Ideal currency in Socialism

[Krasnyy]

Before we talk about currency, we have to look at the errors that come with it.

Inflation
Inflation is simply a rise in the average price of goods and services in the macroeconomy. Which particular goods and services depends on the measure we are examining. Consumer price inflation is the one usually in the news, and it takes a weighted average of various items purchased by the typical household (the list being determined by survey and then updated periodically). The average can rise while some prices have actually fallen, and how much it reflects your personal situation is a function of how closely the basket of goods and services in the index matches your buying patterns. But, the bottom line is that price inflation happens when the cost of raw materials, the cost of production, and/or the cost of distribution increases and the producer passes the costs on to the consumer.

Recession
Let's take the 2008 US financial crisis.
Banks created too much money and used this money to push up house prices and speculate on financial markets. Eventually the debts became unpayable, so this caused a financial crisis. After the crisis, banks refuse to lend, and the economy shrinks.

Banks lend when they’re confident that they will be repaid. So when the economy is doing badly, banks prefer to limit their lending. However, although they reduce the amount of new loans they make, the public still have to keep up repayments on the debts they already have. As loans are repaid, money disappears from the economy. When this happens, it’s like draining the oil from the engine of a car, the economy slows down and prices decrease. As a result the economy risks slipping into a debt-deflation spiral, where wages and prices decrease but peoples debts do not change in value, leading to debts becoming relatively more expensive in ‘real’ terms. Even those businesses and people that weren’t involved in creating the bubble suffer, causing a recession like the one we are in now.

Solutions

Iceland:

Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz notes: "What Iceland did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future generations with the mistakes of the financial system."

"A funny thing happened on the way to economic Armageddon: Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. Where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors, Iceland imposed temporary controls on the movement of capital to give itself room to maneuver."
-Paul Krugman

Iceland fixed it's banking problem by instead of allowing the criminals responsible for bank fraud to run free as the years passed by, Iceland thought it might be wise to actually indict bankers who committed serious financial crimes that contributed to the collapse. By paying off loans for consumers, forgiving homeowner debt (up to 110% of the property value), and throwing the offenders in prison, Iceland was able to bounce back. Now, its economy is “recovered” and is growing faster than both the US and European economies.
---------------------------------------------
Libya:

Gaddafi's Gold Dinar Plan and Libya's Public Central Bank would have changed the monetary system and freed all of Africa from the Private Central Bank System. You all know better by now than to believe The U.S. News Media, the U.S. State Department, The CIA, The Pentagon, and The President of the U.S. Libya was not a "dictatorship" in the traditional sense, and Momar Gaddafi was not the evil rogue portrayed by Western propaganda. If fact, he was a hero. Gaddafi’s Gold Dinar Plan and Libya’s Public Central Bank would have changed the monetary system and freed all of Africa from the Private Central Bank System. Ultimately, it might possibly have freed the NATO host nations from their own parasites – Vampire Private Central Banks. Gaddafi’s courage and pioneering efforts in trying to restore national sovereignty and making the government responsible to the people instead of to the Global Banking Elites is the reason why he was targeted and killed. NATO terrorist attacks will not get the Western nations out of debt – only an honest Public Central Bank – like the attempted Bank of Libya – would.

[Loony Le Fist]

Well I don't know if I've offered the idea up in the forums, but my suggestion for a currency would be energy. Basically you would pay for things in joules. That makes it easy to account for everything, and the value of your economy is based upon how much energy you can produce. Energy production is key to all economies. All things require energy to create, and this can be measured precisely.

[Krasnyy]

Well I don't know if I've offered the idea up in the forums, but my suggestion for a currency would be energy. Basically you would pay for things in joules. That makes it easy to account for everything, and the value of your economy is based upon how much energy you can produce. Energy production is key to all economies. All things require energy to create, and this can be measured precisely.

What types of energy exactly? And if currency is based of energy them I think we should not print out more money than we have in energy.

I would never use Gold as currency, the US still had recessions before and after the gold standard.

Maoist Rebel News/Jason Urhuhe debunks this perfectly.

[BIXX]

What about the negation of the economy? It's a far more simple and elegant solution, IMO.

[Krasnyy]

What about the negation of the economy? It's a far more simple and elegant solution, IMO.
Ever heard of a thing called stability?

[Tim Cornelis]

No currency in socialism. This should go without saying.

[BIXX]

Ever heard of a thing called stability?


Economies never have, and never will, guarantee stability.

[Krasnyy]

No currency in socialism. This should go without saying.
Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?

[A Psychological Symphony]

Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?

Because you know that without currency there will be 3 hour long lines to get bread? How did you come up with that absurdity?

Ideal currency is no currency. Communism 101

[Krasnyy]

Because you know that without currency there will be 3 hour long lines to get bread? How did you come up with that absurdity?

