Craftsmen in communism

[Redhead]

In a communist society, what would happen to for example carpenters and electricians? Usually these are organized in many and small private business. But with the aboloshing of private firms, how would these be managed?

[Maraam]

The short answer is however they'd want to. If we're talking about 'full' communism, stateless, moneyless etc., then most likely they'd group together into organizations that provide their own training and certifications, as well as some who would freelance and go independent. Likely though some organization would be necessary, as trades often require very difficult training and thus some group that has a high reputation will need to offer this training and keep logs of who has and who hasn't received the training.

[Tjis]

There's no reason, even before revolution, to keep a form of organization which divides various craftsmen over many different businesses. Craftsmen should be organized through a union, through a cooperative network, or both, long before there's any revolutionary situation. Furthermore, communists should work toward cooperation of all such worker organizations for a bigger purpose - revolution.
Whether through union or coop, on the eve of revolution these craftsmen should be organized in a way that allows them to take over power from whatever business structure preceded it.

[ckaihatsu]

Without contradicting what Maraam and Tjis have said, I'll add that the paradigm shift of going to communism would profoundly affect how common things would be sourced and produced.

Couple of points:

We're used to thinking of certain crafts and professions as being strictly within the domain of one's working life, but a post-capitalist communal ethos would cut *against* such specialization, and could very well *generalize* cooperative social roles -- even technical ones -- amongst *everyone*.

Common machinery could be set up in such a way that *anyone* could walk up to it and initiate its operation, for the production of whatever, on-the-spot. Mass education could complement this kind of cooperative-producer ethos, so that everyone becomes familiar with what's necessary to operate the communal producing machines, and the principles underlying them.

But, hopefully, even *that* wouldn't be necessary -- at some point mechanical operations should be inter-integrated so well that full automation would become a reality. Machines could *fix* machines, machines could *source* raw materials, and machines could *produce* readily, to fulfill human needs and wants. Doubtlessly there'd be plenty who'd still take a more-technical interest in all of the above, so that there'd be enough active knowledge and expertise circulating in an ongoing way.

[bropasaran]

Depends which communism. If communism is imposed, as a lot of people want it to be, then individual firms would not exist, money would not be allowed, and all people in artisan-like jobs would have to do their work as a part of the collective plan of production.

If communism is to be really libertarian, that is, if anarcho-communism is established, they could either join the collectivized economy or function outside it as worker coops, always on condition that they don't oppress or exploit anyone.

In Anarchist Spain, for example, in almost all collectivized communities there were dissenters, peasants and artisans who didn't want to join the economic federation, I think I remember reading somewhere that less then 5% of collectivized communities were collectivized totally. The dissenters continued to use money among themselves, and the collectives had no problem with that, in many cases bartered with them, mostly out of solidarity.

A slight problem arises with this sort of arrangement in industrialized societies because the dissenters would presumably (if they don't go primitivist or luddite) have to use the infrastructure, which would be collectivized, and there are two answers: either let them use it with no strings attached because we will be will able to afford to do that because of the abundance available as a consequence of establishment of socialist society; or, as proposed by Gregori Maximoff- institute a sort of small "taxation" for the dissenters as a charge for their use of roads, electricity, water infrastructure etc.

[Blake's Baby]

How would there be 'co-ops' if 'anarcho-communism' was established? There would be no money.

People, belonging to the community, would have certain skills (eg, knowing about plumbing). They would use those skills for the community, just like everyone else would do.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How would there be 'co-ops' if 'anarcho-communism' was established? There would be no money.

That's evil Bolshevik imposed communism according to impossible. True anarcho-communism means co-operatives and money, apparently.

In any case, as I said some time ago, people would preform services for free. There would presumably be some coordination - people would have to be able to get plumbing services without personally knowing a plumber after all. So there would probably exist some sort of directory, a service to compile it etc. It would probably be most effective if all of the plumbers, etc. in an area held their tools in common, as well. Tool production would have to be taken into account in the general economic plan as well, which makes accurate data about the number of service providers even more important.

[Blake's Baby]

No, it isn't. Kropotkin criticised Marx precisely on the basis that after Marx's revolution 'money' (ie labour vouchers) would still exist (so Marx wasn't a communist), whereas in Kropotkin's sceme, money would be abolished immediately (so Kropotkin really was a communist).

The fact that most Marxists accept Kropotkin was right while a lot of Anarchists think there will be money after the revolution probably demonstrates something but I don't know what.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No, it isn't. Kropotkin criticised Marx precisely on the basis that after Marx's revolution 'money' (ie labour vouchers) would still exist (so Marx wasn't a communist), whereas in Kropotkin's sceme, money would be abolished immediately (so Kropotkin really was a communist).

Right, I'm aware of that, I'm just pointing out that our friend impossible has a... unique... view on these matters.


The fact that most Marxists accept Kropotkin was right while a lot of Anarchists think there will be money after the revolution probably demonstrates something but I don't know what.

Do a lot of anarchists think so? Or are there just a lot of people on the internet who proclaim themselves to be anarchists, while advocating co-ops, parliamentarianism or voting for Obama? From what I've seen of actual anarchists I would guess it's the second one.

[Blake's Baby]

Will, I don't think Impossible's view is unique, but perhaps the anarchists who claim that will be money after the revolution are, as you say, internet anarchists rather than real-world class-struggle anarchists. Actual anarchists in the real world are in my experience theoretically much better equipped.

'Proudhonist-Bakuninist' as a description is probably a bit of a clue, as there is no Proudhonist or Bakuninist current that exists as an organisational form. Just a form of raical liberalism that equates revolutionary organisation with coercion, and the retention of money as 'freedom'.

[bropasaran]

I suggest reading these somewhat short essays:


What if I don't want to join a commune?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secI5.html#seci57

Is communist-anarchism compulsory?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secG2.html#secg21

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Hmmm...

[ckaihatsu]

Depends which communism. If communism is imposed, as a lot of people want it to be, then individual firms would not exist, money would not be allowed, and all people in artisan-like jobs would have to do their work as a part of the collective plan of production.


As others have noted here this entire conception completely misses what revolution is all about.

Anarchists really seem to have a *fetish*, or nostalgia, for a pre-industrial mode of production -- it's almost as bad as libertarians, who talk in a time-warp kind of way about a world of only family farms, etc.

In other words, why would artisans even be *considered* for inputs to a worldwide system of mass production for human need -- (!) If people need homes, or furniture, or electronic devices, clothing, shoes, vehicles, and so on, would such conceivably be produced one-at-a-time by *artisans*, or would it all come streaming off of assembly lines -- ?

And if there was unmet need for some subset population of humanity, would 'artisans' slink off to do their 'craft', or would they rally and pitch in with the efforts of mass production to *satisfy* that unmet need -- ?

Sure, once human privation is no more, then considerations of a finer sort -- as for handcrafted goods -- may become more appropriate, but *until then* it continues to sound strange whenever the petty 'artisan' approach is juxtaposed against mass industrial production.





[K]ropotkin criticised Marx precisely on the basis that after Marx's revolution 'money' (ie labour vouchers) would still exist (so Marx wasn't a communist), whereas in Kropotkin's sceme, money would be abolished immediately (so Kropotkin really was a communist).


I've found severe shortcomings with both the labor-vouchers conception, and the 'moneyless' conception -- I'll be glad to elaborate on both:





Labor vouchers imply a political economy that *consciously* determines valuations, but there's nothing to guarantee that such oversight -- regardless of its composition -- would properly take material realities into account. Such a system would be open to the systemic problems of groupthink and elitism.




