Work Initiative and Wages in Socialist Society

[orihara]

I have two questions:

1) what is the work initiative in Socialist society?

2) how are wages determined; i.e. How would a doctor be paid versus a roofer or road paver?

[Comrade Thomas]

1) For the better of the community and the populace.

2) Wages are determined by state planning boards

[Comrade Thomas]

For an elaboration on 2) They would both probably be the same

[Brutus]

Lower stage of socialism: none-circulating labour vouchers (they're hole punched or something when used, idk how it'll work or whether it'll be all electronic etc.).
Higher stage of socialism: you're not paid, work has become fun due to the abolition of alienation and division of labour, and the means of production have been utilised in such a way that we are now in a post-scarcity world. If you want/need some food, go down to your local food distribution centre- or however it's organised, I can't predict the future.

Nowhere does Marx mention equality! In the lower stage the maxim is "each according to his ability, each according to his contribution" (obviously those who don't work will be given enough to make a decent living- we have at least some humanity) and in the higher stage it becomes "each according to his need".

[reb]

Things get done in communism because things have to be done. If no one fixed the plumbing then the whole community would be swamped in shit and no one wants that. If no one makes lunch, then no one eats lunch.

Wages don't exist in communism. Not in the lower of higher phase of communism. Wages presuppose a social-relation that is brought to a head in capitalist society, that of ultimate alienation from the means of production. Only social democrats argue that you have wage labor in the lowest phase of communism which some how magically resolve the social contradictions relating to them involving the issue of private property and commodity production.

[bropasaran]

Socialism, strictly speaking, is a mode of production, where workers have possession and control over the means of production.

The questions you ask don't relate to the mode of production, but to the mode of distribution.

In socialism you can theoretically have four types of modes of distibution- individualism, mutualism, collectivism and communism. Not to go into explaining the details of it, it's not pertinent to this topic, but because of their inefficiencies, individualism is almost impossible and if established would collapse, and mutualism is largely impractical and would likely morph into collectivism, so we can say that in socialism, practically speaking, you can have two modes of distribution- collectivism and communism, and basically all socialist advocate one or the other.

In collectivism those who cannot work would be provided for by the society, also public goods such as infrastructure, transportation etc and housing would be free, and probably goods that are in large abundance would also be free, but most goods would be sold at community stores and those who can work would have to work and earn credits (/ labor vouchers) which they could then spend on whatever goods they want. So the work incentive is clear. Differences in pay would be, like everything else, democratically determined, and would most probably be based on onerousness of work, with worse jobs being payed more.

In communism distribution would be based primarily on free access, and you can't actually talk about equality or difference in pay because there would be no pay for job done- people plan and go do the work that is needed; and they take what they need, basically- everything is free. The work incentive here is primarily enlightened self-interest/ reciprocal altruism/ solidarity and social pressure.

[ckaihatsu]

2) Wages are determined by state planning boards





Wages don't exist in communism. Not in the lower [or] higher phase of communism. Wages presuppose a social-relation that is brought to a head in capitalist society, that of ultimate alienation from the means of production. Only social democrats argue that you have wage labor in the lowest phase of communism which some how magically resolve the social contradictions relating to them involving the issue of private property and commodity production.


If we're talking about a revolutionary period leading into the lower stage of socialism, though, the need for a quick-acting vanguard of revolutionary-minded labor would be paramount, to rival and defeat the forces of the bourgeoisie -- it's in this context that we find the argument for a political reorientation of existing production, *retaining* a wages-type economy, but under a centralized / collectivist control for the proletariat's best interests.

Personally I take this 'interim' scenario "under advisement", since much would depend on actual real-world circumstances -- the sooner we can get to a full-blown post-bourgeois world, the better.

*Any* kind of currency-like valuations (vouchers, points, etc.) would *have* to be under a revolutionary political control, or else they would just be *actual* commodity valuations that are determined by market relations, by default.





In collectivism those who cannot work would be provided for by the society, also public goods such as infrastructure, transportation etc and housing would be free, and probably goods that are in large abundance would also be free, but most goods would be sold at community stores and those who can work would have to work and earn credits (/ labor vouchers) which they could then spend on whatever goods they want. So the work incentive is clear. Differences in pay would be, like everything else, democratically determined, and would most probably be based on onerousness of work, with worse jobs being payed more.





