to an EIP assumption that they will "make it happen" and "organize", but I counter this by reminding you that the economy would already be loaded to the brim by attempting to supply every single demand and need to billions of people and the simply but crucial fact that you missed - since their priority ended up on the bottom of the list then it is UNPOPULAR and no organization can take place to shift production already preoccupied with trillions of other products towards it. Furthermore, on the issue of increasing enslaved labor brokering power, that, again, solves nothing as with as nothing to do with consumption (the very field of importance and basis for everything) as I have explained above.



Then perhaps you should posit your own definition / construction of 'effort'.

I already did multiple times to the three of you, no point in repeating this, merely look through the pages of this thread and ctrl+f and type in "effort". Look for my post on this issue.



Yeah, *any* right-winger can be blithely dismissive this way, but then they (you) also have to *disregard* the actual technological productivities that exist *today*, with such material potential being wielded by the world's collective (ex-)proletariat of a post-capitalist social order. The way you disregard this existing productive potential is by implying some kind of apocalypse between now and then, conveniently laying-waste to such existing technological productivities.

You overstate the availability, productivity, and capabilities of today's technology. You cannot simply take a technology and spread it all over the world with no costs incurred at all, there is a reason why they are extremely costly in terms of time, labor, and money today. The technological progress of today cannot be taken by your system as a given because you simply imagine that you will have all the latest technology all over the world. That is not the case and will not be the case, even the USSR's and North Korea's command economies failed at doing so even with their entire economy controlled by the state allowing it to theoretically (not practically) build whatever it wants. Nevertheless, the technology of today depends on markets, pricing mechanisms, price signals, and so on all of which you do away with in your system. Suppose for a moment that we have the technology of today in your system, that that does not solve the thousands of issues that relate to production incentives, consumption, distribution, environmental destruction, and so on which you CANNOT answer.



Well, it's clear now -- you are *not* anti-commodity-production, so you are arguably even in the camp of market socialism.

I have no qualms with Market Socialism. I do not oppose commodity production outside of Capitalism but with markets, wage-labor, and so on.


'Need' is a component *variable* that will vary in actual reality -- you keep presuming to know what that actual 'need', or demand, will be, when in fact it's unknowable from today's vantage point. In terms of current material productivities, it's entirely realistic to say that the world's basic humane needs *could* be supplied, and more, given the abolition of capitalism. You're preferring to be glass-half-empty here, summarily saying that the material productivities would *not* be sufficient.
I do not actually have to predict anything or presume anything, as all I require are the basic assumptions that:
- We will have billions of people.
- Restrictions on consumption would be removed.
- Anyone and everyone can consume whatever they want with no costs at all.
- Demand will at all time be existent.
- We will still have finite resources.
- We will still have finite and limited productive power.
- We will still have manual labor.
Those will by every means exist in a post-Capitalist society if it were to take place today. Now following those realistic assumptions based on today and the near future then we can safely state that if you have such assumptions then you cannot have an "according to need" system because you will be unable to meet the humongous daily demands of billions of people ALL OVER THE WORLD with no means by which to properly account for anything on the question of consumption and production. You cannot ensure maximized or increased productivity as you do not reward increased levels of contribution. You cannot ensure demand equalizes or comes short of surpassing supply because you have no pricing mechanism or markets to restrict demand according to supply and itself. You also, in order to meet the huge explosive and humongous increase in demand, will have to rape the shit out of the environmental in order to extract as many resources as you can in order to satisfy the seemingly nightmarish demand. With that taking place, while you tear the world for resources, you will have the issue of FINITE resources that would force you to ration goods rather than extract every single inch of earth and give it away without question or accountability. Since you have finite resources, you will need to divide these resources and ration them according to the most efficient, productive, and thus the most contributive producers and the most intelligent consumers.



Here again you show a clear inclination for the market system itself, even over the reformist approach of market socialism.

I have no qualms with non-Capitalist markets, such as in the case of Mutualism, Market Socialism, or the "my" system with its artificial markets or otherwise.



Sure, but of what *relevance* is that fact -- ? Likewise, we can definitively say that we are formed according to the blueprint of DNA, but saying it says nothing about everything that *derives* from it.

If you relate DNA to Capitalism then when you claim to desire to do away with Capitalism, the basis of the achievements of today, then you do away with its analogical form which you give, i.e. DNA. Thus had you bothered to follow the implications about your statement you would have realized that you just argued against yourself and answered yourself by showing that Capitalism/DNA are necessity for what its derived from them.



You're implying that the fact of finite resources would be a *problem*, as in there being materials *unavailable* due to their finite quantities.

No. The problems of finite resources have to do not with the lack of availability but the question of rationing, dividing goods, and limiting consumption in order to limit the depletion of these finite resources and use them the best way possible. But also, the lack of availability is an issue but I did not bring it up because you'll just resort to an Everything-Is-Possible assumption and claim that people will "organize and cooperate" and thus solve that issue, knowing very well that this is not what will happen.



The problematic with the policy of socially necessary labor time -- which you'll appreciate -- is that it can't *differentiate* on the *range* of goods and services from 'need' to 'want'. So while it's fine for everyone when they're in the same boat, with uniform humane 'needs', there's no way for that approach to address more-discretionary luxury / specialty / exotic 'wants', on a necessarily per-individual basis.

Yes, which is why "my" system or the systems that I support are not based on socially necessary labor time nor on any time-based labor but purely on contribution-based labor. Nevertheless, I mentioned socially necessary labor time as being an example of a rejection of a "stable" pay per hour system that acts regardless of individual effort, such as the one you support where labor is paid for on a stable per hour basis regardless of contribution. A socially necessary labor time accounting method rewards individuals on the basis of a changing social AVERAGE which depends on their and others' contributions, meaning that if a worker or a group of workers produce more, the social average increases and thus they have every ncentive to produce more in order to increase their benefits. However, in a system such as yours which bases itself not on individual effort or contribution but on a stable and unchanging pay based on difficulty/risk x stable hourly wage. So yes, even socially necessary labor time is still much more preferable than your system, especially if it is implemented for labor credits which can be used for consumption.



With your market triumphalism you've been giving everyone just cause for hesitation regarding your use of the term 'we'.

Show me one single Communist/Leftist/Socialist that agrees with you 100% and then I'll state that you're correct on your concerns of me using the term "we" despite differing from others. Despite our disagreements, "we" still oppose Capitalism. The "we" refers to opponents of Capitalism and nothing else.




Enjoy.

Enjoy what exactly?



Yes, it has everything to do with everything -- it describes the class division.

This has nothing to do with anything as in it does NOT determine wage labor but instead is a factor in determining wage slavery. Wage labor and wage slavery are not the same. Wage labor can exist regardless of markets, coercion, and the lack of any viable alternatives but can instead entirely exist on a completely voluntary basis as in the case of my example of paying someone to get me ice cream without him being forced to by anyone or anything.




Okay, but we have to look at what proportion of their income and livelihood is derived from returns on capital investments, and what proportion is based on their own wage labor.

No we don't. We only need to determine the basis of whether they are wage laborers or not, everything else is besides the point and is only related to other issues. Wage labor only requires that labor be given in exchange for a wage, nothing else. What you're trying to speak of is what is commonly referred to as wage slavery. Wage slavery is when an individual is forced and coerced by market forces or individuals to resort to wage labor due to the lack of any viable alternatives. Proportions of income and returns on capital investment have little to do with anything except if we were speaking of the extraction of surplus value and the deficit between total profits and wages - we are not. We are discussing whether or not your system has wage labor, it has, since you are paying a wage in exchange for labor.



No, it's not wage labor because there's no *commodification* of labor in the model -- commodification is avoided by keeping the domain of (liberated) labor *separate* from the domain of mass demand and mass consumption. There's no convertibility of liberated-labor-representing 'labor credits' for anything material, as for goods.

You do not at all require a commodification of labor-power, you merely require that labor be paid for by a wage and nothing more. Also, no, commodification of labor-power can arise from the simple act of exchanging labor-power for wages using ANY means, that includes your use of an alternative form of currency in the form of labor credits. You do not have to include wage labor and their labor credits with labor credits related to consumption and demand in order to have commodification or wage labor.



So then you *are* directing your animosity at me *personally*, and not limiting yourself to a critique of the model. Again, my involvement, if such would be possible, would be on-par with anyone else. There is no basis for any exploitation of labor in the model, as you're accusing.

You really do not understand. "You" is nothing more than the one making the theory who is trying to answer my arguments, the one who came up with the model and thus is theorizing, and the one who would be the "theoretical director" of his model. The critique of the mode is based on YOUR answers and replies defending the model. I do not care about your involvement WITHIN the model or in real-life (I hope it never happens) but as the creator of the model and its proponent. When I critique Capitalism whilst debating a Capitalist I say "You want exploitation for private interests and profit", we (both me and the Capitalist) do not discuss his involvement as an actor within the model but as a theorist and proponent of the system which he is defending. Get it now?



Okay -- as I mentioned, a locality (or any other population-membership-defined grouping, such as 'household', 'labor organization', 'region', 'continent', and/or 'world') is able to issue a debt of labor credits, which introduces that number of them into circulation. While the debt can later be closed-out, the number of labor credits issued remains in circulation, in absolutely identical quantity, propagating forward indefinitely.

So in other words a locality can essentially print as much labor credits as it wants. Talk about inflation, especially due to the lack of centralization or a centralized guiding force for the issuing of labor credits and their regulation! This is nothing more than a call for all localities to go into billion or trillions of public debt in order to build their own locality, causing untold numbers of inflation to such an extent that labor credits become extremely devalued. Localities would all desire to develop their own localities and thus would all instantaneously on day one go into billions if not trillions of debt in order to attract as much labor as they can. This will cause widespread inflation and the destruction of the economy itself. The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic would be kid's play in comparison to this. Hyperinflation not only in order to attract labor, but in order to pay off all debts with easy. By printing numerous amounts of labor crests, the value of each credit falls with each newly printed credit and thus if the debt was 1,000 credits and each credit was worth 1 credit, it can be paid off by printing 1,000 credits even if the value of each credit now is less than half the value of what it was before since you're paying off the NUMBER of credits, not the VALUE of credits. Just take a SINGLE course in proper economics because you do not understand the implications of what you're suggesting. Just read anything on inflation or monetary inflation, for the love of sanity.



The locality doesn't *need* to pay back debts in any kind of absolute way, but its *political standing* (credibility) will doubtlessly suffer to the degree of its outstanding debt -- the debt shows that the locality *has* directly used, or exploited, the liberated labor of others outside its own population, without reciprocating for those liberated services provided.

So any locality not only can print out any amount of labor credits as it damn well pleases, but it also does not even need to pay off debts! Credibility? No one would really give a shit about credibility if the locality is paying well and attracting labor. A successful locality can then prosper with an infinite amount of debt without the need to pay them off. Every time a locality wishes to attract labor or start projects then it issues as much labor credits as it wants, thus hyperinflation, especially if other localities logically pursue the same course. Actually the debt does not reflect exploitation but merely that the locality is not only able to pay for all labor it employs but that it has used its labor credits to build up itself. This would only be an issue of exploitation if the labor credits used are NOT paid for, but since they can print as much labor credits as they want and they are already in a debt with no need to pay back anything then that is not the case.



Certainly. The specifics are entirely determined by prioritized mass demands -- as over the particulars of any given proposals and policy packages -- down to any minute scale of specificity. So, for example, if two competing options for a production policy differ by only one foot difference in physical space, for site placement, those two options could themselves be mass-prioritized by those in the locality to arrive at a final mass decision.

You do not understand. Mass demand has NOTHING to do with the workplace, workplace organization, and the specifics of the production process. It cannot determine if machine X or machine Y is to be used and on what basis, it only cares about having its demand fulfilled.



No, incorrect -- again you're trying to inject your *own* preferences into the 'communist supply & demand' model instead of addressing the model itself. Recall that all (mass) production is pre-planned, so 'projects' are drawn-up, discussed, revised, spun-off, and finally decided-on by the regular process of daily mass-prioritization. This means that there is *no* system of abstract monetary valuations, or even merit points, whatsoever -- instead it's a *political economy*, with the final checks-and-balances power residing in those liberated laborers who possess labor credits, either individually or group-pooled -- (from actual past labor completed).

So no manifestation of exchange value can be found here -- policy packages will specify discrete work *roles* for any given project or production run, but only the labor-credits-possessing liberated laborers have the per-labor-credit authority to select and fund incoming liberated laborers, for the work roles specified in the mass-approved production policy package.

You exchange, in other words you buy, labor credits for labor power and projects. Thus labor credits, labor power, and projects all have exchange values. Thus labor power is commodified. Thus projects are also commodified. It's as simple as that. Labor power is not accessed for free, but is instead bought with labor credits even if they are not used for consumption; they are still bought and exchanged with one commodity for another. Planning projects does not by any means do away with exchange value as all projects today are pre-planned, drawn up, discussed, revised, spun off, and even decided on by "the regular process of daily mass-prioritization" (i.e. demand and supply, markets, prices, etc.). you STILL have abstract monetary valuations, but it is not related to consumer goods but actually to labor power (thus wage labor) and projects as you buy and sell labor power and projects in exchange for CIRCULATING labor credits. It is exactly because these enslaved laborers posses labor credits along with their localities that they are resorting to abstract monetary valuations and exchange values when using their labor credits (not for consumption, obviously). By funding incoming enslaved laborers, you are paying for those laborers and exchanging their labor power for your labor credits.

Oh and if you don't get it by now, by "you" here I mean the person making the suggestion for the model, you take the role of the "labor-credits-possessing-enslaved-laborers" here as you are the one suggesting this and putting it forward in your system.



These are all administrative policy specifics that -- as with the disuse-of-personal-possessions-time-limit issue -- *I* don't have to address myself.

Actually, just as the time limit issue of personal possession, YOU HAVE to address them yourself by at least presenting a viable model on which you base your claims for us to critique. You cannot say "my system will solve all problems when they arise" but when I point out to a specific issue you'll say "lol specific issue; disregarded". The issue I just raised above is NOT a specific issue that you can by any means disregard, but it is a crucial problem in your system and issue which must be addressed. Seriously, stop copping out.



But, for the sake of illustration and explanation I could put forth an *example*.... Perhaps *every* entity, at *any* scale of social organization ( entity / household, local, regional, continental, global ) would find cause to issue an initial debt of labor credits in their respective name(s), particularly to fund the liberated labor for a novel project or production run. So there could very well be numerous differently-'branded' kinds of labor credits in circulation everywhere, originating from various entity-authorities.

And if you have different branded kinds of labor credits then you have numerous problems, especially if it take place in the case of billions of people each individually printing their own labor credits with absolutely no centralized tracking mechanism. That's not to even mention that it would create debt slavery for your already enslaved laborers as they attempt to pay off their debts. Individuals would be able to create as many labor credits as they want with absolutely no restrictions or no negative repercussions on themselves, they would pay workers to build them whatever they want with absolutely no restrictions on what they want. That's like allowing every person on earth to have an infinite amount of money to do whatever they want with them. Ridiculous and disastrous.



The mechanics / logistics of such shouldn't be of any concern -- since the function of using labor credits would be as a worldwide 'internal' matter of social organizational convenience, there wouldn't be all of the privacy-paranoid interests around the system of labor credits that is so prevalent for the private-ownership-based interests of today. In other words, perhaps the people of such a society would choose to just have a public wiki page for every individual and entity, with labor-credit recordkeeping made fully public for each and all, for public convenience.

And that solves absolutely nothing. People can take on a debt as large as they want with no need to pay anything back. When they do so, the recipients of these labor credits do not care about the debt of the other individual, they only care about being paid. Thus with all this decentralized nonsense, individuals are not AT ALL affected by debt, people will still consider them credible as long as they actually pay them from more debt or their already existent labor credits.

Oh and speaking of which, you just created the proper material conditions for wage labor. You are essentially allowing private individuals to pay others in order to fulfill their projects. You are essentially creating a bourgeoisie! Good job, the reason why I didn't realize this before is because we were speaking of LOCALITIES issuing and taking in labor credits and public debt, not private individuals issuing labor credits and taking in private debt. You just create what you wanted to abolish after all, quite sickening. You essentially legalize and allow, even encourage, individuals to pay others to work for them on their own projects. Quite a devastating blow to yourself.



Note that the labor credits wouldn't lend themselves to hoarding or avarice since they would be useless -- like capital in this way -- if kept *out* of circulation. Here's from another thread on the topic:

They don't actually have to be hoarded to give way to avarice, they merely have to incur a massive debt and use those labor notes to create whatever they want and hire whoever they want. They can pay someone a million credits for him to be his slave, for example.



Okay, here's where your misconception is: Work roles are not associated with any particular *locality* -- sure, they might *tend* to be with a particular geographical space, such as uranium ore mining for Locality B (for example), but even so, the *work roles* are *independent* of any given locality or set of liberated laborers.

No they're not. Industrialized and advanced localities will be the ones that most successfully carry out their policies and projects and paying the most, they would attract the best labor and most skilled labor by paying them the highest just as they would construct the most advanced means of production and facilities due to the large amounts of labor credits they have. These localities would have different work roles than primitive and less advanced or even agrarian localities. And yes, particular geographical locations will lead to different and specialized work roles for localities.



Localities are basically *demand*-oriented, on the premise that those who decide to reside in long-term proximity to each other will generally benefit from pooling their needs and demands together, for requested production. A locality or other entity has a politically *populist* basis, not a *labor* basis, since the people of its population may or may not also be liberated laborers. So a locality doesn't have "its own products" as though it were a manufacturing hub -- rather somewhere like Locality B might be *generally known* for being around uranium ore mines, and so many of its people could be known for regularly taking on the risky and difficult work roles of uranium mining and associated tasks -- but that does not necessarily mean that the people of Locality B are *selling* anything, or that the locality is under any obligation to *provide* uranium ore to anyone else who may potentially need it.

If a locality is "generally known" for being near a uranium ore mine then it only needs to produce uranium ore and manufacture it as that would be their specialization, or else these rare uranium mines would be left unattended instead of their extraction maximized in order to meet the maximum amount of demand possible. Actually no, Locality B are by every means extracting uranium because all those who have interests in uranium would pay the enslaved laborers to work the mines for them in order to supply them with uranium. Thus a uranium-rich locality would be mainly made up of uranium-based production facilities and labor related to that field. But of course, they have no obligation, that is the problem with your system, to provide anything.



So, to correct the parameters of your scenario: Many people in several nearby localities are demanding uranium ore from the geographical area in and around Locality B. Locality A in particular -- known for its people who do nothing but farmwork -- has formally mass-demanded (as an entity) 'x' amount of uranium ore for its energy needs. Locality B has *no* obligation -- or role, even -- to address Locality A's formal demand since *any* locality or entity is not an organization of liberated labor in any way. Instead, it would be solely the prerogative of Locality A to fill in the details of what would be required to make that production of uranium ore happen. These particulars would be part of the formal demand itself -- its locality-approved policy package -- that would specify 'y' number of uranium-miner work roles, for 'z' duration, at 'w' rate of labor credits per hour.

The people of Locality A know that the people of Locality B have a long history of doing uranium ore mining, so Locality A would probably notify the people of Locality B as to this formal policy package and its approved provisions. Locality A might *also* broadcast this information even *more widely*, to wherever else they think it would be well-received and effective.

Woah, woah, woah. You attempt to "correct" the parameters of my scenario by making a baseless assumption that Locality A needs uranium from the uranium-rich Locality B? On what basis? I do not ever recall mentioning Locality A needing uranium from Locality B at any point whatsoever or that Locality A demands products from Locality B. You are addressing something else entirely and offering a solution to that something else by taking conditions which have nothing to do with my scenario, that is nothing more than a strawman logical fallacy. In other words, you attempt to solve the problem by saying that Locality A needs Locality B's products when that is not the case at all.



The people of Locality A have been mostly self-sufficient so far, thanks to their farm-based environs and productivity, but have also managed to fan out to other localities in the past to provide their liberated farm labor for other localities, too. Many, but not most, people of Locality A have thus amassed considerable amounts of labor credits to their names as a result, and so have estimated that they have an appropriate bulk number of them to cover the uranium-ore-mining liberated labor that is called-for by Locality A's mass-approved policy package. Additionally, several of the people of Locality A have formally noted that they themselves would be fine with doing whatever they can to appropriately cover as many of the work roles as possible, so as to reduce the amount of liberated labor requested from -- and labor credits needed for -- the liberated laborers of Locality B, and beyond.

Firstly, people today are not satisfied by merely eating off the land, they require a thousand and one needs and wants which cannot be made available from a Locality A based on agriculture. Nevertheless, this does not solve the issue. You still base it on the assumption of yours, which I did not make in my scenario, that Locality A requires the products of Locality B. The workers of Locality A who would be extracting uranium form Locality B would not be paying Locality B nor would Locality B be receiving anything from them. Thus Locality B is still in debt even if Locality A is paying for its own workers that it sent to work for it.



Since the overall societal context is one of a post-capitalist communism, no one and no entity / locality would *own*, *lease*, or *sell* any equipment (productive assets) or resulting goods from any productive process -- if uranium resources happened to be in the same geographic area as Locality B that would merely be incidental and would be meaningless in terms of Locality B as an entity. All the liberated laborers ultimately selected (by those from Locality A possessing requisite amounts of labor credits) would be *sourcing* from natural uranium reserves that -- because of communism -- would belong to *no one*. And, likewise, the *products* of that project's labor process -- the uranium -- would be first and foremostly controlled by those liberated laborers who did the actual work of sourcing it, as a checks-and-balances dynamic

Yes in which case Locality B would spend labor notes and go into massive public debt just to have parasites come in and use the machinery and factories of locality B for the interests of OTHER localities and mine and extract resources which Locality B wanted to provide for itself and others. Thus public debt would still remain for Locality B and would not be done away with. What you're suggesting is that workers to be flown all round the world just in order to fulfill any demands on labor by localities. Workers from other localities would just swoop in, use everything made by the debt of Locality B and then these workers would keep whatever they produced and control them since they "did the actual work of sourcing it". How lovely.



In reality, of course, the workers would be fulfilling the formal policy package, and would receive the designated labor credits at the completion of their tasks. The workers, as individuals, would probably not have any *personal* interests in the products of their labors, but if they did they could simply either be formally written-into the policy package, or they could simply take what they liked for personal usage on a first-served basis, increasing total production to also fulfill the policy package as well.

The designated labor credits paid for by the other localities or locality B? Locality B is already in debt and thus you solved nothing. The other localities would be paying the workers in exchange for their product, so much for that "communism" and "according to need", you just created markets for labor and their products (but not for consumption). Since these worker scan take everything on a first-served basis then they can appropriate all the products of their labor and sell them to the highest bidder regardless of the system in place on the black market or in exchange for PRIVATE labor credits or goods.



No, as just detailed -- localities / entities have no function as enterprises, as you're suggesting.

So now you have no localities as enterprises because they are not even entities. Thus there can be no public debt and thus you went back on what you were referring to previously in the thread on localities creating labor credits, incurring public debt, and assigning/paying labor or projects rather the individuals. Then you claimed it is individuals, this is much more of a problem for your system in its implications as individuals hire labor in exchange for artificial and meaningless private labor notes.



No 'hosting' necessary -- all assets and resources would be openly available, with active usage determined according to formal, mass-approved policy packages, and by nothing else.

Yes since no hosting is necessary then they would not even be desired in the first place due to the risky and difficulty involved which would be extremely expensive.



Because the fact of outstanding locality debt would cut against the locality's political sovereignty, in relations with neighboring localities and beyond. So while a locality's people -- as liberated laborers -- would be under no obligation to put forth any of the labor credits they possessed towards paying off their locality's debt, and could even *continue* to work wherever as individual liberated laborers for *more* labor credits, their locality as a whole would probably be at a political standstill -- as for initiating projects and coordinating efforts -- because the locality *could not* fund anything like that while it remained 'in the hole' economically.

Make up your fucking mind and stop contradicting yourself. You first stated that if a locality has a public debt then individual citizens are forced to pay off their share of the debt if they are to leave, now you state that they can "work wherever" for "more labor credits" and are thus not obligated to pay off their locality's debts. You also previously stated that localities are NOT enterprises (organizational entities) and thus no "liberated" (but enslaved) laborers are tied to it or any other locality and that they can go wherever they want and produce whatever they want. Individual laborers do not have anything to do with their localities because they are not tied to any, that is what you are now saying and this contradicts what you have previously stated that they are tied to the localities in that they have to pay off their locality's public debts if they are to be freed. What a disaster of a system. :laugh:



Correct.

Yes and do understand that I was speaking of CONSUMPTION, not of anything else.



I hope my clarifications here will encourage a re-examination on your part.

Honestly the more you clarify, the more I find it to be not thought out properly and more unworkable and not viable.



For the sake of time and length I will stop here, but will keep the rest of your post on hand, to finish responding-to later....