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


Pies Must Line Up

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


---





[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.)

[Blake's Baby]

...

In other words, why would artisans even be *considered* for inputs to a worldwide system of mass production for human need -- (!) If people need homes, or furniture, or electronic devices, clothing, shoes, vehicles, and so on, would such conceivably be produced one-at-a-time by *artisans*, or would it all come streaming off of assembly lines -- ?...

I think probably both. Some people like making things. Why would you want to stop them?

[ckaihatsu]

I think probably both. Some people like making things. Why would you want to stop them?


It wouldn't be some sort of overriding authoritarian meanness that forces everyone into countryside quarries to endlessly break rocks with pickaxes, as is the common stereotype here -- more to the point is that it would simply be a matter of societal material *priorities*, as already mentioned:





[I]f there was unmet need for some subset population of humanity, would 'artisans' slink off to do their 'craft', or would they rally and pitch in with the efforts of mass production to *satisfy* that unmet need -- ?

[Blake's Baby]

If people need chairs, why shouldn't people who know how to make chairs, and like making chairs, make chairs?

[ckaihatsu]

If people need chairs, why shouldn't people who know how to make chairs, and like making chairs, make chairs?


You're glossing over the *type* of production used for making those chairs -- if it takes 1,000 artisans to make chairs for 10,000 people over the course of a month, while a factory process could readily make 10,000 chairs using only *50* workers, then clearly we could check-off 'chairs' from our collective 'to-do' list far more quickly by using mass production than artisan production.

The determining variable would be *how urgently* that production is needed -- sure, if pretty much everything else was already well-in-place, and all that was left for humanity to straighten-out was 'chair production', then, sure, no biggie, let artisans / hobbyists do what they like to fulfill such trivial demand.

[Blake's Baby]

I think you're approaching this the wrong way round. Sure, if we needed a billion chairs and we only had three days, then we ask all the chairmakers to go to the furniture factories to help get a billion chairs made. But when they go home in the evening, would you stop them carving a leg or two? And, more prosaically, why would that situation even arrise in the first place?

I think some prodduction in communist society would be way less 'efficient' than it is now, because 'efficient' production is also often noisy, hazardous and/or otherwise unpleasant (including being boring). Doing some things in a more pleasant way may involve not doing it quickly in a giant factory but slowly in a small workshop. I don't think this is a problem, in fact I see it as a bonus.

[bropasaran]

As others have noted here this entire conception completely misses what revolution is all about.
And they are completely wrong.


Anarchists really seem to have a *fetish*
The only fetish that anarchists have is the fetish for liberty, against oppression and exploitation. Imposed communism is oppression.

[ckaihatsu]

I think you're approaching this the wrong way round. Sure, if we needed a billion chairs and we only had three days, then we ask all the chairmakers to go to the furniture factories to help get a billion chairs made. But when they go home in the evening, would you stop them carving a leg or two? And, more prosaically, why would that situation even arrise in the first place?


You're correct in noting that this is a very contrived scenario -- it would be a wholly different matter if the task at hand was food production or recovering from a particularly bad earthquake or tsunami.





I think some prodduction in communist society would be way less 'efficient' than it is now, because 'efficient' production is also often noisy, hazardous and/or otherwise unpleasant (including being boring). Doing some things in a more pleasant way may involve not doing it quickly in a giant factory but slowly in a small workshop. I don't think this is a problem, in fact I see it as a bonus.


I won't dismiss this, except to make the general point that the world's proletariat would have a common collective interest in de-specializing *all* tasks -- this means pushing ahead as quickly as possible to *full automation*, so that the fulfillment of either food or chairs would then be as simple as pushing a button. (Otherwise the *default* approach would depend on either specialized / artisan, and/or gruntwork tasks, which would alienate most, and would be rebuffed by most -- an undesirable social game of 'hot potato'.)

[ckaihatsu]

Depends which communism. If communism is imposed, as a lot of people want it to be, then individual firms would not exist, money would not be allowed, and all people in artisan-like jobs would have to do their work as a part of the collective plan of production.





As others have noted here this entire conception completely misses what revolution is all about.





And they are completely wrong.


No, to clarify, I'm saying that:





[W]hy would artisans even be *considered* for inputs to a worldwide system of mass production for human need -- (!) If people need homes, or furniture, or electronic devices, clothing, shoes, vehicles, and so on, would such conceivably be produced one-at-a-time by *artisans*, or would it all come streaming off of assembly lines -- ?


---





The only fetish that anarchists have is the fetish for liberty, against oppression and exploitation. Imposed communism is oppression.


This is a strawman construction.

"Imposed communism" merely invokes the boogeyman of an unsuccessful revolution and its succession by a heavy-handed Stalinist state -- you're just being blithely defeatist and fatalistic, for no good reason, which is just being contrarian.

[Blake's Baby]

You're correct in noting that this is a very contrived scenario -- it would be a wholly different matter if the task at hand was food production or recovering from a particularly bad earthquake or tsunami...

OK; as I said with the somewhat contrived notion of having to fulfil a large order of chairs... if there's some sort of crisis then of course people might have to give up doing 'hobby' work for a bit in order to pitch in and help get things sorted.



...
I won't dismiss this, except to make the general point that the world's proletariat would have a common collective interest in de-specializing *all* tasks -- this means pushing ahead as quickly as possible to *full automation*, so that the fulfillment of either food or chairs would then be as simple as pushing a button. (Otherwise the *default* approach would depend on either specialized / artisan, and/or gruntwork tasks, which would alienate most, and would be rebuffed by most -- an undesirable social game of 'hot potato'.)

I'm not sure I agree. I think, people like doing things. I think people should be able to do things if they wish. Are you going to tell people who like gardening that they can't because food production is automated? Are you going tell people who like making carved wooden chessboards they can't because chessboard production is automated?

I'm all for automation. The less time I have to be on the rota for cleaning the sewers, the better, as far as I'm concerned. And repeat that for a whole bunch of other unpleasant tasks. But that has to balanced with other inconveniences - do I have to live next to a noisy factory that runs all night? In which case, I (and others in my community) might prefer not to organise production that way.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm all for automation. The less time I have to be on the rota for cleaning the sewers, the better, as far as I'm concerned. And repeat that for a whole bunch of other unpleasant tasks. But that has to balanced with other inconveniences - do I have to live next to a noisy factory that runs all night? In which case, I (and others in my community) might prefer not to organise production that way.

Is it really the decision of "your" community, though? That seems to simply reproduce the social relations of capitalism, with vague "communities" taking the place of capitalist enterprise.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.

The difference is that now, economic decisions are made by various autonomous entities competing on the market; in socialism economic decisions will be made by society itself. Sorry, what you propose seems to invite the worst sort of NIMBY stupidity.

[Blake's Baby]

Will people in Nairobi be consulted over whether to build a recycling plant in the outskirts of Toronto, do you think?

If so, why do you think it's necessary?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Will people in Nairobi be consulted over whether to build a recycling plant in the outskirts of Toronto, do you think?

If so, why do you think it's necessary?

Because we live in a society that has achieved a global circulation of goods and the social character of production extends to the global level. That plant in Toronto will have consequences - perhaps not big ones, but consequences nonetheless - for people in Nairobi (and it's not as if, in communism, people will not move around more, so that it's perfectly possible that someone will live in Nairobi today and in Toronto the next month).

[Blake's Baby]

OK. Every decision about everything must be taken by everyone - is that seriously what you're saying?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

OK. Every decision about everything must be taken by everyone - is that seriously what you're saying?