Lower stage of socialism: none-circulating labour vouchers (they're hole punched or something when used, idk how it'll work or whether it'll be all electronic etc.).


I'm *very* critical of the received-wisdom conventional 'labor vouchers' approach since most -- if not all -- proponents of it have no complete plan for their implementation.

I finished a graphic yesterday that illustrates my point on this:


Pies Must Line Up

http://s6.postimg.org/erqcsdyb1/140415_2_Pies_Must_Line_Up_xcf.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/erqcsdyb1/)

[Ahab Strange]

I'm *very* critical of the received-wisdom conventional 'labor vouchers' approach since most -- if not all -- proponents of it have no complete plan for their implementation.




Can you be more specific about what part of labour voucher reasoning is not fully thought through? (as alluded to in your graphic?)

Your graphic seems to imply that things produced must match up with available labour and resources, and that consumption and distribution would be have to be matched to labour expended also as producers are of course also consumers. But surely this is the case in any economy?

I feel sometimes that post-scarcity, free access models lack a reliable way to assess how much of something to produce, at the expense of other things that could be produced instead. To me, they seem to fall victim to production and distribution becoming uncoupled with no way to effectively marshall the right labour to where its needed to keep up with the ceiling-less demand.....

[ckaihatsu]

Can you be more specific about what part of labour voucher reasoning is not fully thought through? (as alluded to in your graphic?)


Sure -- this:





I feel sometimes that post-scarcity, free access models lack a reliable way to assess how much of something to produce, at the expense of other things that could be produced instead. To me, they seem to fall victim to production and distribution becoming uncoupled with no way to effectively marshall the right labour to where its needed to keep up with the ceiling-less demand.....


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Your graphic seems to imply that things produced must match up with available labour and resources,


Well, where do produced-things come from, anyway -- ?





and that consumption and distribution would be have to be matched to labour expended


(Ditto.)

Otherwise there's labor wasted, or produced goods wasted.





also as producers are of course also consumers. But surely this is the case in any economy?


Of course it's *not* the case with the *capitalist* economy, since the *overproduction* of goods and services is endemic.

Or, perhaps you mean in any *post*-capitalist (model) economy -- ? If so, then 'yes', but I still haven't seen a satisfactory proposed-implementation for such, aside from my own:





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

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If nobody works, then nobody lives. It's quite simple - the motivation for self-preservation is universal and tends to be quite powerful.

Remuneration is something where we would work towards free access, so that rather a person doing a highly-skilled job being paid 10x that of a low-skilled person, people would be remunerated by free access to goods produce.

This could be achieved by localised decision-making on what how much of a good the local community needs, what are necessities and what are luxuries etc.

It could also be achieved through the move away from de-skilling and specialisation. If there were no barriers to education and knowledge acquisition, then logically total and average skill of the population would increase. If this were combined with more flexibility (i.e. people being able to move between different productive roles, rather than being set in one specific, wage-paying career for their entire working lives), then this should lead to more motivation, more creativity, higher productivity and output, and contribute to a better standard of living and more happiness.

[ckaihatsu]

If nobody works, then nobody lives. It's quite simple - the motivation for self-preservation is universal and tends to be quite powerful.

Remuneration is something where we would work towards free access, so that rather a person doing a highly-skilled job being paid 10x that of a low-skilled person, people would be remunerated by free access to goods produce.

This could be achieved by localised decision-making on what how much of a good the local community needs, what are necessities and what are luxuries etc.

It could also be achieved through the move away from de-skilling and specialisation. If there were no barriers to education and knowledge acquisition, then logically total and average skill of the population would increase. If this were combined with more flexibility (i.e. people being able to move between different productive roles, rather than being set in one specific, wage-paying career for their entire working lives), then this should lead to more motivation, more creativity, higher productivity and output, and contribute to a better standard of living and more happiness.


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[R]ather a person doing a highly-skilled job being paid 10x that of a low-skilled person, people would be remunerated by free access to goods produce.




[Free access to goods produce] could also be achieved through the move away from de-skilling and specialisation.


