Overproduction for use, not profit: updating Eugene Debs?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Eugene Debs popularized the notion of socially necessary labour by the slogan "production for use, not for profit." However, given past episodes of chronic shortages in self-proclaimed "socialist states," and given working-class skepticism of Green politics, is it time to modify this now-notorious slogan? It doesn't help that the "right to be lazy" folks to this day aren't helping things by complaining about the basic work ethic, like a Libcom article recently criticizing the Labour Party's modest "compulsory job guarantee" proposal for mostly the wrong reasons.

Can there be such a thing as overproduction strictly for use? This would be inclusive of things like meeting the consumption needs of the elderly and long-term disabled, but aims to minimize overproduction of things that go to rework or scrap.

[tuwix]

There can be. There must be some reserve. For example, there is cold winter afterl mild winter. And in colder winters there is greater need for means to warm. Then it is needed reserve to fulfill that.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There almost certainly can be over-production of things for use, because - talking about any sort of geographic/economic scale - it's very difficult to be perfectly efficient. So any time the level of waste exceeds zero, there will have been over-production for use (talking about a post-capitalist society, not a for-profit society).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Eugene Debs popularized the notion of socially necessary labour by the slogan "production for use, not for profit."I actually really like that formulation and never knew it was notorious. But for us now, I see it as more propagandistic, more of a way to put simply one of the main contradictions of capitalist production. In the depressions when there is more workplace action, it might have more "teeth" as a slogan because of much higher unemployment at the same time that the bosses are sitting on tons of wasted capital. Right now, however, despite somewhat higher unemployment along with increased productivity (at least in the US) there's not much of a challenge and so I think it's basically just useful in countering some of the ideas of capitalist shortages and austerity and unemployment are abstract absolute problems, rather than contradictory problems of useful factories or homes sitting vaccant next to people who are willing to work and populations where people still want the homes and commodities that could be made available.


However, given past episodes of chronic shortages in self-proclaimed "socialist states," and given working-class skepticism of Green politics, is it time to modify this now-notorious slogan? The shortages in the USSR or other countries as well as the experience of dysfunctional national and public services and industries, I think, does hurt the credibility of this argument on the surface. Schools or health or transportation are underfunded while the politicians demand "fiscal responcibility" while ideologically arguing that privite companies can do this better. This has a certain resonance among people because these institutions often are really crap - so are privite companies, but the perception and arguments don't really go that way. So abandoning this ground, in my view, would also mean having to abandon ground on a whole slew of related arguments about what production should be for, what's considered productive or efficient and so on.

The Green argument is a little different and I think we do need to counter the assumptions behind this argument - even if we don't use this "Production for use" type language. The underlying argument of environmentalists who say this is the idea that industry itself, technology itself, is the root of pollution and wastefullness and so on. This excuses capitalism specifically (and ignores that "small capitalism" can be just as destructive and if some production was "spread out" rather than concentrated, it would actually create more waste for less commodities actually produced. As a sort of weak example: a resturant can feed 20 families a night with a lot less labor, energy and so on than if 20 families all ran their own ovens and washed smaller induvidual loads of dishes and so on. A factory farm, as bad as it is, does produce a lot (not with out massive problems) compared to if 100 family farms were trying to meet the same level of production.


It doesn't help that the "right to be lazy" folks to this day aren't helping things by complaining about the basic work ethic, like a Libcom article recently criticizing the Labour Party's modest "compulsory job guarantee" proposal for mostly the wrong reasons.I agree with people wanting to be lazy... in socialism or communism. I find it a callous and disconnected argument when made in the abstract though - especially if it's in a "don't work" right now sort of vein - it's not a solution for people under capitalism and it's sort of a slap in the face for everyone who can't get a job and knows that it's at least just as miserable as having a job under capitalism.

But going back to the big picture, I think "production for use" includes the potential for decreased work - I see it as the way we can have more free-time to do with whatever we want.


Can there be such a thing as overproduction strictly for use? This would be inclusive of things like meeting the consumption needs of the elderly and long-term disabled, but aims to minimize overproduction of things that go to rework or scrap.Of course - like the Boss said. It would create "waste", but unlike in capitalism overproduction would not cause the economy to grind to a hault - it would cause wasted energy and labor, both of which would probably be discouraged on its own merrits in a democratically-run economy.

[Vanguard1917]

I'd think that socialist 'overproduction' (i.e. accomplishing more in production than was intended) would be a sign of the vitality of the economy and would alleviate distributional pressures - much unlike capitalist overproduction, which causes crisis and poverty.