When it comes to economic planning, yes. The economic plan needs to be general and social. Anything other than that is really not the area of responsibility of a socialist society - where people live, where they work and how, what clothes they wear etc.

[Tim Cornelis]

haha^

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

* I'm an idiotic Proudhonist who reads bourgie professors and posts irritating one-liners.

[Tim Cornelis]

That one one-liner had more substance than all your posts in this thread. You are utterly ridiculous. You have indulged in 'Marxism' (a bastard misinterpretation thereof) to the point of self-delusion, and now you advocate that billions of people are going to be involved in whether or not Hoenderloo will be allowed to construct a bicycle path -- and that anything short of this is Proudhonist market 'socialism' and free association of producers nonsense. A 'haha' one-liner is more than appropriate and sufficient. You said you wondered whether this forum was a place for you, and whether people here really advocated what you advocate, well apparently they don't. You are the only person in the world to advocate what you do. A weird lalaland of omniscient people with infinite cognitive abilities, infinite time, and an infinite concentration span apparently. You don't understand nearly enough of the things you write about as you think you do. Get a clue.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Because of course Hoenderloo will continue to exist in socialism. In fact socialism won't change the world at all, all we'll do is drape some snail flags over everything, atomise the productive forces a bit and call it a day.

Actually, central planning is advocated by all Marxists-Leninists, Bolshevik-Leninists and Bordigists at least. You need to appreciate the fact that your little Internet Zapatista-and-MST cult is just that, an insignificant Internet phenomenon.

Half of your posts are "* its", which just makes you look like a pillock, and half of them are pop-liberal bullshit about how racism is caused by The Just World Phenomenon (TM). You're about as communist as Pinker, less so in fact because Pinker at least doesn't spread illusions in social-democracy and small commodity production.

[Tim Cornelis]

Ah, there you go again with the strawmen. Because you know you arguments make no sense, so you have to consistently lie to feel like you can win an argument. You are pathologically delusional. You must have a sad and pathetic existence.

90% of your posts are 'Everyone else is a Proudhonist, I'm the only Marxist(™). Marx was a Proudhonist'. You literally rejected a concept that is central to Marxism and can be found throughout Marx' writings because you deemed it 'Proudhonist' (i.e. associated labour). Maybe you're an elaborate troll, maybe not. Either way, it's pathetic.

Really, 'billions of people are going to get involved in the decision-making concerning bicycle paths all over the world', you're delusional.

Fuck off mate.

[Blake's Baby]

Keep it polite if you can comrades.

My position is much closer to Tim's here (god knows we've argued like shit for years so that is something of a novelty). Yes there will be 'central planning' but that doesn't mean 'centralised planning', the World Council deciding what we need to do all the time.

We will know what we need globally, we will know what we can produce locally, and we will be able to marry these two up. It's not hard surely? It's also not necessary to consult the inhabitants of Katmandu if someone in Birmingham wants to have a day off from the bicycle factory or if someone in the middle of Peru has an idea about how to get a higher yield from the coca harvest (or if people in Hoenderloo want to build a bicycle path).

[Tim Cornelis]

Keep it polite if you can comrades.

My position is much closer to Tim's here (god knows we've argued like shit for years so that is something of a novelty). Yes there will be 'central planning' but that doesn't mean 'centralised planning', the World Council deciding what we need to do all the time.

We will know what we need globally, we will know what we can produce locally, and we will be able to marry these two up. It's not hard surely? It's also not necessary to consult the inhabitants of Katmandu if someone in Birmingham wants to have a day off from the bicycle factory or if someone in the middle of Peru has an idea about how to get a higher yield from the coca harvest (or if people in Hoenderloo want to build a bicycle path).

Yeah but comrade, Kathmandu will not exist in socialism, what are ya, some kind of Proudhonist liberal? All cities and villages will be deconstructed and then new ones will be reconstructed on slightly different places, because socialism is a qualitative change. You'd understand that if you weren't such a Proudhonist liberal.

[ckaihatsu]

OK; as I said with the somewhat contrived notion of having to fulfil a large order of chairs... if there's some sort of crisis then of course people might have to give up doing 'hobby' work for a bit in order to pitch in and help get things sorted.


That's all I'm really saying -- everything's a matter of priorities, so in the interval directly after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie there would be an urgency for finally supplying all of humanity with whatever's lacking, but not on a slow, artisanal schedule.


---





[T]he world's proletariat would have a common collective interest in de-specializing *all* tasks -- this means pushing ahead as quickly as possible to *full automation*, so that the fulfillment of either food or chairs would then be as simple as pushing a button. (Otherwise the *default* approach would depend on either specialized / artisan, and/or gruntwork tasks, which would alienate most, and would be rebuffed by most -- an undesirable social game of 'hot potato'.)





I'm not sure I agree. I think, people like doing things. I think people should be able to do things if they wish. Are you going to tell people who like gardening that they can't because food production is automated? Are you going tell people who like making carved wooden chessboards they can't because chessboard production is automated?


Since you're inviting me to do so, *sure* -- *I'll* be the bad guy who goes around throwing wet towels on everyone.... (grin)

No, but seriously, you're now playing devil's advocate for the sake of argumentation rather than acknowledging that actual real-world conditions would be the greatest determining factor in how leisurely a post-capitalist society could be.

I probably should've included this earlier:


[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/)





I'm all for automation. The less time I have to be on the rota for cleaning the sewers, the better, as far as I'm concerned. And repeat that for a whole bunch of other unpleasant tasks. But that has to balanced with other inconveniences - do I have to live next to a noisy factory that runs all night? In which case, I (and others in my community) might prefer not to organise production that way.


Okay, no noisy factories for Blake's Baby & Friends -- check.


= D

[ckaihatsu]

Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.


Here's one conception regarding scale, for the sake of illustration:


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/)

[Blake's Baby]

I'm sorry ckaihatsu, sometimes your graphics look like something from a videogame and the text is very hard to read.

Multiple scales of decision-making yes. Decisions should be taken by neighbourhoods, by agglomerations of neighbourhoods, by regions, by continents and globally. But not all decisions need to be passed upwards to bigger-scale entities. Building a dam that affects 100 million people? Probably needs to be decided at continental level. Building a dam that affects 100 people? The neighbourhood can probably sort that out.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry ckaihatsu, sometimes your graphics look like something from a videogame and the text is very hard to read.


My apologies -- that problem is specific to that particular graphic, since the resolution is *meant* to be extraordinarily large, while at the same time the board's software doesn't *allow* for such a large image size. You may want to click the thumbnail image provided, and then click on the screen-size image that follows, to then get the full-size image from the external host for downloading and custom viewing in your favorite image viewer.





Multiple scales of decision-making yes. Decisions should be taken by neighbourhoods, by agglomerations of neighbourhoods, by regions, by continents and globally. But not all decisions need to be passed upwards to bigger-scale entities. Building a dam that affects 100 million people? Probably needs to be decided at continental level. Building a dam that affects 100 people? The neighbourhood can probably sort that out.


Yes, that's the point of the graphic exactly -- to assert that 'centralization' should be in proportion to the geographical area being affected / served. All liberated production should be generalized / scaled-up as much as possible, to arrive at economies of scale that could never be realized from a strict localism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm not even going to bother with Tim. I have better things to do, like stick my fingers in an electrical socket.


Yes there will be 'central planning' but that doesn't mean 'centralised planning', the World Council deciding what we need to do all the time.