The *tricky* part, I'm finding, is that there is no spelling-out of how liberated labor would be valued relative to what it produces -- aside from my own (see post #9).

This dynamic only becomes *murkier* once we *do* de-specialize in full -- consider a small-group 'task force' approach where the group collectively looks into some material issue, perhaps a way to supply sufficient energy virtually automatically, and on an environmentally sustainable basis.

Assuming a best-case, successful implementation from this group's efforts, how would those people of the group then be materially rewarded for their efforts that wind up benefitting the larger society, and possibly all of humanity -- ?

A *socially* determined 'threshold' approach -- as you advocate -- could easily be misaligned with what's *materially* available: Perhaps much stuff has been incidentally produced, but not enough liberated laborers have "earned" the access to it, so then it goes to waste. Or, conversely, what if many liberated laborers have put in very-focused, localist-type efforts, and then proclaim their earning of 'threshold' status as a result, though there's not enough *stuff* produced to satisfy all of their claims -- ?

(Hence my graphic at post #7.)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You can avoid goods being 'incidentally' produced quite easily if production is planned locally and in a genuinely participatory way, thus bridging the consumer-producer gap.

As i've stated in a thread elsewhere, there would of course have to be more formalised systems of governance (new institutions for trade of goods across geographic regions for example) to ensure that the "very-focused, localist-type efforts" that you describe do not lead to a mis-match of consumer needs/wants and produced goods.

[ckaihatsu]

A *socially* determined 'threshold' approach -- as you advocate -- could easily be misaligned with what's *materially* available: Perhaps much stuff has been incidentally produced, but not enough liberated laborers have "earned" the access to it, so then it goes to waste.





You can avoid goods being 'incidentally' produced quite easily if production is planned locally and in a genuinely participatory way, thus bridging the consumer-producer gap.


I agree in *spirit*, but in practice this, literally, would mean that we'd have to first estimate how much social value a group of liberated laborers is *about* to provide, and then, based on that estimate, go ahead and green-light the correct proportionate collection of material rewards that would be due to them once they've completed that portion of labor.

Once that collection has been itemized on a list, *those* materials would then have to be formally ordered, necessitating a requisite amount of liberated labor for *their* production, so that our *initial* group of liberated laborers can receive their due. But for *those* materials to be produced, a *second* group of liberated laborers is needed, and that second group will have their own preferences in the way of material compensation for *their* labor, to produce for the *first* group of liberated laborers. And so on....

This is why I'm of the position that we should avoid any labor-for-material exchanges, because such a practice would be far too unwieldy to be realistic, and would be too similar to today's commodity-production.





I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way, and uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind.




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





As i've stated in a thread elsewhere, there would of course have to be more formalised systems of governance (new institutions for trade of goods across geographic regions for example) to ensure that the "very-focused, localist-type efforts" that you describe do not lead to a mis-match of consumer needs/wants and produced goods.


This, too, if taken literally, is too problematic -- local production that's open to being traded externally, is almost *synonymous* with commodity production. 'Trade' implies consumer-type shopping across a range of buying choices, which implies prices, which implies *markets* across geographic regions.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Instead of 'trade', I should have put 'distribution'. You're right. There needs to be a formalised mechanism by which lots of mini-production centres can distribute their goods effectively across one entire productive unit.

[Blake's Baby]

I have two questions:

1) what is the work initiative in Socialist society?

2) how are wages determined; i.e. How would a doctor be paid versus a roofer or road paver?

I have a question:

what do you mean by 'socialist society'?

Some of see it being synonymous with 'communist society', and therefore there will be no wages.

Some see it as being synonymous with the first stage of communist society, and therefore (as we haven't reached a society of abundance) there may be some form of rationing (usually by labour-time vouchers).

Some see it as being synonymous with the dictatorship of the proletariat, a class society which has not overcome the law of value.

Some see it as being synonymous with state control of industry or even proposals for higher taxes.

So, what the answers will mean depends very much on what the question means.

[ckaihatsu]

Instead of 'trade', I should have put 'distribution'. You're right. There needs to be a formalised mechanism by which lots of mini-production centres can distribute their goods effectively across one entire productive unit.