Alright.



I don't have time to address all interesting points in this thread, but I'd like to point a few things out.

I don't believe I will start a debate with you as I'm already very preoccupied as you can see, but I'll point out a few things. I do not really care if you reply or not, I'm not going to address it, sorry.



It seems to me, that both capitalist free marketers and market socialists make a false assumption from correct premises. It is absolutely true, that every system, in order to control itself and maintain stability, needs to have a feedback function that contains all its states. But it is absolutely false, that money/price mechanism is only or even a very good mechanism for such a feedback function.

Right, let's see why.



For capitalism the problem is simple. Market choices reflect social preferences only as long as money is spread evenly through the system. With each exchange however, the money accumulates and in the end we have again a few individuals trying to guess social needs - without ability nor motivation to do so - since they already possess everything there is.

That's only in the case of monopolies or companies that do not need or want to meet demand. That is not the case with Capitalism as all companies seek to meet demand regardless of the owner's wealth, even Microsoft still met demand even though Bill Gates was the world's richest man.



All great communists, I think, have recognized the need for feedback from the whole economy and the necessity for spreading the control function through the system.
"To each according to their need" is from "Critique of Gotha program" and has to be read in that context. The context, I think, is Marx criticizing an utopian program.

"To each according to their need" IS a Utopian concept, as I have shown in this thread. In fact we are no longer discussing this as it is no longer a matter of contention, it is something which bases itself on false assumptions of a post-scarcity society based on infinite resources, super-productivity, super-abundance, and almost complete or complete automation.



For the conditon "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" he sets a precondition - "work has become life's prime want".

When work, not consumption, has become the prime means through which we actualize our social existence, then the question is not "who should get the luxury commodity for which labor effort". The question is "who should get the resources for producing their particular dream project" There's nothing "moralistic" about it, just good old egoism. If the only way to achieve social status is some kind of production, then the possibility to produce is the "scarce commodity" that must be measured.

Two things here:

Firstly, for work to become life's prime want it has to become pleasurable and voluntary. That can only happen in a post-scarcity society with infinite resources, super-productivity, super-abundance, and fully automated as I have explained above to such an extent that labor is no longer needed for production and would only be done "for fun" much like a hobby is today.
Secondly, this is extremely outdated. Marx is speaking from a time when consumerism did not exist, when toys and computers, consoles, video games, television, etc. did not exist as they do today or at all. What used to fill people's time, their prime life's want, was work. Today, however, and in the future, people do not need to work at all to fulfill their life's prime want, they can merely eat popcorn and watch movies, hang out, play video games, go shopping, or attend thousands of entertainment activities. People today have no reason to work except in order to obtain money.

Today and in the future we actualize our existence through doing what we want, and we have an infinite amount of options today to do so other than work, which was what people "actualized their existence" with back then.

As for " the question is not "who should get the luxury commodity for which labor effort". The question is "who should get the resources for producing their particular dream project"" then that requires the post-scarcity society which I previously referred to, where extraction production, labor, scarcity, etc. are no longer a problem, and it is only a matter of distribution "according to need". Such a system is only possible in a post-scarcity society with infinite resources, full automation, super-productivity, and super-abundance. We do not have such a society today nor in the near future. But since we have what we have today, then we have a FINITE amount of resources, FINITE and SCARCE productivity, no super-abundance but scarcity, and barely any automation whilst still utilizing labor in every field and workplace. Thus we will need to incentivize labor, allocate resources to the best and most efficient individuals possible, reduce waste and consumption through price restrictions and restrictions on demand, and so on.



Labour credits have the problem that they also tend to accumulate (although not as ridiculously as money). Also, they do separate the man from their labour, no question about that.

There is absolutely nothing with labor credits accumulating. Labor credits when reflecting contribution must be ENCOURAGED to accumulate as it is no longer accumulation by private bourgeois parasites contributing nothing, but remuneration according to contribution. This encourages and incentivizes workers to produce efficiently, effectively, and thus contribute more in order to receive more.



I think that a better feedback system would be something that can be both given and taken back, so the society could immediately change course when necessary. We could try to crowd-source a task list, constantly updating it according to each individual's preferences. Or give everyone personal 24 hours a day "means of production user time" which could then both be given to anyone or taken back as necessary. These would be more socialistic systems of measure, I think.

I already dealt with the disaster of "task lists" and "preference lists" on the question of collective decision-making, ignoring of individual preferences in favor of aggregate individual's preferences, the inability to meet uncommon goods, the inability to restrict demands (preferences), etc. in this thread, you can take a look yourself. Providing free access to the means of production is something I also dealt with and is also a problem, especially if you are attempting to meet the TRILLION TRILLION needs of BILLIONS of people all over the world. We are no longer living in a society where we can resort to a Bakuninist Collectivism where people can just go ahead and produce whatever they want in a workplace, but we have trillions of products to be produced to meet trillions of needs for billions of people all over the world. To allow an individual, if not every single individual of the billions on Earth, to access the means of production and disturb the constantly running production process would lead to extremely huge problems in supply.



Oh and diamonds are just a rare form of carbon. In a few years we can probably produce them as cheaply as glass so they are not a very good example of luxury goods.

Diamonds are just an example. Take for instance any luxury good which requires a lot of labor, time, and rare resources which we cannot produce and have very little of.

[ckaihatsu]

You're preferring to be instructed by today's market system, rather than *breaking* with it to allow better options to make themselves available to you -- hence your fatalism regarding *non-market* approaches.





There are no better options, especially not yours. I prefer to be instructed by markets, artificial or otherwise, yes. I do not "break" with them because I'm no motherfucking window-breaking garden-planting Anarcho-Kiddy trying a new revolutionary method to destroy society. I've already realized that your system is an impossibility and do not bother "breaking" anything for the sake of breaking. Fatalism regarding disaster approaches, yes indeed.


I would just think that you would want to bolster the *revolutionary* aspect of your market-socialism politics, rather than slide further to the right.





No, rather I'm *springboarding* from today's technological capabilities, to welcome better possible social relations to control all of it.





You're not "springboarding"; you're basing your ENTIRE SYSTEM ON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS. You do away with the social relations of today in favor of new social relations whilst entirely keep everything good about this system (its results) and doing away with what create those "good" things (the results). That's Utopianism and ignorance at their best.


No, it's an acknowledgement that the market system is entirely obsolete and can be fully transcended.





No, liberated labor would be informed of consumer demand.





Which wouldn't be fulfilled because some products are "specialized, difficult, and luxurious" with absolutely no incentive to produce them or waste time on them.


Again, you merely make blanket assertions over unknowable specifics in vain attempts to discredit a solid alternative here.





Yes, in labor credits -- the scale makes no difference. If greater productivities are to be realized then greater efforts at mass organization must be put forth, for it.





Absolute Utopianism that follows the "make it happen" ideals of this Utopian.


This is unreasoned dismissiveness and an erroneous characterization. The labor credits serve to measure bulk liberated labor for any project's context -- large or small.





Well, they certainly *might*, considering that no one could deny them access to their proportionate share of mass-production implements (or lesser).





Yes because in your EIP (Everything-Is-Possible) system, they'll get everything they need, even mass expensive and large-scale technologically advanced rare machinery that eat air and shit out rainbows. No. You cannot by any means give out means of production or any to such an extent that you can satisfy all niche products and demand.


Given your politics here you're not in any position to make characterizations or recommendations.





Well, a *regular* system of political organization would already be in place -- the framework that I've provided.





Which still cannot summon organization from thin air. No matter how much organization you have, you cannot simply "make it happen", you need a material basis for everything. Limitations will exist and problems will exists, none of which you take into consideration at all. If we were all to take your EIP system and turn it into our then we'd all imagine lovable Utopians from nationstates.com. So no, your political organization and its system are not the answer.


I've addressed it in that the model is able to scale-up or scale-down depending on varying actual material availabilities.





Yes, I addressed this very concern quite recently, on another thread:





Oh fascinating! "Liberated" laborers my ass. This is nothing but a system of oppression that removes any and all exit capabilities and forces exploitation. People cannot leave your system without paying what the locality wants them to pay. This means that your enslaved laborers are forced to buy their freedom by resorting to wage labor in order to simply leave a locality or else they're stuck in a locality that is falling apart because of other people. You prevent individuals from leaving unless they pay for there freedom, this leads to mass exploitation by forcing individuals with no or low labor notes to be forced to remain in their system until they pay WHATEVER the locality wants. The locality can very well abuse this by forcing individuals to remain in their locality and increase the debt continuously or artificially until members are unable to leave, are discouraged to leave, or can leave but would be essentially stripped clean of their labor notes. With no exit strategy, you are doing nothing more than exploiting your enslaved laborers. These enslaved laborers are forced to pay off the debt causes by OTHERS in their locality. It is not by any means an individual's fault if he was simply born into such a locality. This is worse than the border restrictions of today as you force these enslaved laborers to pay off the debts of their entire locality. Simply fucking ridiculous.


Nope -- you're making it sound as if people's very lives would be constrained, when that's not the case. Everyone would always be able to submit their daily prioritized demands, no matter where they are, "home" locality or not, for their basic humane needs and populist personal wants.

The labor credits aspect, including a locality's mass-determined debt, if any, is a *political* function that does not impact the liberated laborer individually. As I already noted, the individual liberated laborer is able to continue to earn labor credits and is not *obligated* to turn them over for the sake of paying down the locality's debt. The locality's debt must be solved in a collective way, the same way that created the debt in the first place.





No they cannot unless we have:





1) Full or almost full automation
2) Infinite resources
3) Abundance in everything
4) Super-productivity

Now prove it.


This is addressed above.





Again, if a post-capitalist society had any pressing issues with its policy concerning personal possessions, such would come to the fore as a current topic, for resolution.





Everything-Is-Possible. That is not a solution in your model, you are doing nothing more than claiming "I can't answer this so I'll just leave it to my Utopia to 'make it happen'".


Since it doesn't currently exist, it's impossible for me to speak on behalf of the denizens of such a society. You're expecting the model to have *predictive* powers, which it doesn't.





'Looting' is only meaningful in the context of a private-property-based economics that restricts access to productivity based on one's existing ownership of capital. In a *post*-capitalist context 'looting' would be meaning-*less* since the institution of private ownership would no longer exist. Consider the current public sector -- can anyone "own" a public park, or an e-book that's in the public domain -- ? Just expand *everything* to the public domain, including control over goods and mass production, and have a system for popular and liberated-labor-based control over it all -- like with the model I've provided.





Looting would not be "meaning-*less*". If I were to enter a public means of production, destroy it and take whatever goods I want then that is looting. If I were to break into a factory and steal all the machinery or party that I want then that is looting, unless you consider that legal in which case... But nevertheless, in EIP, everything is possible, even looting is legal and non-existent because looting obviously depends on private property and didn't even exist before Capitalism such as during looting raids of the Mongols and barbarians. No they cannot own a public park but they can loot the public park and take benches, statues, ornaments, etc. E-books can't be looted unless every single copy is taken, or just the original before mass "production". Your model, again, is ridiculous, stop trying to present it as something serious.


Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.





No -- it's just that you're not understanding the differences in social relations from a world of private ownership, to a wholly publicly-controlled one.





No, I understand that perfectly, YOU do not understand what looting means nor the thousands of disasters in your system. Instead of realizing the problems in your system, you seem to think that the problem lies with me not understanding the difference between private and public ownership. Pathetic. Nevertheless, your reply has nothing to do with what I said on you allowing people to game the system, abuse it, and "win" it basing the consequences on only being moral issues between the person and his mind.


No, any internal friction would have to be dealt with and addressed with policy.





You recklessly favor your own market-clinging approach by *not* addressing my alternative model *neutrally* -- instead you posit your own arbitrary nightmare specifics, thereby artificially undermining it.





Let people judge the debate. By pointing to real specifics that can and will take place in your system, that is enough for me to destroy your useless system bit by bit.


No, you're merely guessing and positing arbitrary specifics of your choosing, in a malicious way.





Likewise I could flippantly say that, with markets, people will find human meat to be the cheapest, and so market forces would produce a cannibalistic dog-eat-dog world of person-eat-person -- but it would be too assumptive of many variables and factors *within* the context of market forces, and so I *don't* contend those conclusions.





You can say that, but we have markets today and human meat is expensive. Since human meat is expensive with extremely low and marginal demand on it then it won't lead to a "cannibalistic dog-eat-dog world of person-eat-person". Next.


Yet it's not possible to use the same process of reasoning for a society that *doesn't* exist -- that's the difference you fail to acknowledge, so you overstep such objective limitations.





The market-based approach is not the *only* method of enabling individual-based choice -- the point is to empower individualism, as in consumerism, while *collectivizing* mass production.





Your EIP system does not empower the individual, ESPECIALLY on the question of consumerism. Markets, artificial or otherwise, are the best means by which to allow for individual decision-making. You CAN empower the individual and collectivize mass production but that would be approaching my suggest system. Empowering the individual and collectivizing mass production cannot happen in your system as I have shown time and time again by explaining the disasters of your system on the individual AND the collective be it on the issue of collective decision-making, inhibiting individual demand by aggregate demand, etc. etc.


No, you haven't.





There is no 'proof' -- you're asking for 'proof' of something objective that does not yet exist. One's politics speak not to the way things *are* currently, but rather to how things *should* be. I am letting you know that a worldwide proletarian control of mass production would *enable* a bottom-up mass control over productivity and distribution.





You seem unable to read, here, I'll help you out. I asked you to prove that "proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those [super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation]". The question is not about a worldwide proletarian control of mass production but on the question of you making the claim that they are a material basis for "making it happen", a magical term for "I don't know".


Your conditions are unrealistic because of their absolutism -- just because you assert them doesn't mean that they're automatically legitimate, valid criteria.





No, I hereby disavow any and all claims -- if they exist -- to predictions of a future reality.





Thus his entire theory falls apart as soon as he realizes, if ever, that all his theorizing is based on false assumptions of the future.


No, they're not assumptions or predictions.





This keeps getting worse and worse. if workers cannot have local interests in common then HOW THE HELL can they have international and worldwide interests in common? That they all want mass production? Sure, and they all want free stuff too. Rainbows and unicorns as well. The thing is, that will not happen because each individual has absolutely no reason to produce nor contribute at all, they have no reason to work efficiently, productively, or even prevent waste as everything is free and there is absolutely no means by which to calculate costs or prices.


Labor credits are the basis for quantification of labor effort, combined with all other regular descriptions and recordkeeping.





That's your *own* interpretation and conclusion -- again you're agreeing with yourself by imputing specifics according to your choosing. The lack of a *market* motivation does *not* mean that people would automatically turn into jellyfish and just slowly die on the beach.





The specifics all of which are possible and will happen should your system ever take place. The lack of a market does not mean that they will die like jellyfish on the beach, but it means that their production will NOT be able to satisfy demand and will end up with a situation similar to that of the USSR.


Once again, just because you make contentions based on the past doesn't mean you're correct.





In a populist consumerist context anyone could request / demand *anything*, but there could only be realization / fulfillment of that if sufficient numbers of the same performed in the capacity / social roles of liberated labor, to actually effect the necessary production.





What you're saying is essentially that they can demand whatever they want, but without "sufficient numbers" they won't get their demand satisfied. Good job on that lovely system of yours. People can demand whatever they want but they will never be satisfied unless sufficient numbers are present. This returns us the the numerous problems I have poitned out in this system ranging from the unfulfillment of demand, unfulfillment of the individual's specific demands and priorities, the control fo the collective over the individual, and so on.


I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's simply the facts of *material existence* -- someone has to do something in order for it to be done. The model is premised on this material reality, however you go on to mischaracterize it.





They *could* -- it could be d.i.y., on publicly available implements of (mass) production. Or, they could *organize* for small-scale or larger-scale (mass) production, appropriately.





No they do not. DIY has nothing to do with mass and specialized production or else we'll start producing our own computers from complete scratch. Organization has nothing to do with the point I was making that producers have no direct influence on the society's output.


Yes, they would, as regular individuals in a (populist-based) process of mass prioritized demands, as for mass-production-oriented issues.





You can organize all you want, you won't have enough supporters given the MASSIVE amounts of organizations being formed in order to count for the millions of desired products which cannot be magically produced for your EIP theory's pleasure. The publicly available means of production would already be used for mass production, they wouldn't remain idle without any production taking place.


That's fine -- nothing wrong with that, if that happened to be the actual case.





A 'point' system, essentially.





Yes.





And...?





What the hell do you mean "And...?" THAT IS THE POINT. Conflict and wars will arise worse than today's wars and conflicts purely due to the many converging contradictions with no uniting central authority to relieve any tension or act as a medium of control to ease tensions and contradictions.


Again, more hollow contentions -- go ahead and spin a yarn of extended fiction that takes place within the model's context, if you like. It would be entertaining, if dark in mood....





I disagree that abstract-valuation-based 'incentives' is the only possible way that liberated laborers would feel motivated to provide their labor, in accordance with mass requests.





Show me any other alternative that is not the EIP theory of yours, one that is viable. You can incentivize the individuals, rely on kin altruism, or resort to massive problems.





Do you mean me *personally*, or do you mean 'according to the model' -- please be clear here. Again, I'm not making *predictions*, although you obviously don't hesitate to do that yourself.





Your model. You = the one pushing forward the model = the model. That's how it's generally used in such a context.





You make it sound as though journalism would somehow cease to exist.





You make it sound as though "journalism" is the solution. The issue here is not feedback from journalism, but feedback that could potentially bankrupt a cooperative which forces the cooperates to fix their shit or go broke. You also did not answer the first part of the statement: "Thirdly, if their needs were met then they would have absolutely no reason to work unless coerced or incentivized to do otherwise. "


Another vacuous assertion -- if people's needs are met they may feel *empowered* to take on and accomplish *higher-level* tasks.





They *would* get proportionately more labor credits for more labor hours of work -- and, as consumers, we could ask what is it that they have *requested*, according to their daily prioritized demands -- ?





They get nothing from those labor credits except in order to buy their freedom from their owners, the locality, the community, or the commune.


Not correct -- you're just making that up. This has been addressed above.





The labor credits they cannot buy any consumer goods with and would essentially be completely useless. Individuals themselves would not desire to start production facilities, they do not really care about that shit.


Only according to you.





Well, if "it" -- whatever -- is not actually *produced* by liberated labor then it would not *exist* to be used or consumed by *anyone*.





Yes, because out of thousands of reasons THAT is the only reason why something would not be produced. But of course in Everything-Is-Possible, there would be no shortages, no scarcities, no lack of productivity, no strikes (yes, if they disagree with the collective for instance or act in solidarity), no inefficiencies, no underproduction, etc. etc. So no, you still did not answer the issue because you disregard other reasons for the lack of production as in the case of the USSR.


So instead of addressing the actual structure of the model you prefer to mix-in your baseless negative assumptions derived from mischaracterizations and past histories.





You're not being clear here.





I was being clear, I was taking your false assumptions determined by you in your system as conditions for my criticism. What's not to get? "now, given what we would have in your system which we would not have today [...]" this means that if we take your false assumptions which we do not have today such as super-productivity, super-abundance, etc. etc. which you take as a given for your system.


Nope -- this is just unrealistic, dogmatic criteria from you.





All of these factors would be under administrative supervision:





Lol? You want to assign certain appointed agencies to take over administrative supervision? And I thought your system was already prone to massive problems and corruptions, now you want to personally-appointed decentralized and local administrative supervision agencies FOR EACH AND EVERY SINGLE PROJECT!? That is completely nonviable and illogical. There is no audit agency, there is no means by which to "watch the watchers".


Untrue -- again you ignore journalism and are hard-wired to some kind of Orwellian dystopia, no matter what conversation you're in.





However "exaggerated" the survey responses might be, it would all be scored 'on the curve', meaning that the values given would all be relative.





Yes, a straight line rather than a curve, which is why you used the quotes as everyone will rate their workplaces a 10 in order to maximize labor credits, "profits" and utility.


Again you presume to know, asserting unknowable specifics.





They're called 'liberated laborers' -- no need to deify them. (Grin)





Enslaved laborers as you have proven. Enslaved by the locality to geographical areas.


Nope -- addressed above.





I'm not saying it would be 'easy' -- it's just that that's how it would be done.





That's how it would be done in your EIP system, wait till you try it out in real-life. You have not take a single course in economics, no wonder you're still stuck in that Utopian whimsical "everything-is-possible" phase.


You're overlaying a template of your own choosing -- capitalist economic theories -- to errantly dismiss proposals that have nothing to do with capitalist economics.





You can draw any conclusions you like from history, but conflating past results with future potentialities is just being recklessly facile.





No, we need to learn from the past to judge our actions in the future. The Bolsheviks expected an EIP system, they ended up with the USSR and its shortages, much like your case.


*Learning* and *concluding* are two different things.





'Effort' is distinguished according to the definition of any given work role -- standardized and regulated. If you mean it in the *subjective* (personal) sense, I addressed that above.





You did not address that above and you cannot standardize nor regulate it according to effort.


Yes -- see the definition for 'labor credits' in the model.





You seem to think that *everyone*, for absolutely *all* work roles, regardless of actual hazard or difficulty, would just summarily assign a '10' to it.





Yes.





I'll address the crux of your argument, here:





Consumption *varies* on an individual-by-individual basis, according to what any individual has requested with their daily prioritized list of demands, subject to actual liberated production. As active liberated laborers, individuals would receive increased amounts of labor credits in proportion to increased labor hours at approved, funded work roles.





So in other words, consumption has nothing to do with labor-credits, and work thus has nothing to do with consumption, ergo consumers and producers receive the same in terms of consumption. Essentially you just argued on my side. Good job.


Nope, your conclusion here is misguided and incorrect.





You are obviously interpreting this according to your own assumptions about specifics within.





"I" cannot prevent them -- ? Do you mean me *personally*, or else what *do* you mean by including my person within this contention of yours? You're inserting your own defeatist scenarios again.





YOU as in your MODEL, as in you, the person who came up with the model.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, a locality could certainly be self-sufficient, if it happened to have a relatively high percentage of its population as active liberated laborers. This would equate to a more-industrious locality, with a larger volume of ongoing labor credit turnover, all internally.





Listen, since labor credits have nothing to do with remuneration according to CONTRIBUTION then it has nothing to do with a system based on the remuneration "according to contribution". Get it now? A locality that is self-sufficient does not answer anything as that was not the issue.


You're going to have to get the exchange-value-based idea of "remuneration" out of your head when it comes to labor credits. Labor credits are strictly internal to liberated labor organizing, as for mass-approved projects.





You're not understanding how the circulation of labor credits works -- yes, if a locality's liberated laborers were so chummy that everything could be kept informal and sheerly voluntary, internally, then perhaps the system of labor credits would be obviated. But if the locality's population numbered in the thousands or millions there'd be enough complexity to warrant a per-person accounting of labor supplied, going forward. This is how the use of circulating labor credits, as described in the model, would be useful.





You think you can solve the issue of complexity of millions of individuals merely by imposing a labor credits system as the one you speak of here? Laughable, that is not a solution. The question of complexity needs to be addressed on the issues of decision-making and the problems that pertain to collective decision-making,


That's what the daily mass prioritized demands are for.





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





the question of allocating resources to the most loyal, contribution, and deserving members,


Since (liberated) labor is the *most important*, fundamental resource that we human beings have, this domain is facilitated by the use of labor credits.





rationing resources to prevent mass consumption and waste in the chaos of millions, being able to track pricing signals, being able to track supply and demand of commodities INCLUDING the costs incurred to measure efficiency, viable alternatives, and so on.


Or it could be done in a mass-*conscious* way, with proper information provided to the public.





You cannot do any of that. Your perverted labor credits system cannot answer any of these issue. The problem lies in the field of consumption as well as in the field of production, you neglect the former in favor of ignorantly butchering the latter. Again, the issue of labor credits is not the sole problem nor does it solve anything at all except perhaps primitively attempting to create a crude investment model.


Only according to you.





Okay, in the absence of *fully* automated production, productivity would be more-dependent on the participation and cooperation of liberated labor, to greater extents as automation is lacking, as you're noting.





No, the cooperation and participation of your enslaved labor is not the solution.


Your characterization here is your own, and is unsubstantiated from the model.





The enslaved laborers cannot magically solve this, they need a thousand and one accounting mechanisms, economic calculation, and so on in order to merely manage a thousand products, imagine trillions of different products.


Your showing your reliance and dependence on the obsolete market mechanism.





In the absence of fully automated production, you would require the utmost productivity from each and every member of society in order to be able to meet the bare minimum of the vast and unrestricted demand of billions of people all over the world


No, you're framing it as an all-or-nothing situation, which is binary and unrealistic.





(no restrictions such as a pricing mechanism on consumption meaning that anyone can take whatever he wants without question as opposed to being restricted to taking as much as they contribute or around that).