We will know what we need globally, we will know what we can produce locally, and we will be able to marry these two up. It's not hard surely? It's also not necessary to consult the inhabitants of Katmandu if someone in Birmingham wants to have a day off from the bicycle factory or if someone in the middle of Peru has an idea about how to get a higher yield from the coca harvest (or if people in Hoenderloo want to build a bicycle path).

I genuinely don't think places like Hoenderloo would exist - they're not the most rational way of housing people and allocating services. Probably, some time after the revolution, we will see a sort of standardisation, consolidation of villages into (initially agricultural) cities and so on.

In any case, my point was that local knowledge is not nearly enough to plan production. Let us suppose that Nairobi has an advanced steel mill, the only of its kind in the world. That doesn't mean anything if the production of iron ore in central Australia falls, causing less iron to be sent to the mill.

So there are two options, as far as I can tell. Either the operation of the steel mill in Nairobi can be planned together with the operation of iron mines in central Australia (and the nuclear power plants in south Australia and uranium mines, probably also in Australia, the backup geothermal power plants in Iceland, the shipping sector, etc. etc.). Or the steel mill in Nairobi can enter into market negotiations with the Australian iron mines.

As for the cocoa harvest in Peru, in a planned economy, overproduction is almost as much of a problem as underproduction. If the cocoa plantations do not coordinate with the chocolate factories etc., the Peru Labour Commune will end up with warehouses filled with rotting cocoa.

Labour is something of an exception because obviously there will be no government to force people to work unless they want to do so.


Multiple scales of decision-making yes. Decisions should be taken by neighbourhoods, by agglomerations of neighbourhoods, by regions, by continents and globally. But not all decisions need to be passed upwards to bigger-scale entities. Building a dam that affects 100 million people? Probably needs to be decided at continental level. Building a dam that affects 100 people? The neighbourhood can probably sort that out.

Are there dams that affect only 100 people? Perhaps if you only look at the direct effect, but the aggregate effects of the dam will have an effect on more than 100 people.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm not even going to bother with Tim. I have better things to do, like stick my fingers in an electrical socket.

You're just mad that I point out that you called Marx a Proudhonist.* But by all means, end your pathetic existence of being the only Marxist in the entire world. So sad.

Me: "freely associated equal producers and consumers"
Vincent West: "This voluntary "free association" is what Proudhon advocated - there is nothing of the sort to be found in Marx."
Marx: "freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan." "capital can be superseded by the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers." "[socialism is] a society composed of associations of free and equal producers consciously acting upon a common and rational plan"
Ergo: Marx is a Proudhonist according to Vincent West.



Actually, central planning is advocated by all Marxists-Leninists, Bolshevik-Leninists and Bordigists at least. You need to appreciate the fact that your little Internet Zapatista-and-MST cult is just that, an insignificant Internet phenomenon.

I also like how you suggest that Stalinists/Marxist-Leninists are superior to me, and then accuse me of supporting a Stalinist movement (the MST). But no, none of those people suggest that everyone will need to be involved with everything on every matter at all times. In fact, Stalinists want a very select number of people doing all the planning.

(Now, that I'm responding I don't support the MST ideologically, which is a lie and I told you it was a lie, but you continue to lie because that way you can continue to represent yourself as authentically Marxist whereas everyone else is just Proudhonist, including Marx apparently). Nor is the MST-Zapatista even an internet phenomenon. It doesn't exist. It's a figment of your overzealous imagination. A chimera you brought into existence to represent yourself as authentically Marxist whereas everyone else is just Proudhonist.

[Blake's Baby]

...
I genuinely don't think places like Hoenderloo would exist - they're not the most rational way of housing people and allocating services. Probably, some time after the revolution, we will see a sort of standardisation, consolidation of villages into (initially agricultural) cities and so on...

I don't really care where the places in themselves are. the point is that it's some local decision ('will the inhabitants of Community A in the region currently known as The Netherlands be able to build a cycle-path without consulting 7 billion who are not impacted by the decision in any meaningful way?').


... In any case, my point was that local knowledge is not nearly enough to plan production. Let us suppose that Nairobi has an advanced steel mill, the only of its kind in the world. That doesn't mean anything if the production of iron ore in central Australia falls, causing less iron to be sent to the mill...

It's unlikely that such a sitution would arise but if it did then I think it's a good example of a situation which would require multiple levels of authority.


... So there are two options, as far as I can tell. Either the operation of the steel mill in Nairobi can be planned together with the operation of iron mines in central Australia (and the nuclear power plants in south Australia and uranium mines, probably also in Australia, the backup geothermal power plants in Iceland, the shipping sector, etc. etc.). Or the steel mill in Nairobi can enter into market negotiations with the Australian iron mines...

I don't see that market negotiations need to come into it at all. I'll go back to 'global what, local how' (given that local here mean little more than 'not necessarily global')- we know that we need x-million tonnes of steel this year, and that the factory in Nairobi is the best in the world. Nairobi itself says 'we can fulfil y-million tonnes of the plan if we get z-tonnes of iron ore'. Australia says 'we can provide z-tonnes of iron ore, if there's sufficient power, we'll talk to all the power stations and see what we can do'.


...As for the cocoa harvest in Peru, in a planned economy, overproduction is almost as much of a problem as underproduction. If the cocoa plantations do not coordinate with the chocolate factories etc., the Peru Labour Commune will end up with warehouses filled with rotting cocoa...

Actually, I wrote 'coca'. For the production of painkillers used in dentistry. But never mind.


...Labour is something of an exception because obviously there will be no government to force people to work unless they want to do so...

Which is potentially a problem: you mention 'NIMBYism' but there is a potential for 'NOMWism' ('Not On My Watch-ism') I suspect. Hovercars and robot butlers? I'll vote for that. Having to work 10 hours extra a week, to build hovercars and robot butlers? Nah, let's vote to get the chaps in Shanghai do that.




...Are there dams that affect only 100 people? Perhaps if you only look at the direct effect, but the aggregate effects of the dam will have an effect on more than 100 people.

Not sure. I'm thinking of something like building a pond (for whatever reason - it doesn't matter, it's the scale that's important not the purpose, let's just say it's a very small scale hydro-electric endeavour).

[Sinister Intents]

I'll add my two cents to the OP: My concrete business would become the collective property of the community. I'd still do the labor with the equipment at my place, the means of production for this business are insignificant compared to a batch plant. Anyone could get the tools necessary for this labor, and with my skill in this field I'd help people get what they need as per concrete. Countertops made of concrete are a great idea for homes. You could call me up and give me the dimensions, I'll set up the forms, get the mix ready, lay the concrete in place, let it cure after the surface has been prepared, stamp it, and color it. I enjoy working with cement and cementitious mixtures. Anything can be done with concrete!

[PhoenixAsh]

99% of the problems would be solved with an email send to the ones who produce what you need:

"hey mates....we need 20.000 chairs. Can you help us out? Also we got your email concerning bicycle bells and we will have them finished by the end of the month. We will organize shipping towards your locale with our neighbors who are very good truck drivers and they will organize the necessary boat trip with the harbour community up north.

Have a nice day"

Problem solved.

We don't need central bureaucracy to plan and then tell us what we must do and when to do it. We do it ourselves.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's unlikely that such a sitution would arise but if it did then I think it's a good example of a situation which would require multiple levels of authority.

I'm not sure why you consider such situations to be unlikely. There is always a small probability of an accident, a natural disaster, workers leaving the economic unit, failure in other units affecting the supply of raw materials to the unit in question, and so on, and when multiplied by the number of economic units in the world, we get a number that can't be ignored.