Thanks -- yes, that's what I was getting at.

[Skyhilist]

I have two questions:

1) what is the work initiative in Socialist society?

2) how are wages determined; i.e. How would a doctor be paid versus a roofer or road paver?

Yeah like Blake's Baby said, it'd be helpful to understand what you mean by 'socialism' since people have so many different definitions.

I can tell you though that most people on here probably wouldn't consider anything involving a wage system to be socialism, and I don't either. What are your conceptions about what socialism is in regards to the way work is? From what you've been taught, is there a currency? Are there bosses? Does everyone just do one job? Is there a large disparity between the worlds of "specialists" like doctors and simple workers like the roofers you mention? All of these things would be useful in helping us understand what you mean - it sounds like you've been taught wrongly though about what socialism entails.

[ckaihatsu]

I have two questions:

1) what is the work initiative in Socialist society?

2) how are wages determined; i.e. How would a doctor be paid versus a roofer or road paver?


Based on this:





Instead of 'trade', I should have put 'distribution'. You're right. There needs to be a formalised mechanism by which lots of mini-production centres can distribute their goods effectively across one entire productive unit.


...I'd say we have an understanding of how the liberated-production-to-all-distribution part works, logistically -- the advantage of any market-free approach is that there no longer has to be any 'middleman' role, as for dealing with exchange values (money). Rather, every incremental *step* of a liberated production supply chain (raw-materials-to-finished-goods) can be seen as a goods-receiving node of production, which, with the addition of liberated labor, produces new goods for subsequent *distribution* (either to further 'downstream' production nodes, or to the end user / consumer). This, in a word, is called 'free distribution' since every point of a liberated production can send its goods directly to where it's been planned-for.

The more-*ambiguous* aspect of this is how the actual *planning* for such would take place, since that implies a kind of *authority* (administration) over all aspects of production -- the 5 economic components from the graphic at post #7: 'goods & services produced', 'world material', 'liberated human labor', 'labor vouchers earned', and 'consumption'.

First, though, to illustrate this, consider a region that's been well-known for its woodworking -- perhaps there are 7 steps to its supply-chain: [A] sourcing the timber, [B] transporting the logs to a mill, [C] initial processing to turn the wood into boards, [D] warehousing the lumber, [E] transporting the wood to any given workshop, [F] the craft of turning the lumber into finished wood products such as tables, and, finally, [G] distribution of the products to their intended destinations.





1) what is the work initiative in Socialist society?


The responses in this thread so far indicate that, for the most basic and common human needs, a 'gift economy' kind of approach would work -- and I tend to agree. But 'wood tables' might even be a *stretch* for such an approach, since many workers involved in woodworking might not feel that wood tables (for example) is a *necessity* for just anyone who requests them, and woodworkers may very well *decline* to contribute such labor on a strictly voluntarist basis for the common good. Nonetheless these woodworkers might, despite the declining of their labor, be able to receive enough from the bounty of the emergent collectivist production (gift-economy) to live the lives they want, without contributing their woodworking labor specifically.

Here's from another thread that generalizes all of this:





The best [...] is to juxtapose this whole [labor credits] framework to that of a 'gift economy', where all liberated labor is strictly *voluntarist* / donated, with no system of currency *or* economics. A gift economy would *not require* the use of labor credits whatsoever, since people could just freely produce at-will from the fully de-privatized world commons, with the material proceeds going towards the common good. (Any social coordination here would only increase the potentials of complexity / sophistication of that production, as with cascading supply chains.)

The *problem* with a gift economy, though, is that it depends on voluntarist individualism too much -- sure, it would be moneyless and entirely self-selected, but there may not be enough emergent social coordination to enable any decisive complex production techniques / processes, or to advance technological developments for the society as a whole, since production could very well remain in its default localist, patchwork state.

My 'communist supply & demand' model implements labor credits to *overcome* this gift-economy limitation. It formally recognizes that various kinds of labor inherently have varying levels of hazards and difficulty, and so the model allows higher rates of labor credits to be earned, per labor hour, for increasingly hazardous and/or difficult kinds of work.