Ideal currency is no currency. Communism 101

Communism =/= Socialism.


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[Slavic]

Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?

Waiting in line for 3 hours for food implies that food will be rationed as is not related to currency. I ask, why would food be rationed if there is already of surplus of food produced?

[A Psychological Symphony]

Communism =/= Socialism.


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Communism= Socialism. Communism 101 part 2

[bropasaran]

- measures like kilos, meters, liters, kilowatt hours, etc., e.g. 2 tons of grain, five hectares of land, kilolitre of biodiesel, etc.;
- units of things, e.g. 100 pants, 100 tractors, 50 chairs, 2 wind turbines, etc.
- number of people and work-hours, e.g. 30 people, 1000 work-hours, etc.

that is- calculation in natura- that's for planning production, currency is not needed, because production is not for profit, but for use, that is- people's needs and wants.

for distribution, in there is enough of a product- free access, if there happens to be a scarcity, then temporary rationing, e.g. something like the system used in Revolutionary Spain- products have their prices determined (democratically, as everything else that effects everybody) based on how scarce they are, and people are given accounts with "points"- equal ammount for everyone, and then people decide what they want to spend those points on among the scarce products.

[Five Year Plan]

Communism =/= Socialism.


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If you really are a Trotskyist, as you indicate in your profile, then you would know that socialism is the lower stage of communism. I think you might be confusing the Marxist and Leninist understanding of socialism with what right-wingers and social democrats call socialism. But that just shows how you are misrepresenting yourself on this forum.

[Krasnyy]

Communism= Socialism. Communism 101 part 2

No, Socialism is just the transition. So that's why in Socialism you can have a government and currency in socialism. Socialism just means public ownership of the means of production.


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[Krasnyy]

Economies never have, and never will, guarantee stability.
Yes they can, you just need the right policies. Switzerland and Iceland have stable economies because they keep the banks in check. Iran has an independent banks, and even with the sanctions by US imperialism their economy is growing (not very fast though).
The same thing would have been for Gaddafi's Libya, had the US never destroyed it.

[#FF0000]

No, Socialism is just the transition. So that's why in Socialism you can have a government and currency in socialism. Socialism just means public ownership of the means of production.

According to who?

[Krasnyy]

According to who?

Karl Marx


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[Anti-Traditional]

Karl Marx


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Sauce please.

[Krasnyy]

Sauce please.

The Communist manifesto


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[human strike]

What about the negation of the economy? It's a far more simple and elegant solution, IMO.

What are you, some kind of communist???

[#FF0000]

The Communist manifesto

No and no.

[BIXX]

Yes they can, you just need the right policies. Switzerland and Iceland have stable economies because they keep the banks in check. Iran has an independent banks, and even with the sanctions by US imperialism their economy is growing (not very fast though).

The same thing would have been for Gaddafi's Libya, had the US never destroyed it.


That's not due to their economies, but their policies to protect the economy. Without an economy that problem wouldn't exist.



The Communist manifesto


You're like, super full of shit.


What are you, some kind of communist???


Haha, many communists that I've talked to don't seem to agree that we should abolish the economy.

[Anti-Traditional]

The Communist manifesto


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Where in the manifesto does Marx differentiate between Socialism and Communism? I've read the damn thing about a million times, It's not there.

[Sinister Intents]

Where in the manifesto does Marx differentiate between Socialism and Communism? I've read the damn thing about a million times, It's not there.

I've read it twice, and I consider it not useful to socialist theory, maybe a weak introduction. There are significantly better leftist texts than the communist manifesto

[Anti-Traditional]

Haha, many communists that I've talked to don't seem to agree that we should abolish the economy.

They're either not communists or don't know what economy is. But I'm sure you know this- I'm posting it for others to read.

[#FF0000]

I've read it twice, and I consider it not useful to socialist theory, maybe a weak introduction. There are significantly better leftist texts than the communist manifesto

This is a pretty popular opinion these days I think, but I don't know if I agree entirely. I think the section on "reactionary socialism" is useful even today, with how it sort of lays out what Communists are not, you know?

[Sinister Intents]

This is a pretty popular opinion these days I think, but I don't know if I agree entirely. I think the section on "reactionary socialism" is useful even today, with how it sort of lays out what Communists are not, you know?

Indeed! It does have useful things such as that section, but still Marx and Engels wrote a lot better things. Like the Principles of Communism, The Critique of the Gotha Progam, and Socialism: Scientific and Utopian, as well as Capital of course

[BIXX]

They're either not communists or don't know what economy is. But I'm sure you know this- I'm posting it for others to read.

I do wanna read more anti-economy works. Other than my own formulations the only one I've read was "Lets destroy work, lets destroy the economy" by Alfredo M. Bonanno.

Actually I think I'll start a thread on that.

[Krasnyy]

What about the negation of the economy? It's a far more simple and elegant solution, IMO.