I don't see that market negotiations need to come into it at all. I'll go back to 'global what, local how' (given that local here mean little more than 'not necessarily global')- we know that we need x-million tonnes of steel this year, and that the factory in Nairobi is the best in the world. Nairobi itself says 'we can fulfil y-million tonnes of the plan if we get z-tonnes of iron ore'. Australia says 'we can provide z-tonnes of iron ore, if there's sufficient power, we'll talk to all the power stations and see what we can do'.

Alright, so it seems that you're proposing that individual economic units decide how their product is to be distributed, at least for industrial products. Am I correct?

If that is the case, what is to stop unit A from deciding to give most of its production to unit B because unit B did them some favour, since they would rather have their supply of raw materials secured than rely on various possible suppliers? And that is a form of market exchange. In fact it seems to me that, since units that engage in such market exchange would have a secure supply of necessary goods, they would be more effective than those who did "business" honestly.

Second, this means that there is effectively no central planning, and none of the benefits of central planning apply. We can't account for opportunity costs, for example. Materials will be wasted and so on.

Now, if the various units share the information about their capacities and the raw materials they need, as well as potential problem, projections of their operating capacity for the next five or seven years etc., and then a general plan is drawn up, that is central planning, and I think it is the only realistic possibility for a global society with socialised production.


Actually, I wrote 'coca'. For the production of painkillers used in dentistry. But never mind.

Oh. I wondered where you found cocoa in Peru, but I didn't want to point that out and sound like a prick (particularly since my knowledge of Peru's agriculture is spotty and for all I know, there could be cocoa plantations in Peru). I think my point still stands, though: if the coca production is improved while the demand for painkillers and recreational drugs remains the same the PLC will have a lot of rotting coca leaves in their warehouses.


Which is potentially a problem: you mention 'NIMBYism' but there is a potential for 'NOMWism' ('Not On My Watch-ism') I suspect. Hovercars and robot butlers? I'll vote for that. Having to work 10 hours extra a week, to build hovercars and robot butlers? Nah, let's vote to get the chaps in Shanghai do that.

Yes, that is a potential problem. I don't claim to know all the answers, if I did I might ask for journalists to stand up when my socialistness enters the room or something. Nonetheless it stands to reason that (1) in a socialist society, the movement of people will be easier than it is today, so "the chap in Shanghai" could be you in a few months, and (2) work, being free of the constraints of class society, will no longer be onerous. I don't think factories will be as they are today - gods, I hope not.


Not sure. I'm thinking of something like building a pond (for whatever reason - it doesn't matter, it's the scale that's important not the purpose, let's just say it's a very small scale hydro-electric endeavour).

Obviously they're a scale below which economic units become simple hobby projects - I don't think the Central Soviet (I always thought World Council sounded too Wellsian) in Addis Ababa will plan for every child's lemonade stand. That said, obviously building a pond could have all sorts of effects - from affecting the ecosystem to being a nuisance if mosquitoes start to breed there and so on.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll add my two cents to the OP: My concrete business would become the collective property of the community. I'd still do the labor with the equipment at my place, the means of production for this business are insignificant compared to a batch plant. Anyone could get the tools necessary for this labor, and with my skill in this field I'd help people get what they need as per concrete. Countertops made of concrete are a great idea for homes. You could call me up and give me the dimensions, I'll set up the forms, get the mix ready, lay the concrete in place, let it cure after the surface has been prepared, stamp it, and color it. I enjoy working with cement and cementitious mixtures. Anything can be done with concrete!





99% of the problems would be solved with an email send to the ones who produce what you need:

"hey mates....we need 20.000 chairs. Can you help us out? Also we got your email concerning bicycle bells and we will have them finished by the end of the month. We will organize shipping towards your locale with our neighbors who are very good truck drivers and they will organize the necessary boat trip with the harbour community up north.

Have a nice day"

Problem solved.

We don't need central bureaucracy to plan and then tell us what we must do and when to do it. We do it ourselves.


Without meaning to dismiss either of you, I'll note that these localist-type approaches, while understandable, may not always be the most appropriate -- I'll readily point out that the materials *for* the concrete have to be sourced from somewhere, and that *that* would be the trickier, more gruntwork-oriented aspect of the production process there.

While the attitude and optimism are exemplary, there could very well be situations where the lateral, patchwork coordination *doesn't* work out -- where the truck drivers are *not* intrinsically motivated to transport a bunch of bicycle bells or whatever....

It's at the edges of such localist gift economies that the introduction of centralization would be a *boon* instead of a hindrance -- people shouldn't be forced to rely on a sustained community 'good vibes' sentiment in order to feel and know that they're contributing an *appropriate* amount of labor in relation to everyone else's.

I'll just go ahead and drop the other shoe here, to explicitly say that I have an approach to fill this gap that can't be covered by either a localist gift economy or an incomplete 'labor vouchers' method:





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

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




Associated material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources have no quantifiable value -- are considered as attachments to the production process

labor [supply] -- Labor supply is selected and paid for with existing (or debt-based) labor credits

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




Determination of material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources may be created and sourced from projects and production runs

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

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




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

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




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

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

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




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

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

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may create templates of political priority lists for the sake of convenience, modifiable at any time until the date of activation -- regular, repeating orders can be submitted into an automated workflow for no interruption of service or orders




A further explanation and sample scenario can be found here:


'A world without money'

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


'Hours as a measure of labor’

tinyurl.com/yh3jr9x




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[Sinister Intents]

Gracias señor Kaihatsu. I was thinking small scale for mine, but we do get a lot of imported materials. Specifically color hardeners; they're minerals mined from different parts of the world that we broadcast across the freshly lain and curing concrete to add it different colors or a specific color. Other things aren't easy to attain and are quite expensive, I expect under socialism they'll be easier to attain for people to utilize to make sidewalks and other concrete applications decorative or have a better appeal to the eyes for certain places.

[PhoenixAsh]

The problem with centralized economy is that it invariably requires an expanded bureaucracy divorced, by its very nature, from the working class and reality. Centralized planning will therefore invariably create a new "class" or "caste" which will direct the working class and will tell them what to produce, where, when and the quota in which it should be produced and essentially owns the means of production. It will also invariably raise the question: what if the workers can't or won't fill their quota's? We have seen this form of planning fail spectacularly and degenerate rapidly into a domination of workers and the recreation of a productionist work ethics.

[Sinister Intents]

The problem with centralized economy is that it invariably requires an expanded bureaucracy divorced, by its very nature, from the working class and reality. Centralized planning will therefore invariably create a new "class" or "caste" which will direct the working class and will tell them what to produce, where, when and the quota in which it should be produced and essentially owns the means of production. It will also invariably raise the question: what if the workers can't or won't fill their quota's? We have seen this form of planning fail spectacularly and degenerate rapidly into a domination of workers and the recreation of a productionist work ethics.

Then I'd assume that state with it's class system would crack down on the producing class, they'd further suppress them and oppress them, and thus the recreation of capitalism from what could have been socialism.

[bropasaran]

This is a strawman construction.

"Imposed communism" merely invokes the boogeyman of an unsuccessful revolution and its succession by a heavy-handed Stalinist state
To see that talking about imposed communism is not a strawman you just have to look at the responses to my message and the likes they got. Some people do advocate and support imposed communism.

Yes, I do think that imposed communism would be as bad as Stalinism (or possibly even worse), but I purposefully avoid comparing them, being that Stalinism, like any bolshevism, doesn't have anything to do with communism, imposed or not, to use the familiar term, it's state-capitalism (even though that term doesn't convey it's reactionaryness strongly enough).