Again you're ignoring the actual model, which shows that demand is constrained by available liberated labor.





To clarify, there is nothing in the model that depends on altruism. Voluntary liberated labor -- an inherent implication of communism -- is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going-forward, for increasing labor hours performed for assigned work.





Your entire model depends on altruism. Altruism is the basis behind mutual aid, cooperation, mass consciousness, and organization.


Incorrect. Again, liberated labor is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power.





Altruism is the basis behind your production model of failure. In the field of production, you expect individuals to produce FOR others without any reason or incentive to do so except for the benefit of others (altruism).


Or for themselves, in their field of choice, as with a career or craft, or for labor credits, etc.





In the field of consumption, you expect people to only consume what they REALLY need for the benefit of their community lest they lead to scarcity.


Since all consumption is pre-planned your concern would already have been addressed before any plans went into effect.





Enslaved-labor brokering power


I object to your characterization here since you're employing it summarily.





has nothing to do with consumption and thus does not solve anything but on the issue of investment which it reduces to its most primitive and crude form.


"Investment", as of abstracted monetary valuations, is only a concern within a paradigm based on the *market* mechanism, or anything similar. Such concerns are *precluded* in any model that is post-commodity-production.





That's also not taking into consideration that the amount of paid labor credits per hour would be maximized in order to maximize labor credit income unless you have an objective committee to do this for you, but you don't, you want the very workers who work there to do this with all their emotional incentives, biases, etc. to maximize labor credits.





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





Also, everything would boil down to actual existing conditions, certainly -- I can't pretend to know what those conditions might be. The usefulness of this method / model that I developed and am advocating is in the way that it structures dynamic considerations for the inherently disparate interests of (liberated) labor, its self-administration, and popular demand, respectively.





The same could be said about any command economy, decentralized economy, and even markets where should any problems arise, they would be solved 'in theory' but in reality they end up to be disastrous in their implications. The same could be said specifically about the USSR where they initially used the same EIP nonsense that you do now by stating that should any shortages take place in X, they would merely allocate labor to X, a much simpler and streamlined "solution" than your mess of decentralization. Yet, what happened in real-life? We saw what happened with massive shortages that went unsolved even when the government and society were able to allocate labor, commodities, factories, etc. to where they were needed. They did not take into consideration the SPECIFICS which you ignore right now and thus reality slapped them in the face.


You're not in any position to arbitrarily introduce negative, deleterious hypothetical specifics.





Your model is not a solution, it is a disaster that fails even in theory as it depends on nothing but false assumptions and a EIP model where should a problem arise it would be merely solved by people cooperating or organizing (as if that will happen). your system is nothing but ultra-leftist Utopian adventurist idealism that will lead to suicide. Any system at all can make an EIP assumption, such as "it structures dynamic considerations for the inherently disparate interests of (liberated) labor, its self-administration, and popular demand, respectively", but the problem is that it will not happen because people honestly do not give a shit about organizing or cooperating as you imagine they will for every single problem or issue.


You sound like you have a future career as a politician.





Correct -- again, the participation of liberated labor is *economically unrelated* to any and all material consumption.





Thus the participation of enslaved labor


I object to your characterization here since you're employing it summarily.





has nothing to do with according to contribution models


No, not in the sense of using a system of abstract monetary values.





nor does it and its labor credits of yours solve ANY of the problems and issues which I presented throughout this thread.


-Whatever-





You're ignoring that the earning of labor credits confers increasing liberated-labor brokering power, going forward. Consumption is provided for through the prioritized mass demands aspect.





Every time you say "going forward" you make me think of a robot iterating those words. Nevertheless, the prioritization of mass demands I have already shown to be a disaster, especially on the question of the individual's specific priorities not being shared by the collective and thus his most important demands and priorities would go unfulfilled.


No, you *haven't* shown it -- you merely make the assertion.





You tried to "solve" this by resorting to an EIP assumption that they will "make it happen" and "organize", but I counter this by reminding you that the economy would already be loaded to the brim by attempting to supply every single demand and need to billions of people and the simply but crucial fact that you missed - since their priority ended up on the bottom of the list then it is UNPOPULAR and no organization can take place to shift production already preoccupied with trillions of other products towards it.


Nothing precludes smaller-scale production on fully-public-domain, appropriate implements.





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





Furthermore, on the issue of increasing enslaved labor brokering power, that, again, solves nothing as with as nothing to do with consumption (the very field of importance and basis for everything) as I have explained above.


There *is* the simple material fact that increasing degrees of labor power used equates to increased production, for consumption.





Yeah, *any* right-winger can be blithely dismissive this way, but then they (you) also have to *disregard* the actual technological productivities that exist *today*, with such material potential being wielded by the world's collective (ex-)proletariat of a post-capitalist social order. The way you disregard this existing productive potential is by implying some kind of apocalypse between now and then, conveniently laying-waste to such existing technological productivities.





You overstate the availability, productivity, and capabilities of today's technology. You cannot simply take a technology and spread it all over the world with no costs incurred at all, there is a reason why they are extremely costly in terms of time, labor, and money today. The technological progress of today cannot be taken by your system as a given because you simply imagine that you will have all the latest technology all over the world. That is not the case and will not be the case,


To hear *you* say so is far from convincing.





even the USSR's and North Korea's command economies failed at doing so even with their entire economy controlled by the state allowing it to theoretically (not practically) build whatever it wants. Nevertheless, the technology of today depends on markets, pricing mechanisms, price signals, and so on all of which you do away with in your system. Suppose for a moment that we have the technology of today in your system, that that does not solve the thousands of issues that relate to production incentives, consumption, distribution, environmental destruction, and so on which you CANNOT answer.


Only according to you.





Well, it's clear now -- you are *not* anti-commodity-production, so you are arguably even in the camp of market socialism.





I have no qualms with Market Socialism. I do not oppose commodity production outside of Capitalism but with markets, wage-labor, and so on.





'Need' is a component *variable* that will vary in actual reality -- you keep presuming to know what that actual 'need', or demand, will be, when in fact it's unknowable from today's vantage point. In terms of current material productivities, it's entirely realistic to say that the world's basic humane needs *could* be supplied, and more, given the abolition of capitalism. You're preferring to be glass-half-empty here, summarily saying that the material productivities would *not* be sufficient.





I do not actually have to predict anything or presume anything, as all I require are the basic assumptions that:
- We will have billions of people.





- Restrictions on consumption would be removed.


This is a spurious assumption.





- Anyone and everyone can consume whatever they want with no costs at all.


Another spurious assumption.





- Demand will at all time be existent.
- We will still have finite resources.
- We will still have finite and limited productive power.
- We will still have manual labor.
Those will by every means exist in a post-Capitalist society if it were to take place today. Now following those realistic assumptions based on today and the near future then we can safely state that if you have such assumptions then you cannot have an "according to need" system because you will be unable to meet the humongous daily demands of billions of people ALL OVER THE WORLD with no means by which to properly account for anything on the question of consumption and production.


Incorrect -- that's exactly what the model speaks-to and covers.





You cannot ensure maximized or increased productivity as you do not reward increased levels of contribution.





Associated material values

labor [supply] -- Labor supply is selected and paid for with existing (or debt-based) labor credits





You cannot ensure demand equalizes or comes short of surpassing supply because you have no pricing mechanism or markets to restrict demand according to supply and itself.


Your market mechanism is surpassed by the use of public information regarding production, etc.





You also, in order to meet the huge explosive and humongous increase in demand, will have to rape the shit out of the environmental in order to extract as many resources as you can in order to satisfy the seemingly nightmarish demand.


"Seemingly" -- a concession on your part to the ridiculousness of your predictions.





With that taking place, while you tear the world for resources, you will have the issue of FINITE resources that would force you to ration goods rather than extract every single inch of earth and give it away without question or accountability. Since you have finite resources, you will need to divide these resources and ration them according to the most efficient, productive, and thus the most contributive producers and the most intelligent consumers.


Or, after superseding the market-mechanism approach, such matters could be decided-on using a mass-prioritized method:





Material function

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]




Infrastructure / overhead

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process




Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination


---





Here again you show a clear inclination for the market system itself, even over the reformist approach of market socialism.





I have no qualms with non-Capitalist markets, such as in the case of Mutualism, Market Socialism, or the "my" system with its artificial markets or otherwise.





Sure, but of what *relevance* is that fact -- ? Likewise, we can definitively say that we are formed according to the blueprint of DNA, but saying it says nothing about everything that *derives* from it.





If you relate DNA to Capitalism then when you claim to desire to do away with Capitalism, the basis of the achievements of today, then you do away with its analogical form which you give, i.e. DNA. Thus had you bothered to follow the implications about your statement you would have realized that you just argued against yourself and answered yourself by showing that Capitalism/DNA are necessity for what its derived from them.


You're implying that I'm arguing to abolish DNA, which is not the case -- it's just a metaphor for the sake of illustration. You're sidestepping the argument.





You're implying that the fact of finite resources would be a *problem*, as in there being materials *unavailable* due to their finite quantities.





No. The problems of finite resources have to do not with the lack of availability but the question of rationing, dividing goods, and limiting consumption in order to limit the depletion of these finite resources and use them the best way possible. But also, the lack of availability is an issue but I did not bring it up because you'll just resort to an Everything-Is-Possible assumption and claim that people will "organize and cooperate" and thus solve that issue, knowing very well that this is not what will happen.


I am saying that people *can* consciously organize on mass scales, to handle such issues *politically*.





The problematic with the policy of socially necessary labor time -- which you'll appreciate -- is that it can't *differentiate* on the *range* of goods and services from 'need' to 'want'. So while it's fine for everyone when they're in the same boat, with uniform humane 'needs', there's no way for that approach to address more-discretionary luxury / specialty / exotic 'wants', on a necessarily per-individual basis.





Yes, which is why "my" system or the systems that I support are not based on socially necessary labor time nor on any time-based labor but purely on contribution-based labor. Nevertheless, I mentioned socially necessary labor time as being an example of a rejection of a "stable" pay per hour system that acts regardless of individual effort,




such as the one you support where labor is paid for on a stable per hour basis regardless of contribution.


Incorrect. Again:





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





A socially necessary labor time accounting method rewards individuals on the basis of a changing social AVERAGE which depends on their and others' contributions, meaning that if a worker or a group of workers produce more, the social average increases and thus they have every ncentive to produce more in order to increase their benefits.




However, in a system such as yours which bases itself not on individual effort or contribution but on a stable and unchanging pay based on difficulty/risk x stable hourly wage.


That's not unchanging, since the types of work roles would vary, per person, and on the whole.





So yes, even socially necessary labor time is still much more preferable than your system, especially if it is implemented for labor credits which can be used for consumption.


Then, by definition, they're no longer labor credits. You're back to commodity cash.





With your market triumphalism you've been giving everyone just cause for hesitation regarding your use of the term 'we'.





Show me one single Communist/Leftist/Socialist that agrees with you 100% and then I'll state that you're correct on your concerns of me using the term "we" despite differing from others. Despite our disagreements, "we" still oppose Capitalism. The "we" refers to opponents of Capitalism and nothing else.


---





But it's because the average person does not own (financially productive) capital that they must sell their own labor power, with no other option for participating in the global economy.





That has nothing to do with anything.





Yes, it has everything to do with everything -- it describes the class division.





This has nothing to do with anything as in it does NOT determine wage labor but instead is a factor in determining wage slavery. Wage labor and wage slavery are not the same. Wage labor can exist regardless of markets, coercion, and the lack of any viable alternatives but can instead entirely exist on a completely voluntary basis as in the case of my example of paying someone to get me ice cream without him being forced to by anyone or anything.


You're ignoring the overarching basis for the use of wage labor / wage slavery, which is as I noted above.





Okay, but we have to look at what proportion of their income and livelihood is derived from returns on capital investments, and what proportion is based on their own wage labor.





No we don't. We only need to determine the basis of whether they are wage laborers or not, everything else is besides the point and is only related to other issues. Wage labor only requires that labor be given in exchange for a wage, nothing else. What you're trying to speak of is what is commonly referred to as wage slavery. Wage slavery is when an individual is forced and coerced by market forces or individuals to resort to wage labor due to the lack of any viable alternatives.


You're ignoring the overarching basis for the use of wage labor / wage slavery, which is as I noted above.





Proportions of income and returns on capital investment have little to do with anything except if we were speaking of the extraction of surplus value and the deficit between total profits and wages - we are not.


Incorrect -- the source of one's income, as from wages and/or dividends, is of decisive meaning, since it identifies one's real relation to the means of mass production.





We are discussing whether or not your system has wage labor, it has, since you are paying a wage in exchange for labor.


Incorrect, because there is no convertibility between labor credits and material goods -- labor is not commodified, so it is not wage labor.





No, it's not wage labor because there's no *commodification* of labor in the model -- commodification is avoided by keeping the domain of (liberated) labor *separate* from the domain of mass demand and mass consumption. There's no convertibility of liberated-labor-representing 'labor credits' for anything material, as for goods.





You do not at all require a commodification of labor-power, you merely require that labor be paid for by a wage and nothing more.


It's not a wage -- it's liberated-labor-organizing political power.





Also, no, commodification of labor-power can arise from the simple act of exchanging labor-power for wages using ANY means,


There are no wages present in the model.





that includes your use of an alternative form of currency in the form of labor credits.


Labor credits are not currency because they're not exchangeable for material goods.





You do not have to include wage labor and their labor credits with labor credits related to consumption and demand in order to have commodification or wage labor.


This sentence makes no sense -- it shows you what happens when you insist on misapplying your *own* paradigm of market valuations to a system that is *non*-market-based.





So then you *are* directing your animosity at me *personally*, and not limiting yourself to a critique of the model. Again, my involvement, if such would be possible, would be on-par with anyone else. There is no basis for any exploitation of labor in the model, as you're accusing.





You really do not understand. "You" is nothing more than the one making the theory who is trying to answer my arguments, the one who came up with the model and thus is theorizing, and the one who would be the "theoretical director" of his model. The critique of the mode is based on YOUR answers and replies defending the model. I do not care about your involvement WITHIN the model or in real-life (I hope it never happens) but as the creator of the model and its proponent. When I critique Capitalism whilst debating a Capitalist I say "You want exploitation for private interests and profit", we (both me and the Capitalist) do not discuss his involvement as an actor within the model but as a theorist and proponent of the system which he is defending. Get it now?





Okay -- as I mentioned, a locality (or any other population-membership-defined grouping, such as 'household', 'labor organization', 'region', 'continent', and/or 'world') is able to issue a debt of labor credits, which introduces that number of them into circulation. While the debt can later be closed-out, the number of labor credits issued remains in circulation, in absolutely identical quantity, propagating forward indefinitely.





So in other words a locality can essentially print as much labor credits as it wants. Talk about inflation,


As I've already noted, a festering debt of labor credits would impact a locality *politically*.





especially due to the lack of centralization or a centralized guiding force for the issuing of labor credits and their regulation!


More reckless assumptions on your part -- this act you're describing would not be precluded.





This is nothing more than a call for all localities to go into billion or trillions of public debt in order to build their own locality, causing untold numbers of inflation to such an extent that labor credits become extremely devalued.


No inflation because labor credits are *not* monetary abstractions. They are pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making.





Localities would all desire to develop their own localities and thus would all instantaneously on day one go into billions if not trillions of debt in order to attract as much labor as they can. This will cause widespread inflation and the destruction of the economy itself. The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic would be kid's play in comparison to this. Hyperinflation not only in order to attract labor, but in order to pay off all debts with easy. By printing numerous amounts of labor crests, the value of each credit falls with each newly printed credit and thus if the debt was 1,000 credits and each credit was worth 1 credit, it can be paid off by printing 1,000 credits even if the value of each credit now is less than half the value of what it was before since you're paying off the NUMBER of credits, not the VALUE of credits. Just take a SINGLE course in proper economics because you do not understand the implications of what you're suggesting. Just read anything on inflation or monetary inflation, for the love of sanity.


No inflation because labor credits are *not* monetary abstractions. They are pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making.





The locality doesn't *need* to pay back debts in any kind of absolute way, but its *political standing* (credibility) will doubtlessly suffer to the degree of its outstanding debt -- the debt shows that the locality *has* directly used, or exploited, the liberated labor of others outside its own population, without reciprocating for those liberated services provided.





So any locality not only can print out any amount of labor credits as it damn well pleases, but it also does not even need to pay off debts! Credibility? No one would really give a shit about credibility if the locality is paying well and attracting labor.


A locality's political standing would be gravely impacted by the amount of debt it's in -- a debt of labor credits means that the people of that locality have *used* others' labor outside of their own locality, *without* providing appropriate labor credits for it.

The societal order would have to decide on policy regarding how much debt would be socially acceptable, as a matter of social relations.





A successful locality can then prosper with an infinite amount of debt without the need to pay them off. Every time a locality wishes to attract labor or start projects then it issues as much labor credits as it wants, thus hyperinflation, especially if other localities logically pursue the same course. Actually the debt does not reflect exploitation but merely that the locality is not only able to pay for all labor it employs but that it has used its labor credits to build up itself. This would only be an issue of exploitation if the labor credits used are NOT paid for, but since they can print as much labor credits as they want and they are already in a debt with no need to pay back anything then that is not the case.


You act as though all of this information would somehow be *concealed* from public consideration.





Certainly. The specifics are entirely determined by prioritized mass demands -- as over the particulars of any given proposals and policy packages -- down to any minute scale of specificity. So, for example, if two competing options for a production policy differ by only one foot difference in physical space, for site placement, those two options could themselves be mass-prioritized by those in the locality to arrive at a final mass decision.





You do not understand. Mass demand has NOTHING to do with the workplace, workplace organization, and the specifics of the production process. It cannot determine if machine X or machine Y is to be used and on what basis, it only cares about having its demand fulfilled.


You're talking to yourself again, using your own terms -- in the 'communist supply & demand' model such particulars *could* be discussed and formalized, into policy, with final authority over implementation resting with the active liberated laborers themselves.





No, incorrect -- again you're trying to inject your *own* preferences into the 'communist supply & demand' model instead of addressing the model itself. Recall that all (mass) production is pre-planned, so 'projects' are drawn-up, discussed, revised, spun-off, and finally decided-on by the regular process of daily mass-prioritization. This means that there is *no* system of abstract monetary valuations, or even merit points, whatsoever -- instead it's a *political economy*, with the final checks-and-balances power residing in those liberated laborers who possess labor credits, either individually or group-pooled -- (from actual past labor completed).

So no manifestation of exchange value can be found here -- policy packages will specify discrete work *roles* for any given project or production run, but only the labor-credits-possessing liberated laborers have the per-labor-credit authority to select and fund incoming liberated laborers, for the work roles specified in the mass-approved production policy package.





You exchange, in other words you buy, labor credits for labor power and projects.


No, because 'buy' implies that monetary valuations are being used, when here they are *not*.





Thus labor credits, labor power, and projects all have exchange values. Thus labor power is commodified. Thus projects are also commodified. It's as simple as that.


Nope -- your saying so does not *make* it so.





Labor power is not accessed for free, but is instead bought with labor credits even if they are not used for consumption;


Labor credits are *never* used for consumption -- no monetary values, no exchangeability for material goods.





they are still bought and exchanged with one commodity for another.


No.





Planning projects does not by any means do away with exchange value as all projects today are pre-planned, drawn up, discussed, revised, spun off, and even decided on by "the regular process of daily mass-prioritization" (i.e. demand and supply, markets, prices, etc.).


You're talking about markets and monetary valuations.





you STILL have abstract monetary valuations,


No, because what labor credits represent is discrete portions of past work done, on the basis of labor hours (-times- a difficulty/hazard multiplier).





but it is not related to consumer goods but actually to labor power


True.





(thus wage labor)


Not true -- this is faulty reasoning on your part.





and projects as you buy and sell


'Buy' and 'sell' implies the use of monetary valuations -- there are none here.





labor power and projects in exchange for CIRCULATING labor credits. It is exactly because these enslaved laborers


Objection to your unjustifiable use of the characterization 'enslaved'.





posses labor credits along with their localities


Only liberated laborers can possess labor credits -- localities / entities *cannot*. Localities / entities can only go into *debts* of labor credits, from the regular collective political approval process of 'mass demands'.





that they are resorting to abstract monetary valuations


Nope, none here.





and exchange values


Nope.





when using their labor credits (not for consumption, obviously).


Finally, *yes* -- labor credits cannot be used for consumption. Correct.





By funding incoming enslaved laborers,


(Objection.)





you are paying for those laborers and exchanging their labor power for your labor credits.


Basically -- here's an edit, to correct it:





By funding incoming [liberated] laborers, [a person or group possessing labor credits] [is] paying for those laborers and [requisitioning] their labor power for [] labor credits.





Furthermore, if they had no exchange-value then that does not mean that they cannot be printed. Furthermore, if localities do not print labor credits then who the hell does? A central printing press? Who determines how much should be printed and on what basis?





These are all administrative policy specifics that -- as with the disuse-of-personal-possessions-time-limit issue -- *I* don't have to address myself.





Actually, just as the time limit issue of personal possession, YOU HAVE to address them yourself by at least presenting a viable model on which you base your claims for us to critique. You cannot say "my system will solve all problems when they arise" but when I point out to a specific issue you'll say "lol specific issue; disregarded". The issue I just raised above is NOT a specific issue that you can by any means disregard, but it is a crucial problem in your system and issue which must be addressed. Seriously, stop copping out.


No, the model *can't* invent its own policy specifics -- that would be a matter of politics for the people of such a post-capitalist society to decide themselves.





But, for the sake of illustration and explanation I could put forth an *example*.... Perhaps *every* entity, at *any* scale of social organization ( entity / household, local, regional, continental, global ) would find cause to issue an initial debt of labor credits in their respective name(s), particularly to fund the liberated labor for a novel project or production run. So there could very well be numerous differently-'branded' kinds of labor credits in circulation everywhere, originating from various entity-authorities.





And if you have different branded kinds of labor credits then you have numerous problems, especially if it take place in the case of billions of people each individually printing their own labor credits


Individuals would have no need to issue labor credits -- you simply made that up.





with absolutely no centralized tracking mechanism.


(See next portion.)





That's not to even mention that it would create debt slavery for your already enslaved laborers


Again -- objection. It occurred to me that you're using the term 'enslaved' just to be contrarian to my use of the term 'liberated' in 'liberated labor'. *I* use the term 'liberated' because the context would be post-capitalist and post-commodity-production.





as they attempt to pay off their debts. Individuals would be able to create as many labor credits as they want with absolutely no restrictions or no negative repercussions on themselves, they would pay workers to build them whatever they want with absolutely no restrictions on what they want. That's like allowing every person on earth to have an infinite amount of money to do whatever they want with them. Ridiculous and disastrous.


Yup -- agreed. Thus no need for individuals to issue labor credits.





The mechanics / logistics of such shouldn't be of any concern -- since the function of using labor credits would be as a worldwide 'internal' matter of social organizational convenience, there wouldn't be all of the privacy-paranoid interests around the system of labor credits that is so prevalent for the private-ownership-based interests of today. In other words, perhaps the people of such a society would choose to just have a public wiki page for every individual and entity, with labor-credit recordkeeping made fully public for each and all, for public convenience.





And that solves absolutely nothing. People can take on a debt as large as they want with no need to pay anything back. When they do so, the recipients of these labor credits do not care about the debt of the other individual, they only care about being paid. Thus with all this decentralized nonsense, individuals are not AT ALL affected by debt, people will still consider them credible as long as they actually pay them from more debt or their already existent labor credits.


You're thinking of current, *financial* debts. Individual debts of labor credits would not be needed.





Oh and speaking of which, you just created the proper material conditions for wage labor. You are essentially allowing private individuals to pay others in order to fulfill their projects.


Since labor credits can be used at any scale, large or small, what you're saying here is *empirically* correct, minus your spurious characterizations of it. So, for example, if Alice wanted Bob to develop an algorithm for her, she could offer him a proposed project with a certain rate or amount of labor credits, for it. Bob, being liberated labor, would not suffer in the least if he were to turn down the offer, because overall societal production would be sufficient to keep him free from material coercion over his life and livelihood. Thus, no wage labor.





You are essentially creating a bourgeoisie! Good job, the reason why I didn't realize this before is because we were speaking of LOCALITIES issuing and taking in labor credits and public debt, not private individuals issuing labor credits and taking in private debt. You just create what you wanted to abolish after all, quite sickening. You essentially legalize and allow, even encourage, individuals to pay others to work for them on their own projects. Quite a devastating blow to yourself.


Again, no need for individuals to issue debts of labor credits.





Note that the labor credits wouldn't lend themselves to hoarding or avarice since they would be useless -- like capital in this way -- if kept *out* of circulation. Here's from another thread on the topic:





They don't actually have to be hoarded to give way to avarice, they merely have to incur a massive debt and use those labor notes to create whatever they want and hire whoever they want. They can pay someone a million credits for him to be his slave, for example.