What are you, some kind of communist???


Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which the means of production are publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

No, communism is a type of economic ideology.

[Sinister Intents]

No, communism is a type of economic ideology.

Communism is political and economic comrade. Wanna read an essay I'm writing? I'm sure it'll help you with some points.

[reb]

Ever heard of a thing called stability?

Capitalism isn't unstable because of currency.


Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?

They had money in the USSR and you still had to wait for hours to get things.


Communism =/= Socialism.


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Yes it does.


No, Socialism is just the transition. So that's why in Socialism you can have a government and currency in socialism. Socialism just means public ownership of the means of production.


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Having nothing change doesn't make it a transition.


Indeed! It does have useful things such as that section, but still Marx and Engels wrote a lot better things. Like the Principles of Communism, The Critique of the Gotha Progam, and Socialism: Scientific and Utopian, as well as Capital of course

The Critique of the Gotha Program has it's own problems, as well as Socialism: Scientific and Utopian. The idea of socialism being a transition is often anachronistically attributed to Marx's critique of the Gotha program even though it doesn't say this at all. People just decide on a political position first then go digging around for quotes to back that up. It stems from a fundamental lack of effort in actually trying to understand what communism is, and typically, a complete detachment from actual working class life.

[Krasnyy]

They had money in the USSR and you still had to wait for hours to get things.


The soviet government view BREAD as the top priority item, it tried its hard to provide population with enough bread for dirty cheap price. As socialistic agriculture turned less and less productive, in later soviet years a substantial share of the "oil money" were spent to buy wheat.

Surprisingly, while people in cities and larger towns did not experience difficulties with buying bread, villagers usually were able to buy bread once per several days and not more then certain amount (determined by the local administration, usually this amount was set to two standard "bricks") per person.

At the very end of the Soviet Union the system of "planned centralized production and distribution" began to fall into pieces and shortages of any kind occurred more and more often.

So I support a certain form of currency (similar to what Gaddafi had planned, but backed by natural energy). And as far as government, it should be limited (not like the Republican "limited").

[reb]

The soviet government view BREAD as the top priority item, it tried its hard to provide population with enough bread for dirty cheap price. As socialistic agriculture turned less and less productive, in later soviet years a substantial share of the "oil money" were spent to buy wheat.

Surprisingly, while people in cities and larger towns did not experience difficulties with buying bread, villagers usually were able to buy bread once per several days and not more then certain amount (determined by the local administration, usually this amount was set to two standard "bricks") per person.

At the very end of the Soviet Union the system of "planned centralized production and distribution" began to fall into pieces and shortages of any kind occurred more and more often. I personally remember standing in bread lines in 1980th in Donbass region of USSR took several hours. However, this was a completely random thing: you might stand in long bread lines today, but have bread in abundance next week (but no soap and tea instead, for example).

So you're telling me that having currency in society or not does not affect the amount of times you have to wait for things or is your brain too melted from nationalism for you to have understood what you have said here?

[Loony Le Fist]

...
What types of energy exactly?
...


All energy extracted or produced. Energy is energy: it doesn't matter what the source is. The amount of energy generated or extracted can be calculated, or at least estimated. This includes all sources of energy (petroleum products, coal, nuclear energy). The entire value of the economy can be valued this way, since all processes and labor require energy, even services since people require food to eat. And I believe it fits into the Marxian idea of labor value very nicely.



And if currency is based of energy them I think we should not print out more money than we have in energy


I agree. The whole point is to develop an accurate accounting measure to estimate future production and to prevent debasement. Ultimately, like other posters here, I feel elimination of currency should definitely be the end goal.

[Krasnyy]

So you're telling me that having currency in society or not does not affect the amount of times you have to wait for things or is your brain too melted from nationalism for you to have understood what you have said here?
It can, like if there was hyperinflation (i.e. Weimar Germany, Present Zimbabwe) or recession.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

It can, like if there was hyperinflation (i.e. Weimar Germany, Present Zimbabwe) or recession.

And hyperinflation occurs because?

[ckaihatsu]

no currency in socialism. This should go without saying.





[e]ven though it's moneyless, in practice it would tend to be too *inflexible* and *restrictive* for the participants since they would be "stuck" both economically and politically in it, due to the economic aspects and political aspects being *fused together* as one and the same.

(in other words, if everyone in the work-role rotation basically approved of its 'politics' -- what it's producing -- they may *not necessarily* like its *economics*, meaning what they're getting from that production, in regards to their own personal needs. And, obversely, if a participant happened to like the work-role rotation *economically*, meaning what they're getting personally from the group's collective production, they may not also like it *politically*, in terms of that same output for the greater public good. Either way they'd basically be stuck having to "like" the output both on a societal level *and* on a personal level, due to its inherent inflexibility.)