[ckaihatsu]

Gracias señor Kaihatsu. I was thinking small scale for mine, but we do get a lot of imported materials. Specifically color hardeners; they're minerals mined from different parts of the world that we broadcast across the freshly lain and curing concrete to add it different colors or a specific color. Other things aren't easy to attain and are quite expensive, I expect under socialism they'll be easier to attain for people to utilize to make sidewalks and other concrete applications decorative or have a better appeal to the eyes for certain places.


Very good -- thanks for sharing, and for the enthusiasm, of course.

I'd say that this explanation bolsters my point about the pan-localist / global nature of contemporary production -- what does / would it take to coordinate with these other parts of the world, to procure the minerals for your enterprise -- ?

(If those who supply minerals from afar had the same strict localist mindset that you do, you would never receive those materials.)





The problem with centralized economy is that it invariably requires an expanded bureaucracy divorced, by its very nature, from the working class and reality.


No, this is a misconception and is not valid simply because someone asserts it.

I'll refer to Sinister Intents up there, to point out that the *administration* of things can certainly go hand-in-hand with the laboring on those things itself.





Centralized planning will therefore invariably create a new "class" or "caste" which will direct the working class and will tell them what to produce, where, when and the quota in which it should be produced and essentially owns the means of production.


No, not if it's fundamentally bottom-up.

(I'll also disabuse you and/or the reader of the conception of 'central planning' as necessarily having to be a tight-fitting, top-down, 'blueprint' approach.)





[There's] a common misperception that potential feasible post-capitalist approaches need to be beholden to the *historical*, Soviet-type approach -- basically, a 'blueprint', designed from the top-down, to encompass a grand plan that accounts for all social production.

While the very definition of socialistic cooperative social planning inherently *implies* centralization, this fact doesn't mean there can't be some 'wiggle room' along the way, as for realizing a truly 'bottom-up' process instead of a 'top-down' one.


---





It will also invariably raise the question: what if the workers can't or won't fill their quota's? We have seen this form of planning fail spectacularly and degenerate rapidly into a domination of workers and the recreation of a productionist work ethics.


If you're starting with the assumption that workers would be automatically dispossessed from control over their own (liberated) labor, then certainly you'll reach this conclusion here, that 'quotas' would be imposed from above, and that the whole approach would revert into workerist separatism.

This, however, doesn't have to be the case:





The checks-and-balances in a post-commodity world should be between mass-consumption / mass-demand, and liberated labor for mass-production. If the consumer society tends to value surgery (for example) so highly, it will wind up requiring more education, training, and practice, and will allow those fulfilling mass-demand to garner proportionately more labor credits for time worked, thereby conferring more labor-organizing power going forward, and thus more political ability in the society.

Society would have an interest *against* this, and would want to *automate* as many services and functions as possible so that it *wouldn't* create pockets of elitist power over itself. Lower-level-function roles, like janitor duties, could be dispensed with more-easily through automation than higher-level, decision-making, responsibility-type specialized positions.


(The 'labor credits' from this excerpt refers to the model at post #47.)





Then I'd assume that state with it's class system would crack down on the producing class, they'd further suppress them and oppress them, and thus the recreation of capitalism from what could have been socialism.


Yes, you're taking on a *pessimistic* attitude, which is simply contrarian to the task of revolution -- there's nothing revolutionary-progressive in saying that a revolution would be doomed to a caste-based authoritarianism for failing to get beyond a syndicalist separatism.

[ckaihatsu]

To see that talking about imposed communism is not a strawman you just have to look at the responses to my message and the likes they got. Some people do advocate and support imposed communism.


I think you're reading too much into that, and are perceiving a political position that simply doesn't exist.





Yes, I do think that imposed communism would be as bad as Stalinism (or possibly even worse), but I purposefully avoid comparing them, being that Stalinism, like any bolshevism, doesn't have anything to do with communism, imposed or not, to use the familiar term, it's state-capitalism (even though that term doesn't convey it's reactionaryness strongly enough).


Okay, well I don't see any arguments being made for an "imposed communism", as from above.

[PhoenixAsh]

Ok. I have my reservations about central planning, maybe that is because of the central planning advocated by Bolsheviks usually comes down to state imposed doctrine. So I am open to read more about your thoughts on the subject. I recognize by the way the need for trans regional coordination between workers.

[ComradeOm]

99% of the problems would be solved with an email send to the ones who produce what you need:

"hey mates....we need 20.000 chairs. Can you help us out? Also we got your email concerning bicycle bells and we will have them finished by the end of the month. We will organize shipping towards your locale with our neighbors who are very good truck drivers and they will organize the necessary boat trip with the harbour community up north.

Have a nice day"

Problem solved.

We don't need central bureaucracy to plan and then tell us what we must do and when to do it. We do it ourselves.Let me tell you how this would work in the real world. On receiving your mail, your friend at Chair Making Factory #17 would have to:

1) Check his existing production plan to see when there was a production slot coming up
2) Calculate how much capacity was available in that slot and whether the plant could meet it (maybe they could produce a thousand chairs a month)
3) Check with other chair production plants across the region to see if production could be split, if needed
4) Prioritise the need for 20,000 chairs against other, existing, orders
5) Order enough wood, nails and varnish to complete the order. Organise logistics and train up new carpenters, if needed
6) Take all the above to create a new production plan that will give you your chairs
7) Repeat this process for every other facility/provider affected by the request (eg lumber providers, ironworks, hauliers etc)

Your simple email request would spark a whole chain of activity that would ripple through the supply chain, creating work and disrupting schedules. (That's if your request went to the right person in the first place, of course.)

A more sensible approach would be for you to submit a forecast of your predicted demand for chairs to the regional Chairs Trust on a regular basis (say, every quarter). The Trust then has a full view of the upcoming demand for chairs across Region A. It can then order the required raw materials for all jobs before allocating both work and materials to the various chair making facilities in Region A. That is, according to a plan.

Planning happens. It's absolutely inherent in the production of items. The difference between the two scenarios is that the second facilitates, rather than hinders, shop floor planning. By stepping up a level from the enterprise you avoid the duplication of work and pinging of mails around (as your friend tries to track down capacity and materials), benefit from economies of scale and you create a much more equitable system (as order conflicts are not solved by who's friends with who or your ability to provide a more valuable commodity than another locality).

Frankly, if that offends some anarchist unwillingness to follow orders then tough. Welcome to a world in which chairs can't be conjured up at whim.

[ckaihatsu]

Ok. I have my reservations about central planning, maybe that is because of the central planning advocated by Bolsheviks usually comes down to state imposed doctrine. So I am open to read more about your thoughts on the subject.


All I have to say on it is that the future isn't here yet, and that we're not beholden to do things the way they were done in the past.





I recognize by the way the need for trans regional coordination between workers.


Okay.

[PhoenixAsh]

Let me tell you how this would work in the real world. On receiving your mail, your friend at Chair Making Factory #17 would have to:

1) Check his existing production plan to see when there was a production slot coming up
2) Calculate how much capacity was available in that slot and whether the plant could meet it (maybe they could produce a thousand chairs a month)
3) Check with other chair production plants across the region to see if production could be split, if needed
4) Prioritise the need for 20,000 chairs against other, existing, orders
5) Order enough wood, nails and varnish to complete the order. Organise logistics and train up new carpenters, if needed
6) Take all the above to create a new production plan that will give you your chairs
7) Repeat this process for every other facility/provider affected by the request (eg lumber providers, ironworks, hauliers etc)

Your simple email request would spark a whole chain of activity that would ripple through the supply chain, creating work and disrupting schedules. (That's if your request went to the right person in the first place, of course.)