Those who, from whatever efforts completed, earn labor credits, are thus empowered to select and activate liberated labor going-forward, in proportion to those labor credits in-hand. (So, for example, someone who has only worked a few weeks, but at a particularly hazardous role -- say, mining -- would be able to fund someone else's liberated labor, perhaps for *months*, if it's a much-less-difficult work role, since the per-hour rate would be much less. Or, alternatively, the amassed labor credits could possibly fund *several* workers at a much-less-difficult work role, for the same period of time that it took to earn the labor credits with the more-hazardous work of mining.)

The point of *budgeting* labor credits, as an integral part of any locality-backed project or production run, is so that liberated labor is never *exploited*, since the labor credits in possession are proof that a like-proportion of liberated labor has already been completed and serves as justification for coordinating and activating others' liberated labor going-forward.

The system of labor credits does not interfere with any potential gift-economy-type voluntarism or one-to-one-type arrangements regarding liberated labor.


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2) how are wages determined; i.e. How would a doctor be paid versus a roofer or road paver?


The responses on this thread indicate a consensus for an 'economic democracy' kind of approach to the relative valuations of liberated labor, and goods and services, for mass consumption -- economic democracy *could* be compatible with the 'gift economy' implementation, in conjunction with a 'labor vouchers', 'threshold', and/or 'luxury markets' system, *but* there's a critical flaw with the *political determining* of material valuations: An economic-democracy's valuations may be at odds with the *material reality* of what exists for consumption, and what does not.

In brief, the 'liberated' aspect of a post-capitalist society may easily be misaligned with the 'free-access' aspect -- people would certainly want 'free access' but they may also want to be 'liberated' from having to produce, unconditionally. Mass consumption without mass production is unsustainable and unrealistic.

So, finally, any area of production that is roundly eschewed by liberated laborers (at their discretion), despite outstanding mass demand, will, by default, be left to the *markets* for resolution, which would be a failure of the revolutionary collectivizing initiative.

[Ahab Strange]

I feel sometimes that post-scarcity, free access models lack a reliable way to assess how much of something to produce, at the expense of other things that could be produced instead. To me, they seem to fall victim to production and distribution becoming uncoupled with no way to effectively marshall the right labour to where its needed to keep up with the ceiling-less demand..... Actually, that would be my criticism with a system that does NOT use some form of labour voucher, and instead promotes everything being free-access (e.g. the SPGB position)

I guess I am swayed by the old calculation argument to a degree, in that a rational metric of account is needed even in a planned economy. You cannot just calculate in kind as there also needs to be constraints and feedback from the consumer side. Labour time provides this. If we are able to calculate the total amount of labour needed to produce everything in society, we can surely remunerate peoples contribution of labour hours with an entitlement to take goods/and services from society that match that contribution. They planning system should be able to allocate labour to what is needed, but seeing as people would have an income of sorts it would provide some constraint on limitless demand which would occur if everything was free.

However, to address the second question of the OP, in terms of how I see it:

Everyone would be entitled to a guaranteed income and to the full product of their labour, minus a deduction for social goods and a services that are useful for everyone (supporting the sick and elderly, public transport etc). There is no exploitation or creaming off surplus value by a capitalist, improving everyone's income instantly anyway. At the moment I am of the opinion that people would have more or less a similar baseline income across the board, regardless of what they do. Incomes are in the form of non-circulating labour vouchers that are cancelled once exchanged for goods and services, which are themselves part of the means of distribution, collectively owned by all as part of the planning network. The more hours of labour you put in the more you will be remunerated, so you can improve your income and are only limited by your ability to work.

If you are a roofer but want to become a doctor, then you study for it. This study is not only free but imo should be a PAID activity, as studying is a labour activity in itself that ultimately contributes to society. The teaching and training you receive is just the same as the steel and silicion that goes to make a car. It is a produced input, an intermediate good, and can be accounted for by the planning system as just another expenditure of labour. Even if it takes 7 years to become a doctor, you are being paid throughout for the time that you put in, so what justification is there for vastly superior remuneration once you become a doctor?

[Comrade Jacob]

I think wages should be abolished fairly early after toppling the capitalist-class (10 year, give or take).

[Blake's Baby]

I think wages should be immediately abolished. All social products should be rationed and prioritised for those in most need.