---





- measures like kilos, meters, liters, kilowatt hours, etc., e.g. 2 tons of grain, five hectares of land, kilolitre of biodiesel, etc.;
- units of things, e.g. 100 pants, 100 tractors, 50 chairs, 2 wind turbines, etc.
- number of people and work-hours, e.g. 30 people, 1000 work-hours, etc.

That is- calculation in natura- that's for planning production, currency is not needed, because production is not for profit, but for use, that is- people's needs and wants.

For distribution, in there is enough of a product- free access, if there happens to be a scarcity, then temporary rationing, e.g. Something like the system used in revolutionary spain- products have their prices determined (democratically, as everything else that effects everybody) based on how scarce they are, and people are given accounts with "points"- equal ammount for everyone, and then people decide what they want to spend those points on among the scarce products.





my standing critique, though, is that a 'points system' doesn't go far enough because the question of how points are issued in the first place is intractable:




how would points be assigned to individuals in the first place -- ?

If it's on a strictly across-the-board consistent basis -- say 100 points per person per month -- that would be very egalitarian, but it would be an overall (societal) *disincentive* towards new efforts at greater social coordination and experimental / speculative advancements in research and development.

And, conversely, if *increasing* rates of points could be obtained for increased amounts of work effort, *that* would be tantamount to the commodification of labor, since labor would be directly exchangeable for material rewards -- too close to a capitalistic market economy, in other words.

Part of the reason for using revleft so much is precisely for this question of a feasible political-logistical approach to a post-capitalist political economy, and why i've developed my own 'solution' for such, at my blog entry, blah blah blah....


---





all energy extracted or produced. Energy is energy: It doesn't matter what the source is. The amount of energy generated or extracted can be calculated, or at least estimated. This includes all sources of energy (petroleum products, coal, nuclear energy). The entire value of the economy can be valued this way, since all processes and labor require energy, even services since people require food to eat. And i believe it fits into the marxian idea of labor value very nicely.




[t]he whole point is to develop an accurate accounting measure to estimate future production and to prevent debasement. Ultimately, like other posters here, i feel elimination of currency should definitely be the end goal.





[i]'ve run into the 'energy accounting' argument before, and i think it's problematic to base a system of valuations on anything other than the force that actually creates social value -- labor.




[the] approach is all fine and well, and would certainly encourage the overthrow of capitalism, since it would be a political prerequisite, but i'm noting that much would be out of the hands of the people themselves. It sounds like a plan for 'dividends for all', but doesn't describe how the decision-making over basic needs would be handled, or for other kinds of production.

If decisions over production are taken out of the hands of laborers then the plan is effectively *substitutionist*, no matter how well designed and engineered it may be.

I'll also note that there's no procedure provided for the allocation of energy resources for mass *public works* projects, particularly those that may be more exploratory and controversial. There's no reason to think that a society's energy usage would be, or should be, a fixed thing, so the need for flexibility in ongoing assessments of it requires some kind of accountability to the public and decision-making *from* it.

[Comrade Jacob]

I think it would be wise for the abandonment of money in the early of the socialist-state. I think the monetary system was one of the past 'socialist-states' downfalls. It should be replaced with 'work-time'. 1 hour on the card for an hour of work and traded for an hour worth of things if you understand me.

[Per Levy]

Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which the means of production are publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

from wich right wing site did you got that sickle? payment in communism? communism is moneyless so there is no wage to be paid. also this description makes it sound like class warfare exist because of marx, class warfare exists since class society.

[ckaihatsu]

I think it would be wise for the abandonment of money in the early of the socialist-state. I think the monetary system was one of the past 'socialist-states' downfalls. It should be replaced with 'work-time'. 1 hour on the card for an hour of work and traded for an hour worth of things if you understand me.


The objection commonly raised here is that not all required efforts are the same, so one person's hour of labor time is not necessarily comparable to another's.

Also, using any system of exchangeability of liberated-labor-for-material-goods is a bad idea.

[Chainsaw]

I don't think we can really have Socialism without first achieving a total post-scarcity of resources, because history's shown that resource scarcity leads to greed in any nation's leadership, and what's known as "Shared Poverty" contributes to what Trotsky called the Degenerated Workers' State.

It's a myth that we already have an absolute abundance of everything beyond the basic needs of food and clothing. Remember, all that's propped up by the international trade system, so even if we can feed the world, it'd have to be using the same system that we wanna topple.

So, we need to do everything in our power to invest in technology that would make the Capitalist mode of production completely obsolete. Think Futuristic. We'd need tech that'll produce replenishable energy that'd fuel the machines which would create our basic needs.

By then, we wouldn't need currency. It would be an out-dated concept.

At least, that's my POV.

[Bala Perdida]

I don't think we can really have Socialism without first achieving a total post-scarcity of resources, because history's shown that resource scarcity leads to greed in any nation's leadership, and what's known as "Shared Poverty" contributes to what Trotsky called the Degenerated Workers' State.