A more sensible approach would be for you to submit a forecast of your predicted demand for chairs to the regional Chairs Trust on a regular basis (say, every quarter). The Trust then has a full view of the upcoming demand for chairs across Region A. It can then order the required raw materials for all jobs before allocating both work and materials to the various chair making facilities in Region A. That is, according to a plan.

Note your use of the word: regional. And not Global. Which was the driving argument in this thread.

Most companies have a department/staff allocation for dealing with planning and resource gathering. I have yet to meet a company which did not in some way or another have this set up. Nor have I met a company which does not know its production capacity or resource limitation (at least...not one which lasted for a long time). So a simple reply would be: we can't fill your order entirely. We can manage 200 of these chairs. Which would require me to find different chairs somewhere else.

But your point is of course semi valid. And I don't particularly care if the email goes to the factory directly or to the regional council. So long as it is regional and worker controlled and not controlled by the state.


Planning happens. It's absolutely inherent in the production of items. The difference between the two scenarios is that the second facilitates, rather than hinders, shop floor planning.

So basically the order process we have now hinders shop floor planning? I hardly thinks so.


By stepping up a level from the enterprise you avoid the duplication of work and pinging of mails around (as your friend tries to track down capacity and materials), benefit from economies of scale and you create a much more equitable system (as order conflicts are not solved by who's friends with who or your ability to provide a more valuable commodity than another locality).

The email is not based on friendship and patronage. It is based on the example of how an order is being made. If it would have read better is I simply stated:

Amsterdam needs 20.000 chairs.

Then read it like that.


Currently when I need something...I send an email. I get a reply. Somehow the argument that in socialism companies and factories suddenly do not know exactly what material or production capacity they have is slightly worrying.

Usually the reply entails:

We have the capacity: yes/no
What is the expected fulfillment rate.
When do you need the items?
What specifications do they have?

....and in capitalism:

this is what it costs.
how are you going to pay for that?

I can then find another company. Or I can split the order. Or the company is both able and willing to fulfill the order. Or I can adjust my time table for fulfillment.



Frankly, if that offends some anarchist unwillingness to follow orders then tough. Welcome to a world in which chairs can't be conjured up at whim.

And what would you do if workers do not fulfill the orders?

[bropasaran]

I think you're reading too much into that, and are perceiving a political position that simply doesn't exist.
I have given a clear and simple point that if communism is imposed, the craftsmen about whom the OP is, and people like them, could only function inside the common plan of the economy, but that if anarcho-communism is established, they would be able to either do that, or they could dissent and function independtly or in coops, always on condition that they don't oppress or exploit anyone. Couple of people laughed away the notion that dissent should be alowed in a communist society and they got support from other people liking their posts, and apparently from you. Therefore, the position of supporting imposed communism obviously exists.

[ckaihatsu]

I have given a clear and simple point that if communism is imposed,


I'm not arguing for a top-down imposed communism, and neither are you. So let's just *not* do it, then.





the craftsmen about whom the OP is, and people like them, could only function inside the common plan of the economy, but that if anarcho-communism is established, they would be able to either do that, or they could dissent and function independtly or in coops, always on condition that they don't oppress or exploit anyone.


I'll maintain that any 'common plan of the economy', if developed in a bottom-up way, would only be as good as the priority for it that is mass-perceived and mass-conferred on it:





OK; as I said with the somewhat contrived notion of having to fulfil a large order of chairs... if there's some sort of crisis then of course people might have to give up doing 'hobby' work for a bit in order to pitch in and help get things sorted.





That's all I'm really saying -- everything's a matter of priorities, so in the interval directly after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie there would be an urgency for finally supplying all of humanity with whatever's lacking, but not on a slow, artisanal schedule.


---


It really seems like you're touting your 'anarcho-communism' as a *loophole* since you're uncertain that there *could* be a worldwide consensus on what needs to be prioritized and immediately attended-to.





Couple of people laughed away the notion that dissent should be alowed in a communist society and they got support from other people liking their posts, and apparently from you. Therefore, the position of supporting imposed communism obviously exists.


You'll have to point out those instances, then.

[ComradeOm]

Note your use of the word: regional. And not Global. Which was the driving argument in this thread.Which is then a strawman. No planner has ever seriously suggested a single global plan that operated on a commodity level. Even the USSR didn't function in that way. High-level plans would of course be aggregate and intended solely to provide broad prioritisation guidance to the more detailed regional/sector plans.

But the key point is that you are submitting your request to a planning authority. That is, the individual request has either gone to the Amsterdam Workers' Council (which has compiled a forecast for sending to the Chair Trust) or directly to the Chair Trust itself*. Either way, at some point the orders are prioritised and allocated in a planning exercise. If we take the former example, then you're essentially talking about a national plan for the Netherlands.

*Depending on whether the economic units are organised geographically or by sector.


The email is not based on friendship and patronage.It is in the absence of planning. The producer needs some way of prioritising conflicting orders. In capitalism this is largely accomplished via market mechanisms.

In your example, ie removing the market without substituting a coordinating plan, there is no such criteria. The closest you get is that Chair Making Factory #17 gets bicycle bells in return. But what if it doesn't need bicycle bells as much as it needs waffles, which the Brussels Workers' Council is willing to provide? Then Brussels gets its chairs before Amsterdam. Which is essentially a market economy reliant on barter.

If we remove even this vestige of the market then we have absolutely no prioritisation criteria. Then it comes comes to blat, personal connections. To avoid this you have to give the producer - be it the Chair Trust or Chair Making Factory #17 - some credible way of assigning order priorities. The only non-market way to do that is by referring to a higher plan.


Currently when I need something...I send an email. I get a reply. Somehow the argument that in socialism companies and factories suddenly do not know exactly what material or production capacity they have is slightly worrying.

Usually the reply entails:

We have the capacity: yes/no
What is the expected fulfillment rate.
When do you need the items?
What specifications do they have?

....and in capitalism:

this is what it costs.
how are you going to pay for that?

I can then find another company. Or I can split the order. Or the company is both able and willing to fulfill the order. Or I can adjust my time table for fulfillment.But let's step back a minute (because I think I've addressed the necessities above). Why should you have to do any of this? Why would another enterprise talk to another enterprise at all?

Surely it would be much easier to submit your forecasts and orders to a central point (be it regional or sector) and let them plan it? No need for you to split orders or evaluate suppliers. Provide your requirements to the Chair Trust and let them get on with the whole allocation of orders. It's the basic efficiencies and economies of scale that you get from a planned economy.


And what would you do if workers do not fulfill the orders?Why on earth would they not? If somebody doesn't want to make chairs then they shouldn't be working in a chair factory.

[PhoenixAsh]

Which is then a strawman. No planner has ever seriously suggested a single global plan that operated on a commodity level. Even the USSR didn't function in that way. High-level plans would of course be aggregate and intended solely to provide broad prioritisation guidance to the more detailed regional/sector plans.

Well...read post 25 and on from VW.



But the key point is that you are submitting your request to a planning authority. That is, the individual request has either gone to the Amsterdam Workers' Council (which has compiled a forecast for sending to the Chair Trust) or directly to the Chair Trust itself*. Either way, at some point the orders are prioritised and allocated in a planning exercise. If we take the former example, then you're essentially talking about a national plan for the Netherlands.

*Depending on whether the economic units are organised geographically or by sector.