Again, no need for individuals to issue debts of labor credits.





Okay, here's where your misconception is: Work roles are not associated with any particular *locality* -- sure, they might *tend* to be with a particular geographical space, such as uranium ore mining for Locality B (for example), but even so, the *work roles* are *independent* of any given locality or set of liberated laborers.





No they're not. Industrialized and advanced localities


There's no such thing as "industrialized and advanced localities", since localities / entities are *populist-* and *consumerist-* (demand-) based. Communism means that no one, or grouping, *owns* *anything* -- everything material would necessarily be *political*.





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want, with the proviso that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only -- after a certain period of disuse all personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property





Industrialized and advanced localities will be the ones that most successfully carry out their policies and projects and paying the most,


Only if enough people from within that locality have sufficient amounts of labor credits, from their own past labor efforts, to *fund* the liberated labor for such projects.





they would attract the best labor and most skilled labor by paying them the highest just as they would construct the most advanced means of production and facilities due to the large amounts of labor credits they have.


Recall that 'having' labor credits requires past work completed by a person, and that a locality is politically limited in how much debt of labor credits it can arbitrarily issue.





These localities would have different work roles than primitive and less advanced or even agrarian localities. And yes, particular geographical locations will lead to different and specialized work roles for localities.


I'll agree that particular geographical locations will tend to feature certain types of production, because of indigenous natural resources. But liberated laborers could locate to that place from *anywhere*, with no restrictions on their movements or eligibility. And, no locality could 'own' natural resources or assets -- a locality that happened to be in considerable debt, for example, would basically *forfeit* access to nearby natural resources because its population showed itself to be so negligent in passing forth sufficient labor credits for past liberated labor used.





Localities are basically *demand*-oriented, on the premise that those who decide to reside in long-term proximity to each other will generally benefit from pooling their needs and demands together, for requested production. A locality or other entity has a politically *populist* basis, not a *labor* basis, since the people of its population may or may not also be liberated laborers. So a locality doesn't have "its own products" as though it were a manufacturing hub -- rather somewhere like Locality B might be *generally known* for being around uranium ore mines, and so many of its people could be known for regularly taking on the risky and difficult work roles of uranium mining and associated tasks -- but that does not necessarily mean that the people of Locality B are *selling* anything, or that the locality is under any obligation to *provide* uranium ore to anyone else who may potentially need it.





If a locality is "generally known" for being near a uranium ore mine then it only needs to produce uranium ore and manufacture it as that would be their specialization,


Again:





[A] locality doesn't have "its own products" as though it were a manufacturing hub


And:





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only





or else these rare uranium mines would be left unattended instead of their extraction maximized in order to meet the maximum amount of demand possible.


There's nothing *inherently* wrong with disuse of any assets and resources -- if demand called for their use then that could be addressed.





Actually no, Locality B are by every means extracting uranium because all those who have interests in uranium would pay the [] laborers to work the mines for them in order to supply them with uranium. Thus a uranium-rich locality would be mainly made up of uranium-based production facilities and labor related to that field. But of course, they have no obligation, that is the problem with your system, to provide anything.


Localities don't 'own' or 'control' assets or resources -- if something is to be done then the people of a locality -- *any* locality -- could *initiate* such a project or production run, and actuation would be according to a pre-specified policy package (derived from an initial proposal stage).





So, to correct the parameters of your scenario: Many people in several nearby localities are demanding uranium ore from the geographical area in and around Locality B. Locality A in particular -- known for its people who do nothing but farmwork -- has formally mass-demanded (as an entity) 'x' amount of uranium ore for its energy needs. Locality B has *no* obligation -- or role, even -- to address Locality A's formal demand since *any* locality or entity is not an organization of liberated labor in any way. Instead, it would be solely the prerogative of Locality A to fill in the details of what would be required to make that production of uranium ore happen. These particulars would be part of the formal demand itself -- its locality-approved policy package -- that would specify 'y' number of uranium-miner work roles, for 'z' duration, at 'w' rate of labor credits per hour.

The people of Locality A know that the people of Locality B have a long history of doing uranium ore mining, so Locality A would probably notify the people of Locality B as to this formal policy package and its approved provisions. Locality A might *also* broadcast this information even *more widely*, to wherever else they think it would be well-received and effective.





Woah, woah, woah. You attempt to "correct" the parameters of my scenario by making a baseless assumption that Locality A needs uranium from the uranium-rich Locality B? On what basis? I do not ever recall mentioning Locality A needing uranium from Locality B at any point whatsoever or that Locality A demands products from Locality B. You are addressing something else entirely and offering a solution to that something else by taking conditions which have nothing to do with my scenario, that is nothing more than a strawman logical fallacy. In other words, you attempt to solve the problem by saying that Locality A needs Locality B's products when that is not the case at all.


Okay -- feel free to fill-in the details of the scenario yourself, then, since it's a scenario for the sake of illustration.





The people of Locality A have been mostly self-sufficient so far, thanks to their farm-based environs and productivity, but have also managed to fan out to other localities in the past to provide their liberated farm labor for other localities, too. Many, but not most, people of Locality A have thus amassed considerable amounts of labor credits to their names as a result, and so have estimated that they have an appropriate bulk number of them to cover the uranium-ore-mining liberated labor that is called-for by Locality A's mass-approved policy package. Additionally, several of the people of Locality A have formally noted that they themselves would be fine with doing whatever they can to appropriately cover as many of the work roles as possible, so as to reduce the amount of liberated labor requested from -- and labor credits needed for -- the liberated laborers of Locality B, and beyond.





Firstly, people today are not satisfied by merely eating off the land, they require a thousand and one needs and wants which cannot be made available from a Locality A based on agriculture. Nevertheless, this does not solve the issue. You still base it on the assumption of yours, which I did not make in my scenario, that Locality A requires the products of Locality B. The workers of Locality A who would be extracting uranium form Locality B would not be paying Locality B nor would Locality B be receiving anything from them. Thus Locality B is still in debt even if Locality A is paying for its own workers that it sent to work for it.


Locality B is under no obligation to provide any of its own population -- liberated laborers -- for *anything*. Locality B does not 'own' or 'control' any assets or resources, so Locality A would be able to mass-decide on a use for the uranium ore reserves on its own. No debt is necessarily involved.





Since the overall societal context is one of a post-capitalist communism, no one and no entity / locality would *own*, *lease*, or *sell* any equipment (productive assets) or resulting goods from any productive process -- if uranium resources happened to be in the same geographic area as Locality B that would merely be incidental and would be meaningless in terms of Locality B as an entity. All the liberated laborers ultimately selected (by those from Locality A possessing requisite amounts of labor credits) would be *sourcing* from natural uranium reserves that -- because of communism -- would belong to *no one*. And, likewise, the *products* of that project's labor process -- the uranium -- would be first and foremostly controlled by those liberated laborers who did the actual work of sourcing it, as a checks-and-balances dynamic





Yes in which case Locality B would spend labor notes and go into massive public debt just to have parasites come in and use the machinery and factories of locality B


There *is no* 'machinery and factories of locality B'.


Again:





[I]f uranium resources happened to be in the same geographic area as Locality B that would merely be incidental and would be meaningless in terms of Locality B as an entity. All the liberated laborers ultimately selected (by those from Locality A possessing requisite amounts of labor credits) would be *sourcing* from natural uranium reserves that -- because of communism -- would belong to *no one*.





for the interests of OTHER localities and mine and extract resources which Locality B wanted to provide for itself and others.


Any competing policy packages that overlapped on use of assets and/or resources would have to be ironed-out.





Thus public debt would still remain for Locality B and would not be done away with.


Incorrect. Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.





What you're suggesting is that workers to be flown all round the world just in order to fulfill any demands on labor by localities. Workers from other localities would just swoop in, use everything made by the debt of Locality B and then these workers would keep whatever they produced and control them since they "did the actual work of sourcing it". How lovely.


Nope. Incorrect. Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.





In reality, of course, the workers would be fulfilling the formal policy package, and would receive the designated labor credits at the completion of their tasks. The workers, as individuals, would probably not have any *personal* interests in the products of their labors, but if they did they could simply either be formally written-into the policy package, or they could simply take what they liked for personal usage on a first-served basis, increasing total production to also fulfill the policy package as well.





The designated labor credits paid for by the other localities or locality B?


Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.





Locality B is already in debt and thus you solved nothing.


Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.





The other localities would be paying the workers in exchange for their product,


No, not in direct exchange for any product or goods, but rather for 'liberated service' that *produces* such goods, in pre-planned quantities / specificities, according to mass-approved policy packages.





so much for that "communism" and "according to need", you just created markets for labor and their products (but not for consumption). Since these worker scan take everything on a first-served basis then they can appropriate all the products of their labor and sell them to the highest bidder regardless of the system in place on the black market or in exchange for PRIVATE labor credits or goods.


Nope -- no monetary valuations or currency, no individual debts of labor credits, no material exchangeabilities.

If workers just worked to produce goods and then kept those products for themselves, that's called 'diy'.





No, as just detailed -- localities / entities have no function as enterprises, as you're suggesting.





So now you have no localities as enterprises because they are not even entities.


Yes, they're populist / consumerist entities -- no, they're not enterprises that own or control anything, or accumulate labor credits.





Thus there can be no public debt and thus you went back on what you were referring to previously in the thread on localities creating labor credits, incurring public debt, and assigning/paying labor or projects rather the individuals. Then you claimed it is individuals, this is much more of a problem for your system in its implications as individuals hire labor in exchange for artificial and meaningless private labor notes.


(You can revise this in light of the clarifications I've given.)





This is a disaster, it would discourage production severely, not that your system can even sustain itself in the first place. Why would these localities even want to pay off debt and not create their own labor credits? Why would they want to host any difficult and risky workplaces that would repel all but the most desperate or determined workers?





No 'hosting' necessary -- all assets and resources would be openly available, with active usage determined according to formal, mass-approved policy packages, and by nothing else.





Yes since no hosting is necessary then they would not even be desired in the first place due to the risky and difficulty involved which would be extremely expensive.


Risk and difficulty are the domain and concern of individual liberated laborers.





Because the fact of outstanding locality debt would cut against the locality's political sovereignty, in relations with neighboring localities and beyond. So while a locality's people -- as liberated laborers -- would be under no obligation to put forth any of the labor credits they possessed towards paying off their locality's debt, and could even *continue* to work wherever as individual liberated laborers for *more* labor credits, their locality as a whole would probably be at a political standstill -- as for initiating projects and coordinating efforts -- because the locality *could not* fund anything like that while it remained 'in the hole' economically.





Make up your fucking mind and stop contradicting yourself. You first stated that if a locality has a public debt then individual citizens are forced to pay off their share of the debt if they are to leave,


Look -- these policy particulars are *not* part of the model. I proffered some, for illustrative purposes only, but such would have to be decided-on by the people of such a post-capitalist society.





now you state that they can "work wherever" for "more labor credits" and are thus not obligated to pay off their locality's debts. You also previously stated that localities are NOT enterprises (organizational entities) and thus no "liberated" (but enslaved) laborers are tied to it or any other locality and that they can go wherever they want and produce whatever they want. Individual laborers do not have anything to do with their localities because they are not tied to any, that is what you are now saying and this contradicts what you have previously stated that they are tied to the localities in that they have to pay off their locality's public debts if they are to be freed. What a disaster of a system.


It is the *locality* -- and its population -- that incurs a collective debt. That's a political responsibility for those involved. It doesn't "cage" anyone, as you're implying.





Workers aren't affected by their locality being in a debt as their consumption is not affected at all nor is their consumption dependent upon labor credits directly.





Correct.





Yes and do understand that I was speaking of CONSUMPTION, not of anything else.





I hope my clarifications here will encourage a re-examination on your part.





Honestly the more you clarify, the more I find it to be not thought out properly and more unworkable and not viable.





For the sake of time and length I will stop here, but will keep the rest of your post on hand, to finish responding-to later....





Alright.

[Theophys]

I wonder how you resorted to a double post if all you're replying with is one liners. :laugh:


I would just think that you would want to bolster the *revolutionary* aspect of your market-socialism politics, rather than slide further to the right.

I slide to wherever I find the most viable means to socialism and communism, unlike you. The revolutionary aspect of my "Market-Socialism" has nothing to do with what we're discussing. We're discussing your system versus the alternative.



No, it's an acknowledgement that the market system is entirely obsolete and can be fully transcended.

It's not acknowledgement of anything but ignorance on your point, as I have explained.



Again, you merely make blanket assertions over unknowable specifics in vain attempts to discredit a solid alternative here.

Not really blanket at all, I'm making actual argument on the basis that you do not have any incentives whatsoever and would be a waste of time due to low prioritization on the list and low demand. Stop trying to disregard my arguments and learn to man up.



This is unreasoned dismissiveness and an erroneous characterization. The labor credits serve to measure bulk liberated labor for any project's context -- large or small.

Your entire posts are made up of unreasoned dismissiveness and erroneous characterization. When someone states that his system will just "make it happen" then I am not the one resorting to made-up, unreasoned, dismissiveness and Utopianism, but it is the person making such a claim. Again, you made yet another false assumption by arguing as follows:
I stated that you will problem X.
You stated that problem X will be solved if people organize, i.e. "make it happen".
That is nothing more than a cop-out that bases itself on people constantly willing to organize for whatever reason.



Given your politics here you're not in any position to make characterizations or recommendations.

My politics are much more sound and proper than your pathetic suicide of a system that will destroy any achievements by the proletariat. I just like how you completely ignored the argument and point I was making. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



I've addressed it in that the model is able to scale-up or scale-down depending on varying actual material availabilities.

Which I explained to be nonsense and still hold to be nonsense. Nevertheless, your system has absolutely no incentive, reason, or whatnot to "scale-up" or "scale-down", but markets and pricing mechanisms have proven to be able to do so with quite a lot of success in such an aspect. More false assumptions from you, nevertheless.



Nope -- you're making it sound as if people's very lives would be constrained, when that's not the case. Everyone would always be able to submit their daily prioritized demands, no matter where they are, "home" locality or not, for their basic humane needs and populist personal wants.

They can submit all the daily prioritized demands they want, but if their most needed prioritized demands end up low on the list then they would NOT receive anything of what they prioritized and demanded, if anything at all as others with higher priorities on the collective produced goods/prioritized goods list would receive the actual produced goods that end up high on the collective list. But yes, your people's lives would be constrained and forced into submission with the only means of freedom to pay their share of a debt they did not take part in.



The labor credits aspect, including a locality's mass-determined debt, if any, is a *political* function that does not impact the liberated laborer individually. As I already noted, the individual liberated laborer is able to continue to earn labor credits and is not *obligated* to turn them over for the sake of paying down the locality's debt. The locality's debt must be solved in a collective way, the same way that created the debt in the first place.

An outright lie! Here's what you said:

"So one could argue that a locality could just announce all kinds of local projects and production runs, run up a sizeable debt of labor credits to pay the liberated laborers, and then after enjoying the benefits of that labor its residents would simply disperse from the locality, leaving it uninhabited and in debt.

To address this potential scenario there could be a regulation that ties all individuals, by name, to any given locality -- any individual who would want to leave the locality would have to either pay their individually-proportionate share of the locality's outstanding debt of labor credits, or else -- for exceptional circumstances -- that same portion of debt would be assigned to that individual for wherever they happened to be after leaving.

On the converse, if someone wanted to move *to* a locality that had a debt, they would implicitly be assuming their individually-proportionate share of that locality's total debt of labor credits."

That is to say an enslaved laborer CANNOT move out of locality without first paying his share of labor credits and CANNOT go to another locality without paying entry costs. You can't get yourself out of this oppressive mess of your enslaved labor. An enslaved laborer does not have to pay anything, but if he wants his freedom then he has to pay for it by paying off the locality's debt. A collective solution to the debt has nothing at all to do with what you said, this has to do with individuals desiring to leave a locality after it has run down and the locality forcing them to pay off the individual's share of the debt which could be MILLIONS as localities print as much as they want to hire as much labor and create as many projects as they want. That is to say, no, do not even bother to lie, you said it yourself.



This is addressed above.

No this is not addressed above. I'm still waiting for you to prove it.



Since it doesn't currently exist, it's impossible for me to speak on behalf of the denizens of such a society. You're expecting the model to have *predictive* powers, which it doesn't.

No, I'm expecting the ridiculous "model" (you speak of it as it is even credible or viable!) and its creator to be able to THEORIZE rather than have predictive powers, since after all no one is stupid enough to follow such a shit idea. You do NOT have it to be actually existing, you only need to put forward THEORIES and basic PRINCIPLES on questions such as personal possession which you first made by stating that unused personal possessions would be taken away then retreated from that claim. I expect your ridiculous model to be able to defend itself in theory.



Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.

Oh that bullshit generalization cop-out. Is that how you debate? By making such EIP generalized statements that mean nothing at all even in theory? This is nothing more than an "Everything-Is-Possible" bullshit. People reading this won't like such claims by you which you base your entire system on. Nevertheless, you ENTIRELY disregarded my argument and made no argument. My argument utterly destroyed your claim that looting would not be possible in your system (simply laughable!) and then you say that people will just "address such contingencies with appropriate policy"? Fucking ridiculous. You do know that you can cop-out in every single argument by saying this line?

What about McDonald's?
"Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy."

What about cakes?
Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.

What about God?
Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.

What about Ckaihatsu and his nonsense?
Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.

Do you like pie?
Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.

As you can see, you just destroyed your entire debating arguments by resorting to such fallacies. I doubt anyone will take you seriously, and trust me, I've had people read this debate and actually laugh at your nonsense. Either you start making arguments or I will have to continue making fun of your nonsense cop-outs and false assumptions. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, any internal friction would have to be dealt with and addressed with policy.

In other words, "Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy."
Fucking. Ridiculous.
You entirely ignore and disregard my arguments that destroy your position in favor of resorting to such a cop-out without any counter-arguments. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, you're merely guessing and positing arbitrary specifics of your choosing, in a malicious way.

At least I'm doing it in malicious way (criticism) to prevent a malicious system from ever having any following or credibility in order to not destroy any proletarian movement or society in the future. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Yet it's not possible to use the same process of reasoning for a society that *doesn't* exist -- that's the difference you fail to acknowledge, so you overstep such objective limitations.

It exists in theory and you either make up theoretical arguments in order to defend it or you do what you keep doing - cop-outs and fallacies after being devastated in an arguments. Oh and actually yes it is possible to use the same process of reasoning for a society that DOES NOT exist, I can make such a process of reasoning for any system, I never cop-out anything nor run away from arguments, unlike you. For example I can make such a process of reasoning for any market economy, pricing mechanism, or my system WITHOUT resorting to cop-outs but entirely basing my arguments on theory, concepts, empiricism, and history. For example, I would state that for theory, if human meat has a high demand then it will have a high supply outside of any legal framework or that it will be banned in my system. If I claim either then I give a concrete basis for my theoretical system by showing that in my system such things would be determined by the market itself or would be banned. You, on the other hand, disregard everything and do not say WHAT your system will do, if it accepts it or rejects it, if it has an alternative, etc. but you instead leave it up to your NON-EXISTENT SOCIETY TO SOLVE IT. That is the problem here and that is exactly why people laugh at your nonsense which you hide in vague and abstract cryptic language, now that you're no longer doing so you're getting quite pounded. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. What can I do here but merely criticize him and his nonsense if he offers no arguments or counter-arguments?



No, you haven't.

What the fuck? Did you seriously ignore my ENTIRE argument again with that one liner? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Your conditions are unrealistic because of their absolutism -- just because you assert them doesn't mean that they're automatically legitimate, valid criteria.

My conditions are related to your nonsense of a theory. I am challenging you to PROVE what you said as you made the POSITIVE assertion and the BURDEN OF PROOF is ON YOU. So I will tell you again:

"I asked you to prove that "proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those [super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation]". The question is not about a worldwide proletarian control of mass production but on the question of you making the claim that they are a material basis for "making it happen", a magical term for "I don't know"."

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, they're not assumptions or predictions.

Actually yes they are assumptions. You can either have assumptions or predictions, since you denied predictions outright, we're left with your false assumptions. Assumptions are the basis of any theory, but false assumptions are not. I already explained what these false assumption are time and time again.



Labor credits are the basis for quantification of labor effort, combined with all other regular descriptions and recordkeeping.

I already explained that your labor credits have NOTHING to do with labor effort, you have yet to reply to it. Your labor credits are money paid to workers on the basis of difficulty/risk x labor hours, they have nothing to do with effort. Difficulty and risk, as I have previously explained, are separate from effort. Nevertheless, what the fuck does this have to do with anything? You disregarded what I have said and made an "argument" that has nothing to do at all with my own. If you are even trying to make the claim that labor credits would be the incentive for work, then lolno. Firstly, you labor credits have nothing to do with consumption, a far better incentive mechanism that "projects" which no one really cares about as much as they care about getting consumer goods and what they need for life. An average worker doesn't give much of a shit about what gets built. Secondly, your labor credits have nothing to do with labor effort, as I have previously proven, but on UNALTERABLE conditions that would be DEMOCRATICALLY voted for by biased workers to increase their pay, specifically remunerated according to set conditions such as risk and difficult x labor hours REGARDLESS of effort, contribution, production, productivity, and so on. People in your system can and logically/rationally WILL vote for the highest amount of labor credits regardless of reality. Thus what I had said remains: "The thing is, that will not happen because each individual has absolutely no reason to produce nor contribute at all, they have no reason to work efficiently, productively, or even prevent waste as everything is free and there is absolutely no means by which to calculate costs or prices."



Once again, just because you make contentions based on the past doesn't mean you're correct.

If you do not learn from the past then you resort to suicide, just as you are doing now. Your ENTIRE argument is that "Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy", that people will just literally "make it happen", whilst forgetting that the USSR had the exact same capabilities with a command economy, that the Zapatistas have the exact same model, and that the Israeli Kibbutzim have the same model. And yet what has history shown us? One is a failure, the other is extremely primitive and relies on government subsidies and donations from the outside, the last is also primitive and depends on government subsidies and is slowly moving towards privatization. So yes, contentions based on the past in relation to your "arguments" is not only to be encouraged but to be learned from and used to destroy ridiculous bullshit such as yours. You think that people will just "organize" and fix everything and anything whilst not even bothering to realize that this is not the case at all in reality.



I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's simply the facts of *material existence* -- someone has to do something in order for it to be done. The model is premised on this material reality, however you go on to mischaracterize it.

Your model is not based on material reality but based on false assumptions. Stop trying to give any ground to your nonsense, I know it is hard to realize that something you worked for so much is a disaster, but tough shit. Nevertheless, my argument remains. People can demand whatever they want but if there's no high numbers, they won't get what they want. You do not deny this at all. Thus what I said remains: "What you're saying is essentially that they can demand whatever they want, but without "sufficient numbers" they won't get their demand satisfied. Good job on that lovely system of yours. People can demand whatever they want but they will never be satisfied unless sufficient numbers are present. This returns us the the numerous problems I have poitned out in this system ranging from the unfulfillment of demand, unfulfillment of the individual's specific demands and priorities, the control fo the collective over the individual, and so on."

Your "material reality" has nothing to do with anything. If your system were based on "material reality" then you would have realized that YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM is a disaster based on FALSE assumptions that you take for granted be it on the question of automation, production, abundance, fulfillment of needs, incentives, organization, or whatnot.



Yes, they would, as regular individuals in a (populist-based) process of mass prioritized demands, as for mass-production-oriented issues.

Mass prioritized demands have nothing to do with DIY production.



That's fine -- nothing wrong with that, if that happened to be the actual case.

Actually how did you NOT know what's wrong with that from my argument? Read it again.



Again, more hollow contentions -- go ahead and spin a yarn of extended fiction that takes place within the model's context, if you like. It would be entertaining, if dark in mood....

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Another vacuous assertion -- if people's needs are met they may feel *empowered* to take on and accomplish *higher-level* tasks.

Actually if people's needs are met, they would NOT feel empowered otherwise the "leisure class" of today, the bourgeoisie, etc. would be the ones accomplishing "higher-level tasks" instead of passively doing nothing as they receive everything. Individual who receive whatever they want regardless of production and contribution would be empowered, yes, empowered to do whatever the fuck they want regardless of production or contribution to society because they have absolutely no need to, especially with the entertainment available to them. Well, at least you made an argument, even if it holds no water. Good hob.



Not correct -- you're just making that up. This has been addressed above.

"Not correct" is not an argument. This has not been addressed above and needs to be addressed here. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Only according to you.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



So instead of addressing the actual structure of the model you prefer to mix-in your baseless negative assumptions derived from mischaracterizations and past histories.