It's a myth that we already have an absolute abundance of everything beyond the basic needs of food and clothing. Remember, all that's propped up by the international trade system, so even if we can feed the world, it'd have to be using the same system that we wanna topple.

So, we need to do everything in our power to invest in technology that would make the Capitalist mode of production completely obsolete. Think Futuristic. We'd need tech that'll produce replenishable energy that'd fuel the machines which would create our basic needs.

By then, we wouldn't need currency. It would be an out-dated concept.

At least, that's my POV.So some sort of Venus project? I like the idea myself, but it lacks a starting point. I guess we socialists have to bring forth the revolution before the Jacque Frescos can work their magic.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.

Here's the thing though. If you eliminate currency with the snap of a finger, effective immediately, you can kiss your chance of building socialism/communism goodbye. First, you have to set up an exchange and distribution system of commodities based on the "each according to their ability to each according to their needs" idea. But you NEED currency temporarily to do this. It should simply be used as a medium of exchange to set up the socialist distribution system of goods. When this system becomes self-sustainable, THEN you eradicate the currency.

[Bala Perdida]

I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.

Here's the thing though. If you eliminate currency with the snap of a finger, effective immediately, you can kiss your chance of building socialism/communism goodbye. First, you have to set up an exchange and distribution system of commodities based on the "each according to their ability to each according to their needs" idea. But you NEED currency temporarily to do this. It should simply be used as a medium of exchange to set up the socialist distribution system of goods. When this system becomes self-sustainable, THEN you eradicate the currency.
Yes. This was brought up by comrades on a different thread. In capitalism people are conditioned and brought up in a system with the illusion of scarcity, as well as actual scarcity. People in this system feel the need to consume and stockpile for themselves as much as possible, consumerism hasn't helped. Therefore, some sort of currency is necessary to carry people from a mindset of scarcity, to recognize abundance and take what they need. Also the abolition of brands and senseless advertising should destroy commodity fetishism. I mean, after the collapse of a system which to many seemed stable, and living in a world of scarcity, it's expected that people would just hoard everything they could if they found themselves in a situation of untapped abundance. I wouldn't blame them, but we need to have a transition in which the illusion of scarcity is destroyed.

[cyu]

The greater the gap between plutocrats and everyone else, the greater the "scarcity" that will be experienced by everyone else. The reason is that plutocrats would basically be taking up an ever larger percentage of economic resources to produce stuff for them, leaving an ever smaller percentage of economic resources left to produce for everyone else - thus not enough housing or food for the poor, while the rich have a billion mansions, helicopters, golf courses, and public relations firms.

[Vilhelmo]

It should be replaced with 'work-time'. 1 hour on the card for an hour of work and traded for an hour worth of things if you understand me. That would be a Monetary System.

[Vilhelmo]

Banks created too much money and used this money to push up house prices and speculate on financial markets. Eventually the debts became unpayable, so this caused a financial crisis. After the crisis, banks refuse to lend, and the economy shrinks.

Almost.
It was speculative bank lending (credit creation) against rising asset prices & ultimately fraudulent bank lending that caused the Housing Bubble.
The loans didn't become "unpayable" they were always "unpayable" That's what fraudulent loans are.
The weapon of choice was Accounting Control Fraud.
The economy shrinks because of Debt Deflation.
Banks don't refuse to lend. It is the lack of qualified borrowers that causes bank lending to decrease.

[reb]

I think it would be wise for the abandonment of money in the early of the socialist-state. I think the monetary system was one of the past 'socialist-states' downfalls. It should be replaced with 'work-time'. 1 hour on the card for an hour of work and traded for an hour worth of things if you understand me.


I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.

Here's the thing though. If you eliminate currency with the snap of a finger, effective immediately, you can kiss your chance of building socialism/communism goodbye. First, you have to set up an exchange and distribution system of commodities based on the "each according to their ability to each according to their needs" idea. But you NEED currency temporarily to do this. It should simply be used as a medium of exchange to set up the socialist distribution system of goods. When this system becomes self-sustainable, THEN you eradicate the currency.

This is the problem, you can't have some aspects of socialism and then keep other aspects of capitalism. This sort of idea comes from the degeneration of marxism from the second international, and further degenerated by stalinists, under the guise of "scientific socialism". To argue that you can eliminate commodity production but still maintain a monetary system is idealist, at best. The abolition of the law of value, the wages system, and commodity production also includes the abandonment of the monetary system. You can't pick and choose which ones you want to keep.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Ever heard of a thing called stability?

Wot u got against anarchy (http://youtu.be/w9MiS9tn_r4)?

No but seriously fuck currency and wages and work.

[ckaihatsu]

I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.


Per post #38, I disagree, for logistical reasons, since such an elimination of currency would tend to force production to be localist-only.

Of course I agree with the *spirit* of eliminating commodity-currency, and I do have a tangible proposal for its replacement, which is at my blog entry:





A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits




To clarify and simplify, the labor credits system is like a cash-only economy that only works for *services* (labor), while the world of material implements, resources, and products is open-access and non-abstractable. (No financial valuations.) Given the world's current capacity for an abundance of productivity for the most essential items, there should be no doubt about producing a ready surplus of anything that's important, to satisfy every single person's basic humane needs.

[I]t would only be fair that those who put in the actual (liberated) labor to produce anything should also be able to get 'first dibs' of anything they produce.

In practice [...] everything would be pre-planned, so the workers would just factor in their own personal requirements as part of the project or production run. (Nothing would be done on a speculative or open-ended basis, the way it's done now, so all recipients and orders would be pre-determined -- it would make for minimal waste.)




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673





Here's the thing though. If you eliminate currency with the snap of a finger, effective immediately, you can kiss your chance of building socialism/communism goodbye. First, you have to set up an exchange and distribution system of commodities based on the "each according to their ability to each according to their needs" idea. But you NEED currency temporarily to do this. It should simply be used as a medium of exchange to set up the socialist distribution system of goods. When this system becomes self-sustainable, THEN you eradicate the currency.


I'll reiterate that there's an inherent contradiction between any system of vouchers / points / counters that are exchangeable for material goods, and the 'free-access' nature of socialism, or communism. (This is where the system of labor-hour credits would come in, above.)





Yes. This was brought up by comrades on a different thread. In capitalism people are conditioned and brought up in a system with the illusion of scarcity, as well as actual scarcity. People in this system feel the need to consume and stockpile for themselves as much as possible, consumerism hasn't helped. Therefore, some sort of currency is necessary to carry people from a mindset of scarcity, to recognize abundance and take what they need. Also the abolition of brands and senseless advertising should destroy commodity fetishism. I mean, after the collapse of a system which to many seemed stable, and living in a world of scarcity, it's expected that people would just hoard everything they could if they found themselves in a situation of untapped abundance. I wouldn't blame them, but we need to have a transition in which the illusion of scarcity is destroyed.


I think it's important to recognize that there's no such thing as a *blanket* 'scarcity' -- it makes more sense to talk about a *per-item* scarcity, ranging from abundantly available air to breathe, to very-scarce trips to the moon.





This is the problem, you can't have some aspects of socialism and then keep other aspects of capitalism. This sort of idea comes from the degeneration of marxism from the second international, and further degenerated by stalinists, under the guise of "scientific socialism". To argue that you can eliminate commodity production but still maintain a monetary system is idealist, at best. The abolition of the law of value, the wages system, and commodity production also includes the abandonment of the monetary system. You can't pick and choose which ones you want to keep.


I'll again advocate for the system I developed that replaces commodity-currency with a more proletarian-oriented approach that can include an entire range of types of (liberated) labor on a sliding scale, so as to balance-out these varying kinds of labor-hours -- here's an excerpt from the model:





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

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




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

[The Jay]

Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?

Define money please.

[Vilhelmo]

Of course I agree with the *spirit* of eliminating commodity-currency, What do you mean by "commodity-currency"?

[Vilhelmo]

Wot u got against anarchy (http://youtu.be/w9MiS9tn_r4)?
No but seriously fuck currency and wages and work.

Anarchism is not inherently against money.
Parecon is an anarchist-inspired alternative economy with a monetary system.

[Tim Cornelis]

Anarchism is not inherently against money.
Parecon is an anarchist-inspired alternative economy with a monetary system.

Not really. I wouldn't regard the non-circulating, non-transferable credits as money, they're modern labour vouchers.

[Comrade #138672]

Says who? And you can't just eliminate money. Do you really want to wait in line for 3 hours just to get a candy bar or loaf of bread?Some dude called Karl Marx.

[Comrade #138672]

Anarchism is not inherently against money.
Parecon is an anarchist-inspired alternative economy with a monetary system.I would say that (consistent) anarchism and money are mutually exclusive. Money necessitates capitalism, which necessitates the existence of a state and a ruling class.

[The Jay]

For those that think that we don't live in a post-scarcity era I direct you here (http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm). Check out how much of the workforce actually does useful things like manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and other such things. It is a narrow minority. If that many people can produce so much then even if half the population were to work then everything should be hunky dory.

[ckaihatsu]

What do you mean by "commodity-currency"?


Whenever a monetary system of abstracted values is used as a middle go-between layer of exchanges from one kind of goods or services to another kind of goods or services, and also serves as a commodity itself that has a fluctuating exchange value.





I'll contend that I have developed a model that [...] uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind. In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations. The labor credits would represent past labor hours completed, multiplied by the difficulty or hazard of the work role performed. The difficulty/hazard multiplier would be determined by a mass survey of all work roles, compiled into an index.