By making arguments against your system, I base my arguments on the ACTUAL STRUCTURE OF YOUR MODEL otherwise I would be arguing about my trees and airplanes rather than your useless "model of destruction". Mischaracterizations? Never. Past history? When relevant to making an argument or point, absolutely. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Nope -- this is just unrealistic, dogmatic criteria from you.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Untrue -- again you ignore journalism and are hard-wired to some kind of Orwellian dystopia, no matter what conversation you're in.

Saying that I "ignore journalism" is NOT an argument. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Again you presume to know, asserting unknowable specifics.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Nope -- addressed above.

Not addressed above. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're overlaying a template of your own choosing -- capitalist economic theories -- to errantly dismiss proposals that have nothing to do with capitalist economics.

Yes, Capitalist economic theories derived from reality, pragmatism, empiricism, history, advancements, and so on giving us the results we have today which you want to take for granted for your system. I wonder how you do not even realize by making that statement you cannot come to the same conclusion concerning your false assumptions on productivity, abundance, automation, technology, resources, labor, incentives, and so on.



*Learning* and *concluding* are two different things.

By learning from the past, we conclude.



Yes -- see the definition for 'labor credits' in the model.

In your model you explain that labor credits in your system would be determined by risk/difficulty times labor hours REGARDLESS of effort, contribution, productivity, production, loyalty (not cheating), and so on.. Risk/difficulty as determined by the BIASED WORKERS THEMSELVES to maximize their own profits and labor credits remuneration.



Nope, your conclusion here is misguided and incorrect.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're going to have to get the exchange-value-based idea of "remuneration" out of your head when it comes to labor credits. Labor credits are strictly internal to liberated labor organizing, as for mass-approved projects.

I do not care if they're internal to anything, I only care that they're being exchanged for commodities (labor, projects, labor-power, freedom, debt, etc.) and thus have an exchange-value.



That's what the daily mass prioritized demands are for.


Which I have severely and utterly devastated in my previous criticisms by explaining that mass prioritized demands DO NOT reflect individual prioritized demands. Daily mass prioritized demands do NOT solve the problems which I refer to.



Since (liberated) labor is the *most important*, fundamental resource that we human beings have, this domain is facilitated by the use of labor credits.


No, not at all. Your perversion of the labor credits system solves NOTHING AT ALL. This domain would only be facilitated and actualized by labor credits paid in return and proportionate to contribution.


Or it could be done in a mass-*conscious* way, with proper information provided to the public.

Again the problems with collective decision-making. There is no such thing as "mass consciousness" unless you're speaking of hiveminds. Proper information can NEVER be provided to the public out of pricing mechanisms, money, or even markets. If you even try to speak of journalism, then lol, you have no idea what information is, do you? Google it and read up on Hayek's works.



Only according to you.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Your characterization here is your own, and is unsubstantiated from the model.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Your showing your reliance and dependence on the obsolete market mechanism.

Which is BY EVERY MEANS much more effective and preferable than your own pathetic "system". Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, you're framing it as an all-or-nothing situation, which is binary and unrealistic.

If you do not have the proper conditions for an "according to need" system then you simply CANNOT have an "according to need" system. This is completely binary and REALISTIC. You cannot supply the TRILLIONS of needs of every single individuals of BILLIONS of humans in MILLIONS of societies having no full automation and thus requiring labor that has no incentives to produce more, contribute more, prevent waste, having no super-productivity and super-abundance thus being unable to meet the demands of these people, and having finite resources whilst attempting to meet INFINITE DEMAND OVER TIME as long as these people are to exist. So yes, without the proper material conditions, your system is unrealistic. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Again you're ignoring the actual model, which shows that demand is constrained by available liberated labor.

Bullshit. Your model has NOTHING to do with consumption demand being constrained by anything. You speak of it as providing consumption demand to EVERYONE according TO NEED regardless of ANYTHING. Nevertheless, by stating that demand would be constrained by available enslaved labor you FORCE yourself to resort to an "according to contribution" system which NECESSITATES the maximization of the enslaved laborers of yours, their productivity, their production, their efficiency, their effectiveness, their incentives, their overachievement, and so on in order to meet the highest amount of demand possible. Your system CANNOT do this as you base nothing on incentives or remuneration according to contribution. Your labor credits have nothing to do with this, they have nothing to do with consumption (the most important incentive) but have to do with projects that no one cares about except governments and localities (not individual workers). Not only that but you have NO MEANS by which to ensure that the most productive, most efficient, most active workers receive the consumption goods from society. You have no means by which to allocate the constrained and limited products to demand. You do not have any means by which to ration the limited and finite goods. You only have a system of a prioritization list which is a DISASTER as I have previously knocked it out of the air as it acts regardless of any restrictions, regardless of individual priorities, regardless of individual contribution, and regardless of material availability and costs.



Incorrect. Again, liberated labor is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power.

No one cares about "increasing enslaved-labor brokering power" as much as they care about buy consumer goods and fulfilling their demand with the money they receive from working. The average worker does not care about starting mass projects nor does he care about any "brokering power" which can be provided outside of the context of labor credits in other societies. Your system is based on ALTRUISM and NOTHING MORE. If you claim that your perversion of the labor credits system is the incentive then you just lost the argument, I've already devastated this claim previously. Furthermore, if you claim that labor credits will as as the basis of society then you are doing NOTHING but creating an extremely primitive and ineffective form of a monetary system based on remuneration according to contribution and thus cannot even explain anything on the question of organization which depends on altruism.



Or for themselves, in their field of choice, as with a career or craft, or for labor credits, etc.

If your system bases itself on individuals production for themselves then there goes your entire system. Individuals producing for themselves scarce goods would sell them in return for the production labor credits and thus these labor credits would be turned into money. This is what will logically and rationally happen, individuals will seek a means by which to use the products of their labor to sell for something which they need rather than hand it out to society with nothing in return. If they are to hand it to society with nothing in return then they are depending entirely on altruism. If they are to be directly remunerated by society based on any list of any form without money, pricing mechanisms, etc. then your society also depends on mass altruism as you expect individuals to contribute without any assurance from anyone as production cannot be guaranteed and consumption is not based on contribution. If they produce for themselves FOR labor credits as you have explained above then, as I had said, indeed there goes your system as it evolves into something much more superior that depends on money, pricing mechanisms, markets (artificial or otherwise), remuneration according to contribution, use of labor credits for consumption and exchange of products, etc.



Since all consumption is pre-planned your concern would already have been addressed before any plans went into effect.

Consumption CANNOT be pre-planned on a daily basis. We're talking about TRILLIONS of demands of TRILLIONS of forms of TRILLIONS of colors by BILLIONS of people ALL OVER THE DAMNED WORLD in MILLIONS of separate localities with only a limited amount of factories and production that does not and cannot meet such unrestricted demand. Unrestricted as in not restricted by entry costs (not production capabilities). So no, unless you have an omnipotent and omniscient being then you CANNOT predict nor pre-plan DAILY production and consumption. Nevertheless, you do not even address what I speak of. I stated that "in the field of consumption, you expect people to only consume what they REALLY need for the benefit of their community lest they lead to scarcity." This has nothing to do with what you replied.



I object to your characterization here since you're employing it summarily.

It's based on you enslaving them to debts, especially the debts of the localities. Look up "debt slavery". Better than your false use of the term "liberated labor". As Engels once said, "These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world." :laugh:



"Investment", as of abstracted monetary valuations, is only a concern within a paradigm based on the *market* mechanism, or anything similar. Such concerns are *precluded* in any model that is post-commodity-production.

And that's what happens when people chop sentences in half. I said: "Enslaved-labor brokering power has nothing to do with consumption and thus does not solve anything but on the issue of investment which it reduces to its most primitive and crude form." That means that your enslaved-labor brokering power only determines investment on a very crude and primitive level that is inferior to money used in a general form.



You're not in any position to arbitrarily introduce negative, deleterious hypothetical specifics.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You sound like you have a future career as a politician.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



I object to your characterization here since you're employing it summarily.

So said the one who speaks of "liberated" labor enslaved by debt.



No, not in the sense of using a system of abstract monetary values.

Thus my argument remains and my point as such dominates.



-Whatever-

Whatever? WHATEVER? I just concluded that your system cannot "solve ANY of the problems and issues which I presented throughout this thread" and that's what you say, "-Whatever-"? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, you *haven't* shown it -- you merely make the assertion.

Actually I have proven it, not merely shown it. People reading this can judge for themselves. I already spoke of mass prioritized demands and their problems without any entry costs, any restrictions, any limitations, the paradox of mass prioritized demand and individual prioritized demand, people abusing the list by prioritizing luxury/specialized goods even if they do not really need them, the list being unable to reflect actual need but wants, does not reward anyone according to contribution and thus does not provide any incentives, people need not produce what is on the priority list, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Nothing precludes smaller-scale production on fully-public-domain, appropriate implements.

Again, since you seem unable to read, "I counter this by reminding you that the economy would already be loaded to the brim by attempting to supply every single demand and need to billions of people". Even the most small scale production would be filled to the brim trying to meet the HUGE needs and wants of people all over the world. Any individual that wants to "selfishly" stop that production process to produce something else he wants using ht e tools there or the machinery would lead to shortages and halts in the production process and thus potential disaster if replicated on the mass scale.



There *is* the simple material fact that increasing degrees of labor power used equates to increased production, for consumption.

Increased brokering power has nothing to do with increased production and thus consumption. There is no incentive to increase brokering power or labor power. Increase brokering power does NOT lead to increased production as there is no remuneration according to contribution and thus people would be paid REGARDLESS of contribution. People can just attend and work the bare minimum or not at all and yet STILL receive the same as the others in his workplace. Thus any increase in labor brokering power or degrees of labor power would not necessarily increase production or consumption AT ALL.



To hear *you* say so is far from convincing.

My arguments and logic are all sound. He makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Only according to you.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



This is a spurious assumption.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Another spurious assumption.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Incorrect -- that's exactly what the model speaks-to and covers.

You did not present an argument nor a counter-argument. You instead shit this statement above and left. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Your market mechanism is surpassed by the use of public information regarding production, etc.

You make a positive assertion, the burden of proof is on you, I challenge you to prove it.



"Seemingly" -- a concession on your part to the ridiculousness of your predictions.

Oh do not be mistaken, I have not conceded a SINGLE THING to you or your pathetic model and lack of arguments. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Or, after superseding the market-mechanism approach, such matters could be decided-on using a mass-prioritized method:

First of all, PROVE that you can supersede the market mechanism. More false assumptions.
Secondly, I already devastated the issue of mass prioritization time and time again. I do not need to repeat myself, even more than 3 times in this post already.


You're implying that I'm arguing to abolish DNA, which is not the case -- it's just a metaphor for the sake of illustration. You're sidestepping the argument.
Your metaphor is a false analogy. I am not sidestepping ANY argument, I merely replaced "DNA" with Capitalism and proved that your assumption and conclusion are BOTH false and lead to the conclusion that "you just argued against yourself and answered yourself by showing that Capitalism/DNA are necessity for what its derived from them". Again for people reading this, this is what

This is what he had said:
"Sure, but of what *relevance* is that fact -- ? Likewise, we can definitively say that we are formed according to the blueprint of DNA, but saying it says nothing about everything that *derives* from it."

I replied with this:
"If you relate DNA to Capitalism then when you claim to desire to do away with Capitalism, the basis of the achievements of today, then you do away with its analogical form which you give, i.e. DNA. Thus had you bothered to follow the implications about your statement you would have realized that you just argued against yourself and answered yourself by showing that Capitalism/DNA are necessity for what its derived from them."

Thus, who is the one sidestepping the argument but Ckaihatsu? Ckaihatsu said that we are formed according to the blueprint of DNA but says nothing about everything derived from it. I countered that claim by stating that Capitalism, just as the DNA is the BASIS for what is derived from them.



I am saying that people *can* consciously organize on mass scales, to handle such issues *politically*.

"Can" doesn't mean they "will". Your system bases itself not on that they "can" but that they "WILL" in order to solve EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM. Do not even try to deny this.



Incorrect. Again:

How the FUCK is that incorrect? Here's what you said:
"Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived"

Here what I said:
"such as the one you support where labor is paid for on a stable per hour basis regardless of contribution."

Your quote had NOTHING to say about CONTRIBUTION. Difficulty and hazard are NOT contributions nor are the survey multipliers filled by biased workers. The labor credits paid per hour of work DO NOT CHANGE from worker to worker having the same job as it is paid REGARDLESS of contribution.



That's not unchanging, since the types of work roles would vary, per person, and on the whole.

Yes it is unchanging and depends on the job. People with the same job get paid the same REGARDLESS of contribution, effort, efficiency, productivity, dedication, loyalty, etc.



Then, by definition, they're no longer labor credits. You're back to commodity cash.

You have no idea what labor credits are. I only care about credits paid for labor according to contribution that can be used for consumption. You do not have such a system and that is exactly why your system is a disaster. Nevertheless, that is besides my argument.



You're ignoring the overarching basis for the use of wage labor / wage slavery, which is as I noted above.

I'm not ignoring anything. Wage labor is wage labor regardless of coercion, wage slavery, or whatnot. Wage labor is simply paying for labor in exchange for labor-power. You, however, are ignoring my entire argument.



You're ignoring the overarching basis for the use of wage labor / wage slavery, which is as I noted above.

I'm not ignoring anything. Wage labor is wage labor regardless of coercion, wage slavery, or whatnot. Wage labor is simply paying for labor in exchange for labor-power. You, however, are ignoring my entire argument.



Incorrect -- the source of one's income, as from wages and/or dividends, is of decisive meaning, since it identifies one's real relation to the means of mass production.

No. A worker can own the means of production as part of a coop and yet receive his income from the coop, from the state, or from directly selling his production. A worker that receives labor credits from others in exchange for his labor power is resorting to wage labor. It's as simple as that.



Incorrect, because there is no convertibility between labor credits and material goods -- labor is not commodified, so it is not wage labor.

Labor is commodified inasmuch as it is labor power exchanged for labor credits, projects, freedom, debt payment, brokering power, and so on. Labor in this case is not labor for the sake of labor but labor for the sake of labor notes. It is by every means wage labor and labor power is by every means commodified. This has nothing to do with convertibility between labor credits and material goods.



It's not a wage -- it's liberated-labor-organizing political power.

As Engels once said, "These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world." :laugh:

It's still a wage as long as you're paying labor for their labor power.



There are no wages present in the model.

Labor credits are wages. Wages are payment in exchange for labor power.



Labor credits are not currency because they're not exchangeable for material goods.

They do not have to be exchangeable for material goods nor do they have to be currency in order to be used to pay for labor and thus create wage labor. Seriously, economics 101.

"A currency (from Middle English curraunt, meaning in circulation) in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation, as a medium of exchange, especially circulating paper money."

You do not have to have labor credits or money taking part in in the exchange of material goods, but it merely refers to "money in any form when in actual use or circulation, as a means of exchange, especially circulating paper money". When you are exchanging labor credits for labor power, for projects, to buy or sell debt, etc. then your labor credits are currency, you pay for labor, and you create wage labor.



This sentence makes no sense -- it shows you what happens when you insist on misapplying your *own* paradigm of market valuations to a system that is *non*-market-based.

This is simple English. You are unable to read. I do not resort to any abstract crpytic pseudo-English to try to distract or confuse anyone, such as in your case. I said:

"You do not have to include wage labor and their labor credits with labor credits related to consumption and demand in order to have commodification or wage labor."

Split it:
[You do not have to include wage labor and their labor credits]
[with labor credits related to consumption and demand]
[in order to have commodification or wage labor.]

That means that wage labor (and your labor credits related to wage labor, the type that does not purchase consumer goods) doesn't have to the same or related to "labor credits related to consumption and demand" "in order to have commodification or wage labor". In other words, your system of labor credits where you pay for labor power STILL creates wage labor and commodification without having anything to do with consumption.



As I've already noted, a festering debt of labor credits would impact a locality *politically*.

No, as I have already shown what YOU said, it doesn't impact anything "politically" but would force individuals to pay off their share of the debt even if they did not take part in it in order to leave a locality or else they're literally enslaved to it until they do.



More reckless assumptions on your part -- this act you're describing would not be precluded.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No inflation because labor credits are *not* monetary abstractions. They are pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making.

They ARE monetary abstractions inasmuch as people AND localities are able to take out as much as they want and form as much of a debt as they want without being obliged to pay anything back and use those labor credits to hire wage laborers, pay for labor power, start projects they want, get palaces built for them, free themselves from debt slavery, and so on. Inflation WILL STILL take place as long as you have a currency and a means to print them. Inflation still takes place even if they're pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making because people will STILL decide to go into a larger debt with no need to pay it back in order to take out as much labor credits as they want to hire wage laborers and start their own projects AS WELL AS to increase the debt in order to prevent workers from escaping a locality. You did NOT prove that inflation is impossible at all. Learn some economics because you have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No inflation because labor credits are *not* monetary abstractions. They are pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making.

They ARE monetary abstractions inasmuch as people AND localities are able to take out as much as they want and form as much of a debt as they want without being obliged to pay anything back and use those labor credits to hire wage laborers, pay for labor power, start projects they want, get palaces built for them, free themselves from debt slavery, and so on. Inflation WILL STILL take place as long as you have a currency and a means to print them. Inflation still takes place even if they're pre-planned, as part of pre-planned production, from mass decision-making because people will STILL decide to go into a larger debt with no need to pay it back in order to take out as much labor credits as they want to hire wage laborers and start their own projects AS WELL AS to increase the debt in order to prevent workers from escaping a locality. You did NOT prove that inflation is impossible at all. Learn some economics because you have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



A locality's political standing would be gravely impacted by the amount of debt it's in -- a debt of labor credits means that the people of that locality have *used* others' labor outside of their own locality, *without* providing appropriate labor credits for it.

Seeing as every locality will rationally and logically go into debt in order to extract as much labor credits as they need then the social repercussions from being in debt would have little meaning as every locality would be in debt and would NOT AFFECT IT AT ALL. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with using labor from other localities, especially if they are paying for them with labor credits. Oh and no, if you print labor credits and form a debt, you are STILL providing appropriate labor credits for any labor that you hire. What an ill thought disaster of an argument and system.



The societal order would have to decide on policy regarding how much debt would be socially acceptable, as a matter of social relations.

They do not have to nor should they at all be concerned about debt being socially acceptable, they would only need to rationally and logically care about how much they can develop their own society. Seeing as societies would have every reason to go into debt in order to hire as much labor and projects as they can, competition over labor with other localities would force them to go into deeper debts in order to pay more labor credits and bonuses so that they can attract more labor. It would essentially be a competition to see who goes into a bigger debt with absolutely no reason to pay off any debts, especially since people would rationally follow other localities as well.



You act as though all of this information would somehow be *concealed* from public consideration.

What the fuck are you talking about? Did you even bother to read what I had said? This information can be concealed from the public but it doesn't have to be and yet the point would still remain which you have not addressed at all. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're talking to yourself again, using your own terms -- in the 'communist supply & demand' model such particulars *could* be discussed and formalized, into policy, with final authority over implementation resting with the active liberated laborers themselves.

How ironic, he says I'm the one talking to myself and using my own terms! :laugh:
Nevertheless, in your pitiful model these particulars could NOT be discussed because you do not have any means or measure by which to determine which machine is better, is it the one that produces more goods but uses much more resources (for example a ratio of 1:5) or is it the one that produces a less goods but uses less resources (for example a ratio of 1:2)? You CANNOT determine this because you have no means by which to measure costs, profits, price, and whatnot. This is part of the economic calculation problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem) that Mises spoke of. My system can solve this, yours cannot. Discussion and formalization, policy, authority, etc. do not solve this at all as they cannot even identify it in the first place. You have no means by which to perform a cost-benefit analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis).

"Example
Ludwig von Mises gave the example of choosing between producing wine or oil:

"It will be evident, even in the socialist society, that 1,000 hectolitres of wine are better than 800, and it is not difficult to decide whether it desires 1,000 hectolitres of wine rather than 500 of oil. There is no need for any system of calculation to establish this fact: the deciding element is the will of the economic subjects involved. But once this decision has been taken, the real task of rational economic direction only commences, i.e., economically, to place the means at the service of the end. That can only be done with some kind of economic calculation. The human mind cannot orientate itself properly among the bewildering mass of intermediate products and potentialities of production without such aid. It would simply stand perplexed before the problems of management and location.[1]"

Such intermediate products would include land, warehouse storage, bottles, barrels, oil, transport, etc. Not only would these things have to be assembled, but they would have to compete with the attainment of other economic goals. Without pricing for capital goods, essentially, Mises is arguing, it is impossible to know what their rational/most efficient use is. Investment is particularly impossible, as the potential future outputs cannot be measured by any current standard, let alone a monetary one required for economic calculation. The value consumers have for current consumption over future consumption cannot be expressed, quantified or implemented, as investment is independent from savings."



No, because 'buy' implies that monetary valuations are being used, when here they are *not*.

Labor credits HAVE monetary valuations as any other form of currency or money, virtual, artificial, limited, or otherwise. Thus yes, they are monetary valuations of labor power, projects, labor supply, labor demand, and so on. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Nope -- your saying so does not *make* it so.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.


Labor credits are *never* used for consumption -- no monetary values, no exchangeability for material goods.
Labor credits are not used for consumption, that is the problem. In fact, this is what I said which you had replied to: "Labor power is not accessed for free, but is instead bought with labor credits even if they are not used for consumption". Your labor credits are not used for consumption, but they still have monetary values and exchangeability for labor power, projects, debt, and so on.



No.

Yes they are, as I have already extensively explained, as they are exchanged for labor power which becomes commodified to be bought and sold in exchange for labor power, exchanged for projects, and exchanged for debt (repaying debt and selling it). Nevertheless, a simple "No"? Come the fuck on. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're talking about markets and monetary valuations.

Yes. Your point? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



No, because what labor credits represent is discrete portions of past work done, on the basis of labor hours (-times- a difficulty/hazard multiplier).

Bullshit. Labor credits are created by artificial debt that has nothing to do with labor of "past work done". You already stated this yourself when you explained that a locality on day one would have to incur a public debt in order to attract labor and start projects, and on day one there is no past labor that is based on labor credits or the system at hand. Nevertheless, you claiming that labor credits represent past labor does NOT deny that they are abstract monetary valuations, especially if they are able to be freely printed and created from public and private individual debt. They are nothing more than abstract monetary valuations; they are NOT based on past labor but are based on infinitely created DEBT that does not have to be paid. Essentially this means that you have a system which can create as much money as it wants without any regards for anything except the interests of the locality which conflict with the interests of other localities when it comes to the question of competition for labor, projects, labor credits, and so on.



True.

Learn to argue against full ARGUMENTS no a quarter of a sentence.



Not true -- this is faulty reasoning on your part.

No, it is actually true as I have previously explained. You did NOT offer any argument. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



'Buy' and 'sell' implies the use of monetary valuations -- there are none here.

You keep repeating this thinking that if you keep repeating false nonsense that eventually I would say "yes, you're right" in order for you to shut up. But that is not the case so, no. Buying and selling do imply the use of monetary valuations, i.e. your labor credits, where localities buy labor power by paying workers, workers receive labor credit by selling their labor power as a commodity, and where debt is bought and paid for by labor credits (when you extract labor credits, you are buying in exchange for debt, just as when you are returning labor credits you are selling in exchange for debt).



Objection to your unjustifiable use of the characterization 'enslaved'.

You just ignored the vital point and argument of that sentence in favor of objecting to my use of the term "enslaved" to refer to your debt-enslaved workers? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Only liberated laborers can possess labor credits -- localities / entities *cannot*. Localities / entities can only go into *debts* of labor credits, from the regular collective political approval process of 'mass demands'.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? In other words you're saying that enslaved workers can only possess labor credits, when these workers organize in a locality they can create labor credits, so when they create labor credits they are acting AS A FUCKING LOCALITY and incurring PUBLIC DEBT FOR THE LOCALITY and NOT for individuals. They, their children, and anyone else that did NOT create this debt have to pay off the debt which they did not create because of the locality, i.e. organized enslaved workers. It's funny how by changing the name of the thing you think you've changed its nature. This is like saying that the organized people of a direct democratic nation of X are NOT X.



Nope, none here.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. Already explained this.



Nope.

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. Already explained that they have exchange-value.


Finally, *yes* -- labor credits cannot be used for consumption. Correct.
NO FUCKING SHIT. Did I ask you if they can or cannot be used for consumption? No. Did I say that they are not used for consumption in your system? Yes. Did I ask for your opinion? No. Now learn how to debate or gtfo. This is not an argument. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



(Objection.)

Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Basically -- here's an edit, to correct it:

"By funding incoming [liberated] laborers, [a person or group possessing labor credits] [is] paying for those laborers and [requisitioning] their labor power for [] labor credits."?

In other words YOU ARE PAYING FOR LABOR AND BUYING LABOR POWER BY PAYING THEM WITH LABOR CREDITS. Oh my fucking god, how does this guy even post on here? By "paying for those laborers", he is resorting to wage labor and buying labor power. By "requisitioning their labor power for labor credits" he is BUYING their labor power with labor credits and resorting to wage labor. By "funding incoming [enslaved] laborers" "a person or group possessing labor credits" is PAYING laborers with labor credits and BUYING their labor power.

You just said what I said. You corrected NOTHING. You just destroyed your previous points and empowered my own. You are resorting to an exchange mechanism using labor credits to buy and sell labor power, projects, etc. thus you are resorting to abstract monetary valuations (of labor power, projects, debt, etc.), exchange-value (found when exchanging labor power for labor credits), wage labor (created when exchanging labor power for labor credits). Ridiculous.



No, the model *can't* invent its own policy specifics -- that would be a matter of politics for the people of such a post-capitalist society to decide themselves.

Yes it can as long as you are making a theoretical framework of the society with your model and taking into consideration specifics to determine the theoretical possibilities or preferable outcomes. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Individuals would have no need to issue labor credits -- you simply made that up.

This is what you said yourself:

"But, for the sake of illustration and explanation I could put forth an *example*.... Perhaps *every* entity, at *any* scale of social organization ( entity / household, local, regional, continental, global ) would find cause to issue an initial debt of labor credits in their respective name(s), particularly to fund the liberated labor for a novel project or production run. So there could very well be numerous differently-'branded' kinds of labor credits in circulation everywhere, originating from various entity-authorities."

Any individual can collude with any other individual and issue labor credits in order to hire workers for themselves, servants, or even start their own projects. Your system is nothing but free money for labor and projects.



Again -- objection. It occurred to me that you're using the term 'enslaved' just to be contrarian to my use of the term 'liberated' in 'liberated labor'. *I* use the term 'liberated' because the context would be post-capitalist and post-commodity-production.

Oh yes, because all post-Capitalist and post-commodity production societies have liberated labor! If Feudalism were to replace Capitalism or a system of slavery and debt slavery as in your system then they would need not at all be liberated. Your system is nothing but a system based on debt slavery of workers. Nevertheless, you ignored and avoided my argument yet again, this time on the question of debt slavery. "Objection", especially on the basis of my use of the term "enslaved" to refer to your enslaved workers, is not an argument. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Yup -- agreed. Thus no need for individuals to issue labor credits.

"Yup", "agreed"? Lol? Are you joking? YOU are the one who wanted "every entity" at "any scale of social organize (entity / household, local, regional, continental, global" to be able to issue labor credits. You not only disregarded my argument but thought you made the same argument when I was arguing AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT. Thus by agreeing with me, you conceded your point whether you like it or not.



You're thinking of current, *financial* debts. Individual debts of labor credits would not be needed.

Yes they would be needed as much as they are going to have to pay off their individual debts to localities as a share of the total public debt which they may or not may not have taken part in so that they can leave the locality. You said this yourself. Thus, argument destroyed.



Since labor credits can be used at any scale, large or small, what you're saying here is *empirically* correct, minus your spurious characterizations of it. So, for example, if Alice wanted Bob to develop an algorithm for her, she could offer him a proposed project with a certain rate or amount of labor credits, for it. Bob, being liberated labor, would not suffer in the least if he were to turn down the offer, because overall societal production would be sufficient to keep him free from material coercion over his life and livelihood. Thus, no wage labor.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

Firstly, you conceded my point which you just DENIED previously on the issuing of labor credits by individuals.

Secondly, you make the A PRIORI FALSE ASSUMPTION, that "overall society production would be sufficient to keep him free from material coercion of over his life and livelihood". You take it for granted, a Utopian a priori false assumption which you base YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING SYSTEM ON that you have super-abundance, super-productivity, etc. Your argument here is that you make the false assumption that "overall societal production would be sufficient to keep him free from material coercion over his life and livelihood" and thus Bob would not be coerced to work. This is fucking ridiculous. This is a FALSE ASSUMPTION that you CANNOT use in ANY DEBATE. You just threw your entire argument out the window by basing everything on a false assumption which you cannot guarantee nor ensure. In fact, I fucking CHALLENGE YOU TO PROVE IT. You will not be able to do so. And yet you DARED claim that you do not resort to specifics, to predictions, and whatnot? Laughable and pathetic. Get me someone else to debate because this guy is a joke

Thirdly, coercion or the lack thereof has nothing to do with wage labor, that has to do with WAGE SLAVERY, NOT WAGE LABOR. Wage labor only requires that a worker being PAID in exchange for his labor power, whilst wage slavery requires that a worker be FORCED to sell his labor power.



Again, no need for individuals to issue debts of labor credits.

Lol? I already explained this. Individuals that issue debts of labor credits can use the labor credits to hire their own labor as a grouping or otherwise, can use them to build whatever they want, and eventually turn into a bourgeoisie.

"That's not to even mention that it would create debt slavery for your already enslaved laborers as they attempt to pay off their debts. Individuals would be able to create as many labor credits as they want with absolutely no restrictions or no negative repercussions on themselves, they would pay workers to build them whatever they want with absolutely no restrictions on what they want. That's like allowing every person on earth to have an infinite amount of money to do whatever they want with them. Ridiculous and disastrous."



Again, no need for individuals to issue debts of labor credits.

Lol? I already explained this. Individuals that issue debts of labor credits can use the labor credits to hire their own labor as a grouping or otherwise, can use them to build whatever they want, and eventually turn into a bourgeoisie.

"That's not to even mention that it would create debt slavery for your already enslaved laborers as they attempt to pay off their debts. Individuals would be able to create as many labor credits as they want with absolutely no restrictions or no negative repercussions on themselves, they would pay workers to build them whatever they want with absolutely no restrictions on what they want. That's like allowing every person on earth to have an infinite amount of money to do whatever they want with them. Ridiculous and disastrous."



There's no such thing as "industrialized and advanced localities", since localities / entities are *populist-* and *consumerist-* (demand-) based. Communism means that no one, or grouping, *owns* *anything* -- everything material would necessarily be *political*.

Bullshit. There will inevitably be one more locality with more or less than another. Localities WILL NOT be the EXACT SAME and HAVE THE EXACT SAME EVERYTHING. Certain localities will be industrialized and advanced whilst others will not, especially after the first few years after the end of Capitalism. Not owning anything does not mean that certain sectors or regions will not control and run their own societies, machinery, and means of production. Since that will be the case, uneven development will take place especially with geographical limitations and differences.



Only if enough people from within that locality have sufficient amounts of labor credits, from their own past labor efforts, to *fund* the liberated labor for such projects.

Or they'll just take out any infinite debt as individuals or as a group. Your turn.




Recall that 'having' labor credits requires past work completed by a person, and that a locality is politically limited in how much debt of labor credits it can arbitrarily issue.

No. You stated that localities are NOT limited nor are individuals. You said this:

"Sure -- let's walk through this.... On Day 1, *no one* has any labor credits and any and all localities must *issue debt* in order to make any new production happen. All that would be required to eliminate debt would be for Locality A to do 'x' amount of labor for Locality B, while Locality B does *proportionate*, 'x' amount of labor for Locality A. The 'x' amounts of labor credits issued from debt from each respective locality would *cancel out*. (It's like saying 'A' will pay off the debt of 'B' with its own liberated labor if 'B' does the *same* amount of work, to pay off the debt of 'A'.)"

And

"Okay -- as I mentioned, a locality (or any other population-membership-defined grouping, such as 'household', 'labor organization', 'region', 'continent', and/or 'world') is able to issue a debt of labor credits, which introduces that number of them into circulation. While the debt can later be closed-out, the number of labor credits issued remains in circulation, in absolutely identical quantity, propagating forward indefinitely.

The locality doesn't *need* to pay back debts in any kind of absolute way, but its *political standing* (credibility) will doubtlessly suffer to the degree of its outstanding debt -- the debt shows that the locality *has* directly used, or exploited, the liberated labor of others outside its own population, without reciprocating for those liberated services provided."

So to "have" labor credits all you need to do is issue labor credits from debt.



I'll agree that particular geographical locations will tend to feature certain types of production, because of indigenous natural resources.

Of it's a surprise you do, I thought you'll say "In my magical idealist Utopia, all geographies will be the same if there's enough organization!"



But liberated laborers could locate to that place from *anywhere*, with no restrictions on their movements or eligibility.

BULL FUCKING SHIT.
YOU LIMIT THEM FROM MOVING UNTIL THEY PAY OFF THEIR LOCALITY'S DEBT. Again, here's what you said and FORGOT:

"Given that a locality is treated as a cohesive entity for the purposes of political and economic needs and demands, and that a locality may not actually *remain* cohesive, [...] the question may arise how a locality's accumulated debt of labor credits would then be handled if its own population is continually dispersing and re-forming.

So one could argue that a locality could just announce all kinds of local projects and production runs, run up a sizeable debt of labor credits to pay the liberated laborers, and then after enjoying the benefits of that labor its residents would simply disperse from the locality, leaving it uninhabited and in debt.

To address this potential scenario there could be a regulation that ties all individuals, by name, to any given locality -- any individual who would want to leave the locality would have to either pay their individually-proportionate share of the locality's outstanding debt of labor credits, or else -- for exceptional circumstances -- that same portion of debt would be assigned to that individual for wherever they happened to be after leaving.

On the converse, if someone wanted to move *to* a locality that had a debt, they would implicitly be assuming their individually-proportionate share of that locality's total debt of labor credits.

Localities would only be able to *issue* and *work off* debts in their locality's name -- liberated laborers holding labor credits of their own in a locality that has no debt are considered as individuals with their own personal labor credits, with none of those labor credits seen as being with the locality as a whole, as might be imagined."

You either have a severe case of memory loss or are an intellectually dishonest liar. Your enslaved laborers HAVE restrictions and their movements and eligibility. You PREVENT THEM, RESTRICT THEM, from moving from a locality unless they have paid off their share of its debts off.



And, no locality could 'own' natural resources or assets -- a locality that happened to be in considerable debt, for example, would basically *forfeit* access to nearby natural resources because its population showed itself to be so negligent in passing forth sufficient labor credits for past liberated labor used.

And what if the locality did not forfeit access to nearby natural resources? Then it would OWN the natural resources or assets. God.



Again:

[A] locality doesn't have "its own products" as though it were a manufacturing hub

That is impossible. A product produced in locality A would be BRANDED for safety reasons should a product be defective, of bad quality or even diseased to know WHO is accountable, workers' pride, production reasons, and reputation reasons, shipment reasons, quality assurance, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless a locality near a uranium mine should not and would not be turned into an artificial desert for fun, it would be turned into a uranium mine with the main focus being focused on uranium extraction due to the concentration of individuals FORCED to mine uranium.



And:

Doesn't answer anything. Addressed above.



There's nothing *inherently* wrong with disuse of any assets and resources -- if demand called for their use then that could be addressed.

If you were able to read you would have noticed that I already spoke of demand as a given and thus supply would be needed to meet that demand. Thus my argument remains.



Localities don't 'own' or 'control' assets or resources -- if something is to be done then the people of a locality -- *any* locality -- could *initiate* such a project or production run, and actuation would be according to a pre-specified policy package (derived from an initial proposal stage).

And here are the numerous problems which I have referred to and explained previously, a locality invests by building everything and goes into huge debts only to have individuals and groups from elsewhere coming in and taking advantage of the locality's assets, projects, factories, laborers, etc. rendering the locality's investments null and it still remaining in debt.



Okay -- feel free to fill-in the details of the scenario yourself, then, since it's a scenario for the sake of illustration.

I already did, go read what I had said. We are to suppose that they do not need each other's good. That's my scenario that I originally made.



Locality B is under no obligation to provide any of its own population -- liberated laborers -- for *anything*. Locality B does not 'own' or 'control' any assets or resources, so Locality A would be able to mass-decide on a use for the uranium ore reserves on its own. No debt is necessarily involved.

Locality B doesn't have to provide anything, but Locality B paid for all the assets, factories, mines, and labor itself and incurred a huge debt in the process only to have Locality A send its workers and use everything Locality B created without the ability for Locality B to use its own assets and whatnot to pay off its debts to by supplying and working for other localities using heir own assets and mines which they have invested in by providing uranium in return for labor credits form those other localities. Thus it would be rational for localities not to spend anything and incur any debt if they cannot secure their own investments that they PERSONALLY paid for but instead wait for others to do so and use the others' assets, workplaces, machinery, mines, etc. without paying a single labor credit. Your system, again, has been proven time and time again to be an ill thought out disaster.



There *is no* 'machinery and factories of locality B'.

Yes there technically is, it is the machinery and factories that Locality B paid for using its own labor credits and by incurring a debt which they cannot own and are used by others for their own interests, thus preventing locality B from paying off their debts by using these machinery and factories to do so (providing uranium-mining labor for other localities, etc.).



Any competing policy packages that overlapped on use of assets and/or resources would have to be ironed-out.

And how are they to be ironed out? Give me an example or use the previous scenario, but DO NOT give me a bullshit "they'll make it happen" or a Ckaihatsu-Cop-Out (CCO) such as "again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy."



Incorrect. Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.

Yes, it provides for its own locality and incurs a public debt in doing so as they attempt to attract foreign labor and start projects to build up the uranium mines or the infrastructure of their locality. They would be in debt, people from foreign localities would use the mines, machinery, etc. paid for by Locality B without giving them anything in return and thus preventing them from paying off their debt. Thus localities have no reason to issue any debt whatsoever and instead wait for other localities to do so before they send their laborers to those localities and receive surplus labor credits.



Nope. Incorrect. Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.

Yes, it provides for its own locality and incurs a public debt in doing so as they attempt to attract foreign labor and start projects to build up the uranium mines or the infrastructure of their locality. They would be in debt, people from foreign localities would use the mines, machinery, etc. paid for by Locality B without giving them anything in return and thus preventing them from paying off their debt. Thus localities have no reason to issue any debt whatsoever and instead wait for other localities to do so before they send their laborers to those localities and receive surplus labor credits.



Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.

Yes, it provides for its own locality and incurs a public debt in doing so as they attempt to attract foreign labor and start projects to build up the uranium mines or the infrastructure of their locality. They would be in debt, people from foreign localities would use the mines, machinery, etc. paid for by Locality B without giving them anything in return and thus preventing them from paying off their debt. Thus localities have no reason to issue any debt whatsoever and instead wait for other localities to do so before they send their laborers to those localities and receive surplus labor credits.



Locality B is under no obligation to issue debt for any proposal / policy package other than its own, if any.

Yes, it provides for its own locality and incurs a public debt in doing so as they attempt to attract foreign labor and start projects to build up the uranium mines or the infrastructure of their locality. They would be in debt, people from foreign localities would use the mines, machinery, etc. paid for by Locality B without giving them anything in return and thus preventing them from paying off their debt. Thus localities have no reason to issue any debt whatsoever and instead wait for other localities to do so before they send their laborers to those localities and receive surplus labor credits.



No, not in direct exchange for any product or goods, but rather for 'liberated service' that *produces* such goods, in pre-planned quantities / specificities, according to mass-approved policy packages.

Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it? Arrest or execute them? Nevertheless, the liberated service that produces such goods is NO DIFFERENT than the products themselves.



Nope -- no monetary valuations or currency, no individual debts of labor credits, no material exchangeabilities.

Yes, monetary valuations and currency are labor credits as I have explained. Individual debts of labor credits will exist as I have shown from your own words. Material exchangeability will exist but by purchasing labor power and thus wage labor for them to produce whatever they need. This can be used to circumvent your ban on direct exchangeability of goods by having people pay workers to produce goods for them directly. Good job. It's obvious how much you put thought into this shit of a theory.



If workers just worked to produce goods and then kept those products for themselves, that's called 'diy'.

DIY is not mass production for one's own interests, DIY is informal small scale and localized work for personal goods, not in the way of mass production or hindering mass production.



Yes, they're populist / consumerist entities -- no, they're not enterprises that own or control anything, or accumulate labor credits.

Oh but if they're populist/consumerist entities then they are what I had referred to. YOU came up with the "enterprises" label. I had meant that "People are not paying for Locality B's products, they are receiving them for free and yet Locality B is paying FOR the consumers and going into a public debt because of that." Thus must argument remains. It is exactly because they do not own, control, nor are able to secure anything they spend their credits on that my argument stands.



(You can revise this in light of the clarifications I've given.

You can revise your ENTIRE "theory" in light of the arguments I've given. My argument stands.



Risk and difficulty are the domain and concern of individual liberated laborers.

The same individual laborers who decide how much they want to be paid and thus risk and difficulty have nothing to do with anything. Thus, expensive and are the domain and concern of those hiring the wage laborers as well as they are the ones who are going to incur debt and pay for their labor.



Look -- these policy particulars are *not* part of the model. I proffered some, for illustrative purposes only, but such would have to be decided-on by the people of such a post-capitalist society.

In other words you have no idea what you're talking about and thus an EIP CCO system basing itself on false a priori assumptions and the statement that "Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy." Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



It is the *locality* -- and its population -- that incurs a collective debt. That's a political responsibility for those involved. It doesn't "cage" anyone, as you're implying.

Actually it does cage anyone as they're made responsible for collective debt and thus cannot leave the locality nor can they jion another without paying their individual share of the debt.

[ckaihatsu]

I would just think that you would want to bolster the *revolutionary* aspect of your market-socialism politics, rather than slide further to the right.





I slide to wherever I find the most viable means to socialism and communism, unlike you. The revolutionary aspect of my "Market-Socialism" has nothing to do with what we're discussing. We're discussing your system versus the alternative.





No, it's an acknowledgement that the market system is entirely obsolete and can be fully transcended.





It's not acknowledgement of anything but ignorance on your point, as I have explained.


Yeah, cute as usual, but -- while I appreciate the necessity of having regular systematized routines over everyday political and economic flows, it's simply too problematic to rely on a specialized professional elite, as with your system's technocratic bureaucracy. As has been covered for the topic of technocracy, questions over the bureaucracy's composition and relation to the mass of (ex-proletariat) workers would just be too unwieldy and would lend itself to a separation of fundamental interests, in a class-like way.





Again, you merely make blanket assertions over unknowable specifics in vain attempts to discredit a solid alternative here.





Not really blanket at all, I'm making actual argument on the basis that you do not have any incentives whatsoever and would be a waste of time due to low prioritization on the list and low demand. Stop trying to disregard my arguments and learn to man up.


Once again, this aspect is covered by more-personal initiatives, at smaller scales, with unfettered access to fully collectivized productive assets and resources. Think of the classifieds section, either online or offline, for a cognitive aid here.





I stated that you will problem X.

You stated that problem X will be solved if people organize, i.e. "make it happen".

That is nothing more than a cop-out that bases itself on people constantly willing to organize for whatever reason.


Obviously, on this, you see 'economics' whereas I see 'politics' as a way-forward. Many revolutionaries lean even *further* onto 'politics' in general for their implied process -- as with 'socially necessary labor' for an implementation -- but I have more of a 'hybrid' approach, one that's certainly altogether off of any 'invisible hand' mechanism *entirely*.





I've addressed it in that the model is able to scale-up or scale-down depending on varying actual material availabilities.





Which I explained to be nonsense and still hold to be nonsense. Nevertheless, your system has absolutely no incentive, reason, or whatnot to "scale-up" or "scale-down", but markets and pricing mechanisms have proven to be able to do so with quite a lot of success in such an aspect. More false assumptions from you, nevertheless.


I'm realizing that your mindset has no sense of 'the commons' in any regard. You prefer the suburban mentality, identical to monkey-testing lab psychology, to "motivate" the individual onto *some* path of economic activity, by *any* path, so as to make sure that the entire machinery stays in motion. This is the yawning pitfall that accompanies your approach since those overseeing it all have no *incentive* to give a crap about the society's overall *direction*. As long as person A is moving lever B to make part C do something, we can call the system a "success" and go back to our Long Island Ice Teas.

You've obviously lost out on any sense of the individual as a *social* being, finding common cause with others at all scales, as their 'motivation' for *consciously deciding* to move things in one direction or another.





Nope -- you're making it sound as if people's very lives would be constrained, when that's not the case. Everyone would always be able to submit their daily prioritized demands, no matter where they are, "home" locality or not, for their basic humane needs and populist personal wants.





They can submit all the daily prioritized demands they want, but if their most needed prioritized demands end up low on the list then they would NOT receive anything of what they prioritized and demanded, if anything at all as others with higher priorities on the collective produced goods/prioritized goods list would receive the actual produced goods that end up high on the collective list.


Or, instead of being *fatalistic* about this phenomenon, as you're being, a person experiencing such an event could find the 'initiative' in this that you're so concerned about. So, for more luxury / specialty / exotic goods and services, things would simply be prompted at smaller scales, due to the 'fringe' nature of this type of field / topic at hand.

In other words, should those interested in medieval European metalsmithing *really* be expecting mass popular results from their scattered numbers of high-priority placements for 'personal iron ore', or whatever -- ?





But yes, your people's lives would be constrained and forced into submission with the only means of freedom to pay their share of a debt they did not take part in.


No, I've addressed this already, regarding your fabricated 'enslaved' moniker.





The labor credits aspect, including a locality's mass-determined debt, if any, is a *political* function that does not impact the liberated laborer individually. As I already noted, the individual liberated laborer is able to continue to earn labor credits and is not *obligated* to turn them over for the sake of paying down the locality's debt. The locality's debt must be solved in a collective way, the same way that created the debt in the first place.





An outright lie! Here's what you said:

"So one could argue that a locality could just announce all kinds of local projects and production runs, run up a sizeable debt of labor credits to pay the liberated laborers, and then after enjoying the benefits of that labor its residents would simply disperse from the locality, leaving it uninhabited and in debt.

To address this potential scenario there could be a regulation that ties all individuals, by name, to any given locality -- any individual who would want to leave the locality would have to either pay their individually-proportionate share of the locality's outstanding debt of labor credits, or else -- for exceptional circumstances -- that same portion of debt would be assigned to that individual for wherever they happened to be after leaving.

On the converse, if someone wanted to move *to* a locality that had a debt, they would implicitly be assuming their individually-proportionate share of that locality's total debt of labor credits."





That is to say an enslaved laborer CANNOT move out of locality without first paying his share of labor credits


No, this is an exaggeration on your part. Here's the relevant portion:





[A]ny individual who would want to leave the locality would have to either pay their individually-proportionate share of the locality's outstanding debt of labor credits, or else -- for exceptional circumstances -- that same portion of debt would be assigned to that individual for wherever they happened to be after leaving.


I'll actually have to defer on this specific policy point since it could very well be something better-decided by the population(s) themselves. It's a gray area as to whether this aspect should be addressed in a comprehensive way as part of the model, or should be left unaddressed, as a policy matter.





and CANNOT go to another locality without paying entry costs.


Um -- who would *want* to join a debt-burdened locality -- ? That's part of the disincentive that deters a locality's taking-on of collective debt in the first place -- that it would make immigration-to and joining-with that collective that much less attractive, because of "entry costs" that wouldn't otherwise exist if there was no debt at all.





You can't get yourself out of this oppressive mess of your enslaved labor. An enslaved laborer does not have to pay anything, but if he wants his freedom then he has to pay for it by paying off the locality's debt. A collective solution to the debt has nothing at all to do with what you said, this has to do with individuals desiring to leave a locality after it has run down and the locality forcing them to pay off the individual's share of the debt which could be MILLIONS as localities print as much as they want to hire as much labor and create as many projects as they want. That is to say, no, do not even bother to lie, you said it yourself.


No argument over the description -- don't you see then, in that context, that only the people *themselves* would have the means to "enslave" themselves, through the reckless use of other localities' liberated labor -- ? A locality would only *have* burdensome debt if its people *made* it that way, intentionally, as a matter of collective mass-prioritization. There are no runaway financial mechanisms here like hyperinflation, for the sake of monetary policy -- such has been obviated, so the meaning of 'debt' in the model is a *political* definition instead, regarding the supply of liberated labor hours.





Since it doesn't currently exist, it's impossible for me to speak on behalf of the denizens of such a society. You're expecting the model to have *predictive* powers, which it doesn't.





[Y]ou only need to put forward THEORIES and basic PRINCIPLES on questions such as personal possession which you first made by stating that unused personal possessions would be taken away then retreated from that claim. I expect your ridiculous model to be able to defend itself in theory.


No, to clarify, I *said* that the *specifics* of such a policy -- as over when disused personal possessions might revert back to the collective public domain -- would have to be decided by those populations themselves.





Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.





Oh that bullshit generalization cop-out. Is that how you debate? By making such EIP generalized statements that mean nothing at all even in theory? This is nothing more than an "Everything-Is-Possible" bullshit. People reading this won't like such claims by you which you base your entire system on. Nevertheless, you ENTIRELY disregarded my argument and made no argument. My argument utterly destroyed your claim that looting would not be possible in your system (simply laughable!) and then you say that people will just "address such contingencies with appropriate policy"? Fucking ridiculous. You do know that you can cop-out in every single argument by saying this line?