In this way all concerns for labor, large and small, could be reduced to the ready transfer of labor-hour credits. The fulfillment of work roles would bring labor credits into the liberated-laborer's possession, and would empower them with a labor-organizing and labor-utilizing ability directly proportionate to the labor credits from past work completed.




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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673

[Dave B]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm

[Vilhelmo]

I would say that (consistent) anarchism and money are mutually exclusive.

What is inconsistent about an Anarchist Economy with a monetary system?
Why do you hold that anarchism is inherently against money & monetary systems?
The most detailed anarchist-inspired vision for an alternative economy, Parecon, has a monetary system.


Money necessitates capitalism, which necessitates the existence of a state and a ruling class.

Utter nonsense!
Monetary economies have existed for at least 5000 years, long before the emergence of Capitalism.

As Michael Hudson said:


Any society with a time gap between input and output -- e.g., between planting and harvesting -- needs credit. Money is pricing for account-keeping. This is universal. There can be no socialism without credit, money and account-keeping, except for hunter-gatherer socialism of small bands in some neo-paleolithic society

[Vilhelmo]

Whenever a monetary system of abstracted values is used as a middle go-between layer of exchanges from one kind of goods or services to another kind of goods or services, and also serves as a commodity itself that has a fluctuating exchange value.

Pardon my ignorance but I'm not sure what you're saying.
This may be a result of my, admittedly, limited knowledge of Marxist terminology.
Specifically, I am unsure as to the intended meaning of the phrase "abstracted values".
Also, the context in which you have used the term "commodity" makes me unsure as to its meaning. In economics, a "commodity" is Real Asset (wealth) whereas "money" is a Financial Asset (a claim on wealth).
What did you mean?
Could you give me an example of a specific currency that you consider a "Commodity Value"?

I sincerely wish to understand your views, even if I end up, respectfully, of course, disagreeing with those views.

[Vilhelmo]

Not really. I wouldn't regard the non-circulating, non-transferable credits as money, they're modern labour vouchers.

While money in Parecon is, indeed, non-transferable between individuals it never-the-less does circulate throughout the economy.
Regardless, transferability is NOT a necessary characteristic of money. Attesting to this fact are the many examples of non-transferable monies such as Sumerian Clay Tablet Monies.

You are correct that Parecon money, just like Labour Vouchers, is indeed credit/debt but then All money is credit.
What makes "Parecon Money" money is that it is the Unit of Account.

[ckaihatsu]

Whenever a monetary system of abstracted values is used as a middle go-between layer of exchanges from one kind of goods or services to another kind of goods or services, and also serves as a commodity itself that has a fluctuating exchange value.





Pardon my ignorance but I'm not sure what you're saying.
This may be a result of my, admittedly, limited knowledge of Marxist terminology.
Specifically, I am unsure as to the intended meaning of the phrase "abstracted values".
Also, the context in which you have used the term "commodity" makes me unsure as to its meaning. In economics, a "commodity" is Real Asset (wealth) whereas "money" is a Financial Asset (a claim on wealth).
What did you mean?
Could you give me an example of a specific currency that you consider a "Commodity Value"?

I sincerely wish to understand your views, even if I end up, respectfully, of course, disagreeing with those views.





Commodity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yerba mate (left), coffee bean (middle) and tea (right), all used for caffeinated infusions, are commodity cash crops.

In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs.[1] Economic commodities comprise goods and services.[2]

The exact definition of the term commodity is specifically used to describe a class of goods for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.[3] A commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. "From the taste of wheat it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist."[4] Petroleum and copper are other examples of such commodities,[5] their supply and demand being a part of one universal market. Items such as stereo systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface and the perceived quality. The demand for one type of stereo may be much larger than demand for another.


"Abstracted values" = 'exchange value' / currency / credit / finance / points / tokens / etc. -- anything that is exchanged directly, for material returns (goods and services).

So, to recap:





I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.





Per post #38, I disagree, for logistical reasons, since such an elimination of currency would tend to force production to be localist-only.

Of course I agree with the *spirit* of eliminating commodity-currency, and I do have a tangible proposal for its replacement, which is at my blog entry:





A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

[...]

[Tim Cornelis]

While money in Parecon is, indeed, non-transferable between individuals it never-the-less does circulate throughout the economy.
Regardless, transferability is NOT a necessary characteristic of money. Attesting to this fact are the many examples of non-transferable monies such as Sumerian Clay Tablet Monies.

How do they circulate? They disappear when spent.


You are correct that Parecon money, just like Labour Vouchers, is indeed credit/debt but then All money is credit.

I didn't mean credit like that, I meant it as in points. A credit.


What makes "Parecon Money" money is that it is the Unit of Account.