What about McDonald's?





"Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy."





What about cakes?





Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.





What about God?





Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.





What about Ckaihatsu and his nonsense?





Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.





Do you like pie?





Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy.


Do you feel better now -- ? (Yeesh.)





As you can see, you just destroyed your entire debating arguments by resorting to such fallacies. I doubt anyone will take you seriously, and trust me, I've had people read this debate and actually laugh at your nonsense. Either you start making arguments or I will have to continue making fun of your nonsense cop-outs and false assumptions. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.





No, any internal friction would have to be dealt with and addressed with policy.





In other words, "Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy."





Fucking. Ridiculous.


I'm truly sorry you feel such a response to be lacking, but I'm just letting you know that it's the-nature-of-the-beast. If I try to nail-down every little detail as to how people should define this part of the model, or that part of the model, it would be facile and disingenuous on my part because *I'm not living there*. Most revolutionaries don't even go *this* far, to posit a structural approach that can handle the realms of politics and economics in a consistent and generalized way.





You entirely ignore and disregard my arguments that destroy your position in favor of resorting to such a cop-out without any counter-arguments. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.





No, you're merely guessing and positing arbitrary specifics of your choosing, in a malicious way.





At least I'm doing it in malicious way (criticism) to prevent a malicious system from ever having any following or credibility in order to not destroy any proletarian movement or society in the future. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.





Yet it's not possible to use the same process of reasoning for a society that *doesn't* exist -- that's the difference you fail to acknowledge, so you overstep such objective limitations.





It exists in theory and you either make up theoretical arguments in order to defend it or you do what you keep doing - cop-outs and fallacies after being devastated in an arguments. Oh and actually yes it is possible to use the same process of reasoning for a society that DOES NOT exist, I can make such a process of reasoning for any system, I never cop-out anything nor run away from arguments, unlike you. For example I can make such a process of reasoning for any market economy, pricing mechanism, or my system WITHOUT resorting to cop-outs but entirely basing my arguments on theory, concepts, empiricism, and history. For example, I would state that for theory, if human meat has a high demand then it will have a high supply outside of any legal framework or that it will be banned in my system. If I claim either then I give a concrete basis for my theoretical system by showing that in my system such things would be determined by the market itself or would be banned. You, on the other hand, disregard everything and do not say WHAT your system will do, if it accepts it or rejects it, if it has an alternative, etc. but you instead leave it up to your NON-EXISTENT SOCIETY TO SOLVE IT. That is the problem here and that is exactly why people laugh at your nonsense which you hide in vague and abstract cryptic language, now that you're no longer doing so you're getting quite pounded. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. What can I do here but merely criticize him and his nonsense if he offers no arguments or counter-arguments?


(Addressed above.)





Your conditions are unrealistic because of their absolutism -- just because you assert them doesn't mean that they're automatically legitimate, valid criteria.





My conditions are related to your nonsense of a theory. I am challenging you to PROVE what you said as you made the POSITIVE assertion and the BURDEN OF PROOF is ON YOU. So I will tell you again:

"I asked you to prove that "proletariat's control of mass production is synonymous with those [super-productivity, super-abundance, infinite goods, full automation]". The question is not about a worldwide proletarian control of mass production but on the question of you making the claim that they are a material basis for "making it happen", a magical term for "I don't know"."


To *repeat*, this matter is one of a sliding-scale -- you're positing certain conditions that are at the *high-end* of possibilities. But, at *lesser* levels of raw material availability, the worldwide proletarian control of mass production would be able to fulfill basic humane needs, and more, with increasing capacities.





Labor credits are the basis for quantification of labor effort, combined with all other regular descriptions and recordkeeping.





I already explained that your labor credits have NOTHING to do with labor effort, you have yet to reply to it. Your labor credits are money paid to workers on the basis of difficulty/risk x labor hours, they have nothing to do with effort.


You can use 'money' here as a shorthand, but labor credits only pertain to the ongoing circulating supply of liberated labor. 'Effort' is defined here by 'difficulty/hazard', according to an index of compiled exit-survey results from respective work roles.





Difficulty and risk, as I have previously explained, are separate from effort.


Then, as I said before, go ahead and give a definition of your own for 'effort'.





Nevertheless, what the fuck does this have to do with anything? You disregarded what I have said and made an "argument" that has nothing to do at all with my own. If you are even trying to make the claim that labor credits would be the incentive for work, then lolno.


I'm not, no -- not directly, anyway. Labor credits are a *function*, and if people get into the political-power aspect of earning labor credits, then it's simply a life-habit, like anything else.





Firstly, you labor credits have nothing to do with consumption, a far better incentive mechanism that "projects" which no one really cares about as much as they care about getting consumer goods and what they need for life. An average worker doesn't give much of a shit about what gets built.


I don't see why you're making this out to be an either-or -- if people want what they need for life, and they want consumer goods, then *there's the project* and *there's the incentive*.





Secondly, your labor credits have nothing to do with labor effort, as I have previously proven,


No, you haven't.





but on UNALTERABLE conditions that would be DEMOCRATICALLY voted for by biased workers to increase their pay,


This spurious contention of yours is due to your egocentric, market-based mindset regarding material matters and material incentives. Again, exit surveys for each work role would generate a mass index, for the purpose of providing multipliers on labor-hour rates. *Your* mentality is that people would mass-*sabotage* such a system, which seems highly unlikely from your stance since you're defeatist about any such mass organizing anyway.





specifically remunerated according to set conditions such as risk and difficult x labor hours REGARDLESS of effort, contribution, production, productivity, and so on.


Oh, okay, so you're concerned about *subjective* effort, *individual* contribution, *per-work-role* production, *Taylorist* productivity, and so on -- these are all petty right-wing issues that are only raised by those who need to see compartmentalized returns, or profit-making, down to every little level of financialization possible. This is *still another* pitfall endemic to your market socialism model since the basic labor-extraction process is still undertaken and measured in capitalist-financial terms -- unfortunate, but there you are.





People in your system can and logically/rationally WILL vote for the highest amount of labor credits regardless of reality.


*Or*, such a mass-survey process could be handled *administratively*, as a matter of basic civic duty, with participation likewise seen as a matter of basic civil society -- but you'd rather imagine it as a necessarily *corrupted* function -- hence your arbitrary and unfounded tone of defeatism throughout.





Thus what I had said remains: "The thing is, that will not happen because each individual has absolutely no reason to produce nor contribute at all, they have no reason to work efficiently, productively, or even prevent waste as everything is free and there is absolutely no means by which to calculate costs or prices."


More false dichotomizations from you: You're *laying out* the reasons to contribute and work efficiently and productively in such a system -- so that everything *can* be free, and so that waste can *be* prevented.





Once again, just because you make contentions based on the past doesn't mean you're correct.





If you do not learn from the past then you resort to suicide, just as you are doing now. Your ENTIRE argument is that "Again, the people of such a society would then have to address such contingencies with appropriate policy", that people will just literally "make it happen", whilst forgetting that the USSR had the exact same capabilities with a command economy, that the Zapatistas have the exact same model, and that the Israeli Kibbutzim have the same model. And yet what has history shown us? One is a failure, the other is extremely primitive and relies on government subsidies and donations from the outside, the last is also primitive and depends on government subsidies and is slowly moving towards privatization. So yes, contentions based on the past in relation to your "arguments" is not only to be encouraged but to be learned from and used to destroy ridiculous bullshit such as yours. You think that people will just "organize" and fix everything and anything whilst not even bothering to realize that this is not the case at all in reality.


Why are you comparing an ahistorical theoretical model to specific examples of state capitalism from history -- ? It's apples-and-oranges. If you like -- if it would be worthwhile at all -- we could look at how the model might perform under various conditions, like those you mention, but otherwise it's like you're saying "All new inventions will fail because some failed in the past."





I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's simply the facts of *material existence* -- someone has to do something in order for it to be done. The model is premised on this material reality, however you go on to mischaracterize it.





Your model is not based on material reality but based on false assumptions. Stop trying to give any ground to your nonsense, I know it is hard to realize that something you worked for so much is a disaster, but tough shit.


Yeah, don't get me started about the long hours on the graveyard shift, in the intense heat of the boiler room, that it took to get this thing "birthed".... (Grin)





Nevertheless, my argument remains. People can demand whatever they want but if there's no high numbers, they won't get what they want. You do not deny this at all. Thus what I said remains: "What you're saying is essentially that they can demand whatever they want, but without "sufficient numbers" they won't get their demand satisfied. Good job on that lovely system of yours. People can demand whatever they want but they will never be satisfied unless sufficient numbers are present. This returns us the the numerous problems I have poitned out in this system ranging from the unfulfillment of demand, unfulfillment of the individual's specific demands and priorities, the control fo the collective over the individual, and so on."


Glass-half-empty, that's all you are.





Your "material reality" has nothing to do with anything. If your system were based on "material reality" then you would have realized that YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM is a disaster based on FALSE assumptions that you take for granted be it on the question of automation, production, abundance, fulfillment of needs, incentives, organization, or whatnot.


Only according to you.





Another vacuous assertion -- if people's needs are met they may feel *empowered* to take on and accomplish *higher-level* tasks.





Actually if people's needs are met, they would NOT feel empowered otherwise the "leisure class" of today, the bourgeoisie, etc. would be the ones accomplishing "higher-level tasks" instead of passively doing nothing as they receive everything. Individual who receive whatever they want regardless of production and contribution would be empowered, yes, empowered to do whatever the fuck they want regardless of production or contribution to society because they have absolutely no need to, especially with the entertainment available to them. Well, at least you made an argument, even if it holds no water. Good hob.


Some do, some don't -- why are so getting so moralistic over what people decide to do with their free time -- ? Are you about to go "Western Civ." on me here -- ? (Grin)





You're overlaying a template of your own choosing -- capitalist economic theories -- to errantly dismiss proposals that have nothing to do with capitalist economics.





Yes, Capitalist economic theories derived from reality, pragmatism, empiricism, history, advancements, and so on giving us the results we have today which you want to take for granted for your system. I wonder how you do not even realize by making that statement you cannot come to the same conclusion concerning your false assumptions on productivity, abundance, automation, technology, resources, labor, incentives, and so on.


You're relying on the *technocratic* approach for your market socialism, which I addressed above. The more you emphasize the *market* processes that are so foundational for your position, the more you sound like a present-day right-winger and less like the 'socialist' aspect of your 'market socialism'. So, in brief, your politics range from market cheerleading to technocratic-flavored bureaucratic collectivism.





*Learning* and *concluding* are two different things.





By learning from the past, we conclude.





Yes -- see the definition for 'labor credits' in the model.





In your model you explain that labor credits in your system would be determined by risk/difficulty times labor hours REGARDLESS of effort, contribution, productivity, production, loyalty (not cheating), and so on.. Risk/difficulty as determined by the BIASED WORKERS THEMSELVES to maximize their own profits and labor credits remuneration.


What you're missing is the freedom from class interests that so pervades our society today -- you act as though such post-capitalist self-liberated-laborers would have any objective interest *in* 'gaming' the system to exaggerate work effort, etc. -- this is the result of your mixing apples-and-oranges, invoking the boogeyman of historical Stalinism, to summarily dismiss any further, future enlightened political initiatives.





You're going to have to get the exchange-value-based idea of "remuneration" out of your head when it comes to labor credits. Labor credits are strictly internal to liberated labor organizing, as for mass-approved projects.





I do not care if they're internal to anything, I only care that they're being exchanged for commodities (labor, projects, labor-power, freedom, debt, etc.) and thus have an exchange-value.


Well then you're not really addressing 'labor credits' as it exists -- you're talking to yourself then, in your own language.





That's what the daily mass prioritized demands are for.





Which I have severely and utterly devastated in my previous criticisms by explaining that mass prioritized demands DO NOT reflect individual prioritized demands. Daily mass prioritized demands do NOT solve the problems which I refer to.


(Addressed earlier in this post.)





Since (liberated) labor is the *most important*, fundamental resource that we human beings have, this domain is facilitated by the use of labor credits.





No, not at all. Your perversion of the labor credits system solves NOTHING AT ALL. This domain would only be facilitated and actualized by labor credits paid in return and proportionate to contribution.


According to your own dogma / position.





Or it could be done in a mass-*conscious* way, with proper information provided to the public.





Again the problems with collective decision-making. There is no such thing as "mass consciousness" unless you're speaking of hiveminds. Proper information can NEVER be provided to the public out of pricing mechanisms, money, or even markets. If you even try to speak of journalism, then lol, you have no idea what information is, do you? Google it and read up on Hayek's works.


Your conception of 'information' is strictly limited to 'proper economic information' -- you can't even respond to the conception of a journalism that provides all necessary who-what-where-when-why-and-how information in a *qualitative* way, for people to consciously consider and act on.





No, you're framing it as an all-or-nothing situation, which is binary and unrealistic.





If you do not have the proper conditions for an "according to need" system then you simply CANNOT have an "according to need" system. This is completely binary and REALISTIC. You cannot supply the TRILLIONS of needs of every single individuals of BILLIONS of humans in MILLIONS of societies having no full automation and thus requiring labor that has no incentives to produce more, contribute more, prevent waste, having no super-productivity and super-abundance thus being unable to meet the demands of these people, and having finite resources whilst attempting to meet INFINITE DEMAND OVER TIME as long as these people are to exist. So yes, without the proper material conditions, your system is unrealistic. Nevertheless, makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.


I've responded to this before, yet you keep raising it, and other contentions, repeatedly -- your criteria only cover the 'maximum' level of operation, and you discard any possibilities that can exist for anything materially lesser. So it boils down to actual conditions -- either they are adequate for whatever level of qualitative functioning, or they aren't.





Again you're ignoring the actual model, which shows that demand is constrained by available liberated labor.





Bullshit. Your model has NOTHING to do with consumption demand being constrained by anything. You speak of it as providing consumption demand to EVERYONE according TO NEED regardless of ANYTHING.


No, this is from your own imagining.





Nevertheless, by stating that demand would be constrained by available enslaved labor


Please stop using the term 'enslaved labor' since the characterization is baseless and you're just being contrarian with it.





you FORCE yourself to resort to an "according to contribution" system


Nope -- this is just wishful thinking on your part.





which NECESSITATES the maximization of the enslaved laborers of yours, their productivity, their production, their efficiency, their effectiveness, their incentives, their overachievement, and so on in order to meet the highest amount of demand possible.


Again you're just projecting your own conceptions.





Your system CANNOT do this as you base nothing on incentives or remuneration according to contribution.


I've addressed this earlier in this post.





Your labor credits have nothing to do with this, they have nothing to do with consumption (the most important incentive) but have to do with projects that no one cares about except governments and localities (not individual workers).


More projections of your own conceptions and expectations -- wishful thinking. There are no 'governments' in the model -- it's entirely 'localities' that would find greater efficiencies and effectiveness in larger, pan-locality organizing and rationalizing of mass liberated production.





Not only that but you have NO MEANS by which to ensure that the most productive, most efficient, most active workers receive the consumption goods from society.


More Taylorism and hyper-individuation. I'll let you *have* this point, gratis, because of the political camp it puts you in.





You have no means by which to allocate the constrained and limited products to demand. You do not have any means by which to ration the limited and finite goods. You only have a system of a prioritization list which is a DISASTER as I have previously knocked it out of the air as it acts regardless of any restrictions, regardless of individual priorities, regardless of individual contribution, and regardless of material availability and costs.


(Repetition. Addressed above.)





Incorrect. Again, liberated labor is rewarded with increasing liberated-labor brokering power.





No one cares about "increasing enslaved-labor brokering power" as much as they care about buy consumer goods and fulfilling their demand with the money they receive from working.


You need to understand that the context is *communism* -- there's no need for money, by definition, and all material productive assets and resources are *collectivized*. You're using another false dichotomy here by making it sound as though people would only care about being consumers. Sure, many would, but then there are those who would also be more concerned with work, for whatever reason, or professional position, or craft, art, hobby, politics, administration, journalism, or how the process of liberated labor is carried out person-to-person.





The average worker does not care about starting mass projects nor does he care about any "brokering power" which can be provided outside of the context of labor credits in other societies. Your system is based on ALTRUISM and NOTHING MORE.


This is another strawman used by the right-wing -- as soon as a greater-than-individual social context is noted the accusation becomes "altruism" by playing off the present-day norm of hyper-individuation for all matters economic. The right wing can't even *acknowledge* the slightest bit of public sphere -- like roads -- because *every* example from the public domain is a precedent for *even greater* collectivization, away from privatization, and specifically into the domain of those who produce *everything*, the laborers.

Nonetheless if people saw a positive-snowballing effect, where a tolerable amount of effort on their part, more-or-less across-the-board from everyone, happened to produce impressive cities, useful infrastructure, needed services, pleasant diversions, etc., where would the opposition come from -- ? All of your 'individual incentive' bullshit would be meaningless wherever people *did* 'make it happen', even in the least-organized and most-parallelist kinds of ways.





If you claim that your perversion of the labor credits system is the incentive then you just lost the argument, I've already devastated this claim previously. Furthermore, if you claim that labor credits will as as the basis of society then you are doing NOTHING but creating an extremely primitive and ineffective form of a monetary system based on remuneration according to contribution and thus cannot even explain anything on the question of organization which depends on altruism.


Wrong -- that's *another* mischaracterization from you, projected and imposed from your wishful thinking and dogma. 'Labor credits' are *not* money because they cannot be commodified or financialized in any way.





Or for themselves, in their field of choice, as with a career or craft, or for labor credits, etc.





If your system bases itself on individuals production for themselves then there goes your entire system. Individuals producing for themselves scarce goods would sell them in return for the production labor credits


Are you a fucking libertarian??? That fucking explains everything now.

I'll return to the remainder of your post at my convenience. This is enough for now.

[Theophys]

Yeah, cute as usual, but -- while I appreciate the necessity of having regular systematized routines over everyday political and economic flows, it's simply too problematic to rely on a specialized professional elite, as with your system's technocratic bureaucracy. As has been covered for the topic of technocracy, questions over the bureaucracy's composition and relation to the mass of (ex-proletariat) workers would just be too unwieldy and would lend itself to a separation of fundamental interests, in a class-like way.
It depends on whether you have a market economy for my system based on cooperatives (Market Socialism) or a governemnt acting as an intermediate market force with people performing transactions through it. Either way, the bureaucracts do not won the means of production and thus are not a class. I see no issues here.



Once again, this aspect is covered by more-personal initiatives, at smaller scales, with unfettered access to fully collectivized productive assets and resources. Think of the classifieds section, either online or offline, for a cognitive aid here.
Personal initiatives are not a solution, by any means. Personal initiatives are inhibited by the lack of free initiative and access to the means of production for personal ambitions and desires which may conflict with the collective's. You cannot halt mass production for the sake of personal initiatives. There needs to be restrictions on the access to the means of production to those who actually work there rather than have any random person enter a mass producing factory and stop everything to build whatever he wants to build.



Obviously, on this, you see 'economics' whereas I see 'politics' as a way-forward. Many revolutionaries lean even *further* onto 'politics' in general for their implied process -- as with 'socially necessary labor' for an implementation -- but I have more of a 'hybrid' approach, one that's certainly altogether off of any 'invisible hand' mechanism *entirely*.
That's because those who lean into politics and ignore economics have never taken a single course in economics and are still living in their Anarcho-Communist Kropotkinist Utopian idealism. Everything bases itself on economics, politics is merely a construct over economics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the invisible hand mechanism. It is because you ignore the invisible hand (not restricted to Capitalism) that you are system is on every level a disaster in the case of incentives, production, and distribution. You restrict everything to a mass prioritization list which I previously explained is a disaster and is by every means inferior to an invisible hand to guide production and distribution.



I'm realizing that your mindset has no sense of 'the commons' in any regard. You prefer the suburban mentality, identical to monkey-testing lab psychology, to "motivate" the individual onto *some* path of economic activity, by *any* path, so as to make sure that the entire machinery stays in motion. This is the yawning pitfall that accompanies your approach since those overseeing it all have no *incentive* to give a crap about the society's overall *direction*. As long as person A is moving lever B to make part C do something, we can call the system a "success" and go back to our Long Island Ice Teas.
Those overseeing it will actually have every reason to give a crap about society's overall direction thanks to the existence of a vanguard party and open and transparent debate and policy-making. And yes, as long as person A is moving lever B to make part C do something then the system is a success if it can provide for billions.



You've obviously lost out on any sense of the individual as a *social* being, finding common cause with others at all scales, as their 'motivation' for *consciously deciding* to move things in one direction or another.
The individual complements himself as a social being when he comes into social relations with others and becomes a part of that entire society. I base nothing on that concept, however, just as society today does not.



Or, instead of being *fatalistic* about this phenomenon, as you're being, a person experiencing such an event could find the 'initiative' in this that you're so concerned about. So, for more luxury / specialty / exotic goods and services, things would simply be prompted at smaller scales, due to the 'fringe' nature of this type of field / topic at hand.
Oh please can that nonsense. People won't give much of a shit about organizing for this and organizing for that and spend their entire time meeting and debating, they'll get bored on day one and move to something else or do away with that garbage of a system of yours. Smaller scale production is not the solution to the problem of specialized or scarcity goods. The issue is in the incentives, prioritization lists, production costs, distribution, lack of prices, and so on. If only your problem were a question of scale rather than a thousand problems which you cannot by any means solve.



In other words, should those interested in medieval European metalsmithing *really* be expecting mass popular results from their scattered numbers of high-priority placements for 'personal iron ore', or whatever -- ?
No, which is why your system cannot accommodate for them while other superior systems can, including Capitalism.



No, I've addressed this already, regarding your fabricated 'enslaved' moniker.
No you have not and I have already called you a liar and showed you the direct quote where you personally said that individuals would be forced to pay off their share of the locality's debt to leave or enter. They're enslaved as long as you force them to remain in a locality until they pay off their social share of the debt which they did or did not take part in (yes, did or did not as even those who want to move to a locality have to pay their share of a debt to enter, as you have explained yourself, laughably).



No, this is an exaggeration on your part. Here's the relevant portion:

I'll actually have to defer on this specific policy point since it could very well be something better-decided by the population(s) themselves. It's a gray area as to whether this aspect should be addressed in a comprehensive way as part of the model, or should be left unaddressed, as a policy matter.
There is no exaggeration, they are enslaved by something called "debt slavery". Look it up.



Um -- who would *want* to join a debt-burdened locality -- ? That's part of the disincentive that deters a locality's taking-on of collective debt in the first place -- that it would make immigration-to and joining-with that collective that much less attractive, because of "entry costs" that wouldn't otherwise exist if there was no debt at all.
Anyone. Debt-burdened localities would have spent more labor credits on the development of their society and attracting foreign labor, thus logically their locality would be much more developed than other localities. So now you have entry costs but previously you said that there are NO restrictions on accessing a locality's assets, means of production and itself, AND that localities do not exist, they're just artificial groupings rather than local governments. Thus the contradictions in this disaster of a theory. So if you HAVE entry costs but have NO entry costs then we'll see this lovely "model" of yours rise to the top!



No argument over the description -- don't you see then, in that context, that only the people *themselves* would have the means to "enslave" themselves, through the reckless use of other localities' liberated labor -- ? A locality would only *have* burdensome debt if its people *made* it that way, intentionally, as a matter of collective mass-prioritization. There are no runaway financial mechanisms here like hyperinflation, for the sake of monetary policy -- such has been obviated, so the meaning of 'debt' in the model is a *political* definition instead, regarding the supply of liberated labor hours.
Thus you are advocating a system that leads to the enslavement of individuals through debt by issuing public debt in order to develop their locality. A fucking system based on slavery and nothing more. Every locality will have to issue debt if they are to develop their own locality, and thus to meet the basic infrastructure and development for their society, these localities will need to be ENSLAVE themselves when taking out debt and enslave themselves and be forced to work for OTHER localities to pay off their debt and buy their freedom. Your system is a system of slavery, you have no place on this forum. I'm surprised, honestly, that such people exist on here. There ARE mechanisms like hyperinflation in your system if you allow the printing of fiat currency such as your labor credits for ANY sake at all, not just monetary policy.



]No, to clarify, I *said* that the *specifics* of such a policy -- as over when disused personal possessions might revert back to the collective public domain -- would have to be decided by those populations themselves.
The specifics of which were already presented and argued, which you disregarded and copped out in favor of that ridiculous statement.



Do you feel better now -- ? (Yeesh.)
No, do you get the point now -- ? (Yeesh.)