Labour vouchers are spent on the basis of a number of points designated to a product. The same goes for the credit-system of parecon.

[Vilhelmo]

"Abstracted values" = 'exchange value' / currency / credit / finance / points / tokens / etc. -- anything that is exchanged directly, for material returns (goods and services).

I'm sorry I meant "Commodity Money" not "Commodity Value". Could you give me an example of a specific currency that you consider a "Commodity Money"?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry I meant "Commodity Money" not "Commodity Value". Could you give me an example of a specific currency that you consider a "Commodity Money"?


Sure -- the U.S. dollar.

So, back to the topic at hand:





I think we can all agree that the elimination of currency altogether is the goal here.





Per post #38, I disagree, for logistical reasons, since such an elimination of currency would tend to force production to be localist-only.

Of course I agree with the *spirit* of eliminating commodity-currency, and I do have a tangible proposal for its replacement, which is at my blog entry:





A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

[...]

[Luís Henrique]

The point of communism isn't the abolition of money, but the abolition of value. Of course, the latter entails the former - money would serve no function if there was no value - but proposals such as "vouchers", "labour tickets", "credits", etc., go in the wrong direction; they seek to abolish money without abolishing value. And in so doing, what they actually mean is replacing actual money, an actual universal equivalent, by some kind of backwards imperfect, mangled, money.

We should strive to abolish value. Until we manage to do that, money is what best expresses value, and shouldn't be replaced by things that won't do what money does, but will still reproduce the logic of value...

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

The point of communism isn't the abolition of money, but the abolition of value. Of course, the latter entails the former - money would serve no function if there was no value - but proposals such as "vouchers", "labour tickets", "credits", etc., go in the wrong direction; they seek to abolish money without abolishing value. And in so doing, what they actually mean is replacing actual money, an actual universal equivalent, by some kind of backwards imperfect, mangled, money.

We should strive to abolish value. Until we manage to do that, money is what best expresses value, and shouldn't be replaced by things that won't do what money does, but will still reproduce the logic of value...

Luís Henrique


I'll have to respectfully dismiss this as a chimera -- I can't conceive of any state of humanity's existence where (liberated) labor would be purely *valueless*, since that implies a perfect matching-up of all individuals' personal volitions, to the (relatively) objective needs of humanity as a whole. In the absence of such a perfectly smooth social fluidity over production any society would then have to have individuals working in some capacity *outside* their own personal inclinations, to some degree. This, then, would imply a formal social value in their labor, and some kind of accounting for it would have to be present.

Hence my system of labor credits, as previously mentioned.

[Vilhelmo]

I didn't mean credit like that, I meant it as in points. A credit.
That's exactly what I meant.

[Vilhelmo]

Sure -- the U.S. dollar. But the USD is not a commodity or Real Asset. It is a Financial Instrument & Unit of Account. I don't mean to be an ass.

[cyu]

the USD is not a commodity or Real Asset. It is a Financial Instrument & Unit of Account. I don't mean to be an ass.
Let's say the non-Western world is tired of the American regime using its military to bully every small nation it lays its eyes on, and they attempt to crash the US dollar. Let's say the value of the dollar really does start to tank (perhaps even abandoned by their own capitalists in search of safer havens - after all, capitalists only have as much loyalty as they think which set of thugs can best protect their riches).

Now let's say the American regime has a change of heart and decides to side with its own people for once (instead of siding with those with financial might - who are, after all, already boarding their private jets). As a result, the regime puts you in charge of economic policy.

With the value of the dollar in freefall, you know the prices of imports are going to skyrocket. Your own people are going to be asking questions... perhaps even the types of questions with you at the wrong end of a gun barrel. What policy recommendations would you offer to prevent a crash of the USD from pushing them into even more poverty than capitalists have already forced upon them?

[ckaihatsu]

But the USD is not a commodity or Real Asset. It is a Financial Instrument & Unit of Account. I don't mean to be an ass.


No, it's okay -- you're being exacting and technical.

But the U.S. dollar *functions* as a commodity, so that's what counts.

[Vilhelmo]

No, it's okay -- you're being exacting and technical.
I appreciate the understanding.
I aim only for clarity & understanding


But the U.S. dollar *functions* as a commodity, so that's what counts.
The USD neither is nor functions as a commodity (Real Asset).
Instead, the USD both functions as & is money (a Financial Asset).

Whatever you mean by the term your usage is idiosyncratic.

The generally accepted meaning of the term "Commodity Money" is "money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made".

[Vilhelmo]

Let's say the non-Western world is tired of the American regime..... What policy recommendations would 1) Why are you asking me? 2) How is this comment in anyway related to the quotation of which it is in response?

[cyu]

Why are you asking me?


So I take it that if the USD collapses, either you have no solutions, or you don't believe your suggestions would actually belong on a leftist forum.