I'm truly sorry you feel such a response to be lacking, but I'm just letting you know that it's the-nature-of-the-beast. If I try to nail-down every little detail as to how people should define this part of the model, or that part of the model, it would be facile and disingenuous on my part because *I'm not living there*. Most revolutionaries don't even go *this* far, to posit a structural approach that can handle the realms of politics and economics in a consistent and generalized way.
You can nail down every little detail because YOU are coming up with this system, not anyone else. When I speak of specifics related to your system and within your system then you either make counter-arguments or see the disasters in your system. You do neither, you merely cop-out as I have shown time and time again in your posts. It would not at all be facile and disingenuous to nail down details, especially if you are not living there because you ARE MAKING the "theory" and thus should have all the answers needed for that theory. Don't compare yourself to other revolutionaries, please. If you cannot posit a structural approach then your system is not really a system but merely a ridiculous set of guidelines that would prove to be a disaster if ever implemented.



(Addressed above.)
And again he ignores everything I said even though the arguments made and point are different.



To *repeat*, this matter is one of a sliding-scale -- you're positing certain conditions that are at the *high-end* of possibilities. But, at *lesser* levels of raw material availability, the worldwide proletarian control of mass production would be able to fulfill basic humane needs, and more, with increasing capacities.
To *repeat*: Prove it.



You can use 'money' here as a shorthand, but labor credits only pertain to the ongoing circulating supply of liberated labor. 'Effort' is defined here by 'difficulty/hazard', according to an index of compiled exit-survey results from respective work roles.
That's why your system of labor credits is useless in comparison to money related to consumption. Effort is NOT defined by difficulty/hazard, as I have previously explained and proven. So yes, I'll be waiting for a proper reply to that point I made.



Then, as I said before, go ahead and give a definition of your own for 'effort'.
I already did on Page 2.

"Efforts can be objectively observed through efficiencies in production, needs cannot be objectively observed nor measured. I honestly do not care if it is more or less bureaucratic or cumbersome, I care about which ensures proper contribution, rewards, remuneration, efficiency, productivity, etc. Remunerating according to contribution and effort could take the form of piece-meal production and pay as opposed to the pay according to "needs" where contribution, efficiency, effort, etc. is disregarded. "

"Because that's a logical conclusion. When one puts in more labor power, does so efficiently and effectively without waste and issue the he thus increases productivity and thus production. Suppose you are assembling widgets, you put all your effort into it, use the best tools, minimize waste, and speed up your assembling, all of that is increasing in efficiency and all of that thus increases productivity and thus production. As such, effort is defined by efficiency in production because we care about the end product and the amount of those products produced. That's why we care about effort and that's why effort is defined by efficiency in production. The more one puts in effort, the more products would be assembled. The less one puts in effort, the less products would be assembled. That's as simple as it gets as we can also give other examples in the services field and production field with more effort leading to better efficiency."



I'm not, no -- not directly, anyway. Labor credits are a *function*, and if people get into the political-power aspect of earning labor credits, then it's simply a life-habit, like anything else.
I don't get the point here. Earning labor credits would become a life habit? You mean just like earning money today? That's exactly what you just said. Money is a function today as it will always be in whatever form. Money is means, it is never a thing in itself as it holds no value outside of an exchange system.



I don't see why you're making this out to be an either-or -- if people want what they need for life, and they want consumer goods, then *there's the project* and *there's the incentive*.
I'm making it as an either-or because the average worker doesn't have the time or desire to waste time on planning projects, that's why projects are always allocated to people specialized for such tasks. People in your "theory" will be no different, they'd prefer watching TV and playing video games or going on vacations over wasting time planning projects, allocating resources from here and there whilst trying to nick priorities and send them over to their project, and building those projects.



No, you haven't.
Yes I have, and decisively too.
"I already explained that your labor credits have NOTHING to do with labor effort, you have yet to reply to it. Your labor credits are money paid to workers on the basis of difficulty/risk x labor hours, they have nothing to do with effort. Difficulty and risk, as I have previously explained, are separate from effort. Nevertheless, what the fuck does this have to do with anything? You disregarded what I have said and made an "argument" that has nothing to do at all with my own. If you are even trying to make the claim that labor credits would be the incentive for work, then lolno. Firstly, you labor credits have nothing to do with consumption, a far better incentive mechanism that "projects" which no one really cares about as much as they care about getting consumer goods and what they need for life. An average worker doesn't give much of a shit about what gets built. Secondly, your labor credits have nothing to do with labor effort, as I have previously proven, but on UNALTERABLE conditions that would be DEMOCRATICALLY voted for by biased workers to increase their pay, specifically remunerated according to set conditions such as risk and difficult x labor hours REGARDLESS of effort, contribution, production, productivity, and so on. People in your system can and logically/rationally WILL vote for the highest amount of labor credits regardless of reality. Thus what I had said remains: "The thing is, that will not happen because each individual has absolutely no reason to produce nor contribute at all, they have no reason to work efficiently, productively, or even prevent waste as everything is free and there is absolutely no means by which to calculate costs or prices.""

Others reading this will attest to this, you do not need to.



This spurious contention of yours is due to your egocentric, market-based mindset regarding material matters and material incentives.
And the problem?



Again, exit surveys for each work role would generate a mass index, for the purpose of providing multipliers on labor-hour rates. *Your* mentality is that people would mass-*sabotage* such a system, which seems highly unlikely from your stance since you're defeatist about any such mass organizing anyway.
Exit surveys by workers for their own job will be BIASED in favor of earning MORE labor credits for them to use. Yes, they will ABSOLUTELY mass sabotage such a system and abuse it whether you like it or not. I'm defeatist about depending on mass organizing as in the case of your system, indeed but as you can see I already take things for granted PURELY for the SAKE OF ARGUMENT as in this case. Even though I believe your entire system is a fallacious disaster and will lead to destruction, I still criticize every single claim you put forward to show others exactly why they should never take you or your "model" seriously at all. Workers themselves who work in a workplace with the ability to determine their own wages (labor credits) WITH NO RESTRICTIONS, would rationally and logically seek to maximize profits and utility whether you like it or not and thus would maximize the multiplier to receive the highest amount of labor credits in exchange for their labor regardless of reality. You expect individuals to be perfectly moral. Your system bases itself on morality.

From Socialism after Hayek (Advances in Heterodox Economics) by Theodore A. Burczak:
"It may well be the case that worker cooperatives or firms that are planned by workers' councils would elicit more tacit knowledge from the members than the typical capitalist enterprise is able to extract from its employees. However, labor-appropriating cooperatives that are subject of the market discipline of profit and loss would in all likelihood offer better incentives for workers to discover and act on their intuitive insights and tacit knowledge than would Albert and Hahnel's system of participatory planning, which could only rely on moral suasion - in the form of wanting to be a good team player - to get individuals to contribute their unobservable (and costly to express) personal knowledge to the benefit of the group. Since the post-Hayekian market socialist firm would offer its members both material rewards and moral suasion, it is likely to be more productive of socially beneficial knowledge than is an Albert-Hahnel participatory enterprise operating in a democratically planned way."



Oh, okay, so you're concerned about *subjective* effort, *individual* contribution, *per-work-role* production, *Taylorist* productivity, and so on -- these are all petty right-wing issues that are only raised by those who need to see compartmentalized returns, or profit-making, down to every little level of financialization possible. This is *still another* pitfall endemic to your market socialism model since the basic labor-extraction process is still undertaken and measured in capitalist-financial terms -- unfortunate, but there you are.
Yes, I'm concerned with them even if they are right-wing issues. So what you just said was because they're conepts used today that you're NOT going to reply to my argument? Good on you for conceding the point, if you did not concede it then you resorted to an ad hominem logical fallacy and thus disregarded by arguments on that basis. Either way, you're fucked. Now I'll be waiting for a reply.



*Or*, such a mass-survey process could be handled *administratively*, as a matter of basic civic duty, with participation likewise seen as a matter of basic civil society -- but you'd rather imagine it as a necessarily *corrupted* function -- hence your arbitrary and unfounded tone of defeatism throughout.
That bases itself on the assumption that people will have a civic duty to administrate anything or the will to do so. You expect these people to be perfectly moral and not abuse the system despite having absolutely no incentives or disincentives to do anything. Since that is not the case sand people have better things to do then your answer is completely unsatisfactory. Even today and in the past individuals were specialized for such administrative tasks and for very good reason. These individuals have studied administration, know what needs to be done, have enough time to study and develop administrative policies, and are dedicated to such jobs with proper pay. In your system you have no such individuals but expect even the lowly miner and janitor to run an economy through time-consuming, biased, unworkable, and inefficient democratic planning. Again, defeatism only for suicidal and ill-though retarded ideologies such as yours. It will also be corrupted because you have no incentives to prevent corruption and favor loyalty, you depend ENTIRELY on morality by expecting everyone to be a "good team player".



More false dichotomizations from you: You're *laying out* the reasons to contribute and work efficiently and productively in such a system -- so that everything *can* be free, and so that waste can *be* prevented.
It's not by any means a false dichotomy. I'm explaining that you system has no incentives to do ANYTHING and thus is a disaster on every level. You do not depend on incentives to give people a reason to do ANYTHING, you depend on people's morality to be a "good team player" in order to just "make it happen" regardless of reality, history, or anything else. Your theory is the theory of a 10 year old playing at revolution and communism.



Why are you comparing an ahistorical theoretical model to specific examples of state capitalism from history -- ? It's apples-and-oranges. If you like -- if it would be worthwhile at all -- we could look at how the model might perform under various conditions, like those you mention, but otherwise it's like you're saying "All new inventions will fail because some failed in the past."
First of all, it was not State Capitalism, I have discussed this extensively in other threads (see my post history). Secondly, your system is ahistorical because it never existed and will never exist but it depends on assumptions that were attempted (and failed) in HISTORY such as in the case of the USSR, China, Cuba, and other countries that depended on mass movements and "making it happen". It is not by any means saying that all new inventions will fail because some failed in the past, but saying that depending on mass movements and organizations to solve EVERY problem WILL fail as it has in the past for the SAME reasons that the previous societies failed. Oh and every time I take into consideration various conditions you merely disregard THE ENTIRE ARGUMENT and block your ears like a 10 year old. Don't believe me? Press ctrl+F and type in "disregards". Good luck



Yeah, don't get me started about the long hours on the graveyard shift, in the intense heat of the boiler room, that it took to get this thing "birthed".... (Grin)
The charts made up of nonsensical and jumbled up words and pictures that have no meaning at all such as those volcano things. You are a pseudo-intellectual that depends and bases everything on argument from verbosity and intellectual dishonesty. As soon as you did away with those, I have proven that your theory is a disaster.



Glass-half-empty, that's all you are.
What the fuck? Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Only according to you.
Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Some do, some don't -- why are so getting so moralistic over what people decide to do with their free time -- ? Are you about to go "Western Civ." on me here -- ? (Grin)
You COMPLETELY ignored my argument in favor of saying that one liner shit that has nothing to do with anything. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You're relying on the *technocratic* approach for your market socialism, which I addressed above.
Yes I am and no you did not address that at all.



The more you emphasize the *market* processes that are so foundational for your position, the more you sound like a present-day right-winger and less like the 'socialist' aspect of your 'market socialism'.
Ad hominem logical fallacy. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



So, in brief, your politics range from market cheerleading to technocratic-flavored bureaucratic collectivism.
Ad hominem logical fallacy. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



What you're missing is the freedom from class interests that so pervades our society today -- you act as though such post-capitalist self-liberated-laborers would have any objective interest *in* 'gaming' the system to exaggerate work effort, etc. --
As long as these "self-enslaved" laborers are humans and individuals then yes, they will want to game the system in order to extract as much profits and utility as possible. People are not Utopian idealists like yourself, scum exist and ignorant idiots exist, they care little about what you want them to do in theory. As long as gaming the system increasign their utility, brigns benefits, and has NO COSTS then they will do it. Fully rational and logical.




this is the result of your mixing apples-and-oranges, invoking the boogeyman of historical Stalinism, to summarily dismiss any further, future enlightened political initiatives.
Ad hominem logical fallacy. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments. I just laugh at how he honestly thinks his theory is a "further, future enlightened political initiative". So cute. :laugh: :laugh:



Well then you're not really addressing 'labor credits' as it exists -- you're talking to yourself then, in your own language.
There is not such thing as "labor credits as it exists" because there is no such thing as labor credits today. But no, you are unable to read nor comprehend it seems, I stated that labor credits only need to be exchanged for labor to create wage labor and thus EVERYTHING ELSE IS BESIDES THE POINT. I am addressing YOUR labor credits as they exist in YOUR theory. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



(Addressed earlier in this post.)
You have not addressed it. Your point, time and time again, has been obliterated.



According to your own dogma / position.
Ad hominem logical fallacy. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Your conception of 'information' is strictly limited to 'proper economic information' -- you can't even respond to the conception of a journalism that provides all necessary who-what-where-when-why-and-how information in a *qualitative* way, for people to consciously consider and act on.
Journalism is NOT a solution. I CHALLENGE YOU to show me how this "journalism" of yours is a solution to Hayek's information and knowledge problems. Go ahead, prove it and I'll destroy it with ease. Nevertheless, you did not answer my arguments, you disregarded them completely in favor of mentioning that "journalism" is the answer WITHOUT explaining WHY or HOW. On this issue:

"The key problem is simply the amount of information required to be collected, aggregated, processed and studied. As Schweickart points out, we are talking about a lot of goods -- millions, in fact, once we take into account intermediate goods as well as finished ones. Then there are the balanced job complexes, which will involve millions of jobs to be described, evaluated and then balanced across an economy. My workplace did the first two tasks and it took months just for a few thousands -- and we were not trying to balance them across the workplace, never mind over a geographical area which has millions of workers in it!

Let us assume that the citizens of Parecon manage to list all the goods they wish to desire to consume in the following year. Then the facilitation boards gather than information up and produce a series of plans from it. Yes, not one but a series so the citizens can vote on them. How do they decide which one is best? There are two options: either the plans are pretty detailed or they list aggregate information (i.e., 500,000 shirts verses 1,000 red ones of size X, 1,500 red ones of size Y, 5,000 blue ones of size X, and so on). The detailed list will get pretty long, particularly as the plan will need to specify the intermediate goods required (different colours require different dyes, different sizes require different amounts of materials, then there is the energy required, the material for the machinery maintenance and so on). So it would next to impossible to go through one plan, never mind a few, and evaluate what it actually means. In terms of aggregate plans, knowing that we need 500,000 shirts is all well and fine but it tells you nothing at all in terms of what work will be required to be done. As Schweickart notes, saying that 100,000 kilos of "meat" is planned tells you next to nothing.

And that is the crux of the problem. Yes, people have voted for 500,000 shirts to be produced (and, presumably, the necessary aggregate inputs those need). How do the shirt syndicates know that so many red shirts are needed? How many blue ones? Where are they needed? How does it know that commune X needs 100 blue shirts? If that information is not in the plan, then commune X needs to directly contact syndicate Y to place an order. If it is in the plan, then the plan gets even more detailed. Production quotas determined by the facilitation board mean little as specific workplaces will need to know who wants what when.

As Schweickart puts it:
"Here we are at the heart of the matter regarding non-market allocation. Albert doesn't seem to recognize -- despite my pressing the point in my critique--that if consumers don't specify in detail what they want, then producers -- who must produce specific items, not general categories -- will have great difficulty in knowing what to produce. Worse still, they will have little incentive to find out.""



I've responded to this before, yet you keep raising it, and other contentions, repeatedly -- your criteria only cover the 'maximum' level of operation, and you discard any possibilities that can exist for anything materially lesser. So it boils down to actual conditions -- either they are adequate for whatever level of qualitative functioning, or they aren't.
You responded, I shot it down. Thus you are still found to be needed for that argument. You have yet to answer this. Anything materially lesser will not exist because anything materially lesser will be less than the actual demand in relation to the amount of people and the TRILLIONS of goods and TRILLIONS of variations of those goods that people desire. To meet all of those you need to either maximize production, productivity, automation, resources, and so on or your system will end in suicide. The maximum level of operation is the only means by which an according to need system is ever possible. Now answer the fucking argument.



No, this is from your own imagining.
Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Please stop using the term 'enslaved labor' since the characterization is baseless and you're just being contrarian with it.
It is not at all baseless, as I have already explained, as you wish to enslave workers if they want or when they go into debt and have to pay it off.



Nope -- this is just wishful thinking on your part.
Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



Again you're just projecting your own conceptions.
Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



I've addressed this earlier in this post.
Which I addressed above and destroyed. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



More projections of your own conceptions and expectations -- wishful thinking. There are no 'governments' in the model -- it's entirely 'localities' that would find greater efficiencies and effectiveness in larger, pan-locality organizing and rationalizing of mass liberated production.
Hence the inefficiencies in your system due to the lack of any governments. Your localities have absolutely no incentive whatsoever to find greater efficiencies or effectiveness, organizing, or rationalizing anything. You depend on morality, that people will be "good team players" and act completely loyal and faithful for the "greater good" with absolutely no basis for reason to do anything at all except meet their own direct needs regardless of society's. If a locality is to issue debt, however, then it is acting as a government when people wish to enter it and have to go into debt and pay labor credits to do so or to leave. It is no longer a group of individuals but a government as it has a geographical control over a certain territory, that is the only means by which you are to speak of entry and exist costs into and out of society based on debts and slavery otherwise people can move in an d out without having to pay anything. Even then, again, this would be a disaster as people would abstain from spending and would allow others to do the spending and they'll jump in and reap the benefits and rewards without restrictions of consequences.



More Taylorism and hyper-individuation. I'll let you *have* this point, gratis, because of the political camp it puts you in.
And he concedes. That's a step forward.



(Repetition. Addressed above.)
I only repeat when you repeat, so stop that "addressed above" bullshit and actually address my arguments. Makes no arguments, disregards my arguments.



You need to understand that the context is *communism* -- there's no need for money, by definition, and all material productive assets and resources are *collectivized*. You're using another false dichotomy here by making it sound as though people would only care about being consumers. Sure, many would, but then there are those who would also be more concerned with work, for whatever reason, or professional position, or craft, art, hobby, politics, administration, journalism, or how the process of liberated labor is carried out person-to-person.
People mainly care about being consumers being as consumers they meet their daily needs. The context of your system, as I recall was not communism but a post-capitalist society that comes directly after capitalism, not one after socialism or a transitional phase. People, as seen from today thanks to the creation of consumer goods, have been shown to be heavily reliant and dependent upon consumer goods rather than anything else. They care little about work as a means of extension of their being than playing and creating or enjoying consumer goods. I do not blame them for it one bit and instead accept such a conclusion. People would not be concerned with work unless they have reasons to do so such as paying them to improve their direct lives and benefits. Professional positions would be looked down upon in your society where the specialized and administrative workers would be looked down upon in favor of more general equality with the "average worker". Your system forces workers to underproduce and underachieve in order to meet the social average as their benefits and pay are not proportionate to their production, productivity, effort, or effectiveness, and so on but is a stable pay pre-determined by the worker himself with no direct costs or consequences at all for maximizing his own pay (he is not losing profits). Craft,a rt, hobby, etc. are not work, but merely that. Work is work that is socially productive on the mass scale that would be in high demand. Oh and don't even speak of "work becoming play" nonsense, I already addressed that nonsense in another thread and will debate this here if need be. Politics would be done away with in your system as politics is socialized rather than individualized and thus an individual interested in politics would face the issue of rational ignorance whereby the costs of learning outweigh the benefits and thus it would be rational to be ignorant as it makes little to no difference but would instead be in favor of NOT learning (becoming an educated politician). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance Administration would face the same problems as professional positions as they're looked down upon, paid the same, and so on. Journalism is viable, but only for people who like to write and debate on certain issues.



This is another strawman used by the right-wing -- as soon as a greater-than-individual social context is noted the accusation becomes "altruism" by playing off the present-day norm of hyper-individuation for all matters economic. The right wing can't even *acknowledge* the slightest bit of public sphere -- like roads -- because *every* example from the public domain is a precedent for *even greater* collectivization, away from privatization, and specifically into the domain of those who produce *everything*, the laborers.
Any social relation greater than the individual that bases itself on mutual aid or any such relationship BASES ITSELF ON ALTRUISM. This is neither a strawman nor a right-wing argument, and even if it were then it is an ad hominem logical fallacy in your part and a fallacy fallacy by attempting to disregard an argument through fallacies. The public infrastructure, such as roads, is not built by altruism but built by Capitalist governments that want to develop their own societies through taxes, necessity, and public accountability, etc. rather than mutual aid. Nevertheless, issues such as roads are basic issues which would be met regardless of anything, but anything more advanced than that will NOT such as in the case of the production of consumer goods and factories. The USSR et al. were capable of easily building roads but were not able to plan, produce, and distribute basic consumer goods. That is to say, you just resorted to a false analogy logical fallacy as roads have nothing to do with the subject at hand.



Nonetheless if people saw a positive-snowballing effect, where a tolerable amount of effort on their part, more-or-less across-the-board from everyone, happened to produce impressive cities, useful infrastructure, needed services, pleasant diversions, etc., where would the opposition come from -- ? All of your 'individual incentive' bullshit would be meaningless wherever people *did* 'make it happen', even in the least-organized and most-parallelist kinds of ways.
The only bullshit here is YOUR argument. Individual incentives is followed for VERY good reasons, reasons which you cannot and will never be able to understand. Individuals can count on themselves and are dependent on themselves, they know what they need and what they want, collective entities cannot and do not. You ignorantly claim that should people find a "positive snowballing effect" from their endeavors then they will keep pursuing such a policy. The thing is that is nothing more than ignorant rambling on your part from a typical Utopian idealist. Collectives cannot know what the means were to achieve the results, they cannot replicate the previous actions and causes that led to the positive results because they are a collective with BILLIONS of separate minds, conditions, actions, circumstances, efforts, and so on. Compare this to the case of individuals whose actions lead to positive outcome then they know EXACTLY what they did and what they need to replicate to receive the same result, but in the case of collectives then they cannot do so because they do not know what each and every single individual did and what were the exact reasons behind the success in the first place. Go study some public choice theory and economics and THEN come back because you have no idea what you're talking about. According to the Condorcet paradox and Arrow's impossibility theorem, collectives can NEVER know what they actually want or need, but individuals can. This can be seen in real life and history in the case of the USSR and its Five Year Plans, the first was successful but the others were not and could not replicate the results of the First Five Year Plan because it was billions if not trillions of factors that needed to be taken into account which could not be taken into account. On the other hand, if we were to give individuals every reason and incentive to maximize production, productivity, efficiency, wastelessness, etc. then it would be much more effective, realizable, replicable, secure and ensured.



Wrong -- that's *another* mischaracterization from you, projected and imposed from your wishful thinking and dogma. 'Labor credits' are *not* money because they cannot be commodified or financialized in any way.
I already explained that your labor credits ARE a currency that are commodified, lead to the commodification of labor power, have exchange values, and so on. There is no mischaracterization anywhere but from you in order to attempt to defend your position by claiming that I have the wrong idea when I do not. Nice try.



Are you a fucking libertarian??? That fucking explains everything now.
Do I look like a fucking libertarian for you? :laugh: This guy... Seriously... :laugh: Go read my other posts in the other threads and see how much of a "libertarian" I really am. I oppose freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and so on.



I'll return to the remainder of your post at my convenience. This is enough for now.
Let's hope you do. I'll be waiting.

[Strannik]

Market mechanism allows for distribution of economic control. Nothing to argue here. Is market therefore the perfect mode of economic organization? Not really. There is no perfection outside of abstract models.

In nature, all stable living systems use two different types of control signals - they send positive and negative signals; pleasure and pain. A perfect money-market based economy, however, uses only positive signals. You can give someone some amount of money. Or not. But there is no "anti-money". So what's the problem with that?

The problem is similar to drug use. Once you give an addict heroin, they need more of it next time to get the same high. Once you motivate someone with money, they need more of it next time to be motivated again. Whatever standard of life one reaches, it becomes the "zero level" and when people don't like their work, they try to look for means to do it with least effort. Which would be a good thing, but unchecked leads to instability or an economy aimed mostly towards production of abstract value, as Marx points out.

General tendency in money-based economy is this: people need more and more earning power to keep going, to the point where their demands come into conflict with the social ownership of the means of production. This, I think, can be observed in recent history of China.

Or let's take opposite problem. The reason market can organize consumer goods is because people know what they need and what they prefer. For the same reason market is very bad at organizing money towards, for example, fundamental scientific research. Either very few people understand what is necessary or no one does.

Or let's take the concept of efficiency. Market is a type of self-organizing system and they generally evolve towards efficiency. Efficiency means elimination of unnecessary waste from the system. It means elimination of everything that does not have to do with the particular purpose of the particular system. That's the essence of Taylorism. In evolutionary biology they have the same concept, it is called specialization. A perfectly efficient system is also perfectly specialized, meaning that it is destroyed the moment it's environment changes - ability to change is extremely inefficient, and also the central evolutionary mechanism.

In short, money-economies seem to evolve towards accumulation, generalization and specialization. Left unchecked, these tendencies bring about a crisis. There must be some other, equally spread control mechanism counteracting it's "positive infuences" before these become negative.