It is in the absence of planning. The producer needs some way of prioritising conflicting orders. In capitalism this is largely accomplished via market mechanisms.



I'll express my concerns/reservations by answering your last point here


Why on earth would they not? If somebody doesn't want to make chairs then they shouldn't be working in a chair factory.

This entirely depends on the relationship to the central planning and the actual political involvement workers have in running their own workplace. If this is an abstract bureaucratic entity that makes plans based on abstract economic and statistical principles and less on the reality in the work space that has to make them this may create a burden on workers and instead of free arrangement of labor we end up with a dictate to work....in other words: it becomes an obligation to work in order to meet quota. This depends heavily on the planning being state run or workers council run.

There are examples one could mention or think up in which it is entirely possible for workers not to want to fulfill a quota of assigned work. One may be the increase of work load because quota need to be met or because increased sick rates. Lets not get into specifics too much.

Your argument however is interesting and I don't have an answer against it. Obviously there needs to be some prioritization.



In your example, ie removing the market without substituting a coordinating plan, there is no such criteria. The closest you get is that Chair Making Factory #17 gets bicycle bells in return. But what if it doesn't need bicycle bells as much as it needs waffles, which the Brussels Workers' Council is willing to provide? Then Brussels gets its chairs before Amsterdam. Which is essentially a market economy reliant on barter.

If we remove even this vestige of the market then we have absolutely no prioritisation criteria. Then it comes comes to blat, personal connections. To avoid this you have to give the producer - be it the Chair Trust or Chair Making Factory #17 - some credible way of assigning order priorities. The only non-market way to do that is by referring to a higher plan.

Where I am kind of weary is when everything is planned it needs a huge bureaucracy to oversee what is happening. Bureaucracies are inherently detached from the working class. Given the bureaucratic levels of some organisations and the inefficiency they cause (even up to a point that the bureaucracy in a 500 employee company doesn't really know what is going on the work floor not ten meters removed from their offices nor is it able to process the information about rostering on a timely basis [/irl frustration :)] ) it is hard to see how this is managed by and accountable to the working class itself and how these organisations, if further removed from the actual work place, can effectively coordinate the economic productivity.

That said...you do have a very valid point about the continuation of a barter system if there is no other means of prioritization.


But let's step back a minute (because I think I've addressed the necessities above). Why should you have to do any of this? Why would another enterprise talk to another enterprise at all?

Surely it would be much easier to submit your forecasts and orders to a central point (be it regional or sector) and let them plan it? No need for you to split orders or evaluate suppliers. Provide your requirements to the Chair Trust and let them get on with the whole allocation of orders. It's the basic efficiencies and economies of scale that you get from a planned economy.

Mostly what I addressed above. I am not really believing in expanded bureaucracies. If that can be solved and if the organizations are managed by the workers and accountable to them...then in that case I don't see a reason for arguing against planning.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Which is then a strawman. No planner has ever seriously suggested a single global plan that operated on a commodity level. Even the USSR didn't function in that way. High-level plans would of course be aggregate and intended solely to provide broad prioritisation guidance to the more detailed regional/sector plans.

That's an odd thing to say. Planners, in their function as planners, were focused on the immediate tasks of the (partially!) planned economies, which functioned on a national or at most federate level. (Nonetheless there were ideas, ultimately discarded due to the influence of the bureaucracy, for greater integration of the COMECON states, for example.)

But Trotsky, for example, who co-authored the first economic plan in Soviet history, clearly fought for a global planned economy, as did Preobrazhensky, as do most Trotskyist groups today.

I don't see why a global plan on a commodity level (commodity here meaning "chair", not "model 7 chair of the Izhevsk Wood Products Factory 19") is impossible. The prerequisites seem to be here already - advances in communications technology that allow for nearly-instantaneous communication across the globe, efficient algorithms for dealing with sparse matrices etc.

[ComradeOm]

I don't see why a global plan on a commodity level (commodity here meaning "chair", not "model 7 chair of the Izhevsk Wood Products Factory 19") is impossible. The prerequisites seem to be here already - advances in communications technology that allow for nearly-instantaneous communication across the globe, efficient algorithms for dealing with sparse matrices etc.Yeah, no. You're drastically underestimating the difficulties in scaling individual commodity categories up to a global level. Multinational enterprises already struggle massively to cope with the computational challenges needed to coordinate information across a few countries (I've yet to see a happy ERP implementation); trying to put together a completely global system in which the SKUs are as detailed as 'chair' would be an IT nightmare. Even then, plans take time to prepare, validate and discuss. The mind boggles at the amount of effort needed for a global plan that was as detailed as 'chair'.

It would also be entirely unnecessary. Outside of a few key commodities (oil spring to mind) there's no need for most items to be coordinated at the highest level. Some Supreme Global Economic Council isn't going to be passing production orders down to individual enterprises or regions. Its role should simply be to identify investment priorities at a very high aggregate level; providing this so that the lower bodies, which are closer to the demand and production, can get on with the detailed planning.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yeah, no. You're drastically underestimating the difficulties in scaling individual commodity categories up to a global level. Multinational enterprises already struggle massively to cope with the computational challenges needed to coordinate information across a few countries (I've yet to see a happy ERP implementation); trying to put together a completely global system in which the SKUs are as detailed as 'chair' would be an IT nightmare. Even then, plans take time to prepare, validate and discuss. The mind boggles at the amount of effort needed for a global plan that was as detailed as 'chair'.

It would also be entirely unnecessary. Outside of a few key commodities (oil spring to mind) there's no need for most items to be coordinated at the highest level. Some Supreme Global Economic Council isn't going to be passing production orders down to individual enterprises or regions. Its role should simply be to identify investment priorities at a very high aggregate level; providing this so that the lower bodies, which are closer to the demand and production, can get on with the detailed planning.

ERP systems function in a market economy; in a socialised economy, more than half of the items that are usually considered in ERP models would not exist (including incidentally investment, unless you're using the term in an extremely odd manner).

What would remain is a model of the production and movement of material goods, which is by no means an easy problem, but is less daunting than the financially-driven ERP models.

And of course plans take time to prepare and discuss - I don't see that as a weakness but as a strength. The anarchy of the market is replaced by the conscious planning of production.

What I find odd is that you recognise the problem with inter-enterprise negotiations, yet want to organise the economy on the principle of inter-regional negotiations. Because obviously no region can attain autarchy; even if we consider a type of good that is present everywhere, food, the workers in one region will demand kinds of foods that are not present in the region and whose introduction would be stupid (cocoa - or indeed coca - in the Pannonian plain). And conversely, workers in other regions will also demand Pannonian wheat. So either the movement of goods from the Pannonian Labour Commune to the Guangxi Labour Commune is planned, or depends on direct negotiations between the two communes. With all of the problems you have listed.

(Not to mention that the division of the world into economic regions is itself no mean task, and the most "natural" regions depend on the economic sector under consideration. From the standpoint of agriculture, most of the Pannonian plain is one region. From the standpoint of industry it makes more sense to plan the production in the oil fields of Slavonia together with the heavy industry in Bosnia etc.)

[ckaihatsu]

(Not to mention that the division of the world into economic regions is itself no mean task, and the most "natural" regions depend on the economic sector under consideration. From the standpoint of agriculture, most of the Pannonian plain is one region. From the standpoint of industry it makes more sense to plan the production in the oil fields of Slavonia together with the heavy industry in Bosnia etc.)


I'll suggest that -- reproducing some of the text from the graphic at post #38 -- what would be at-issue is to map out the productive and consumptive 'terrain' at various scales of operation:





[Tiers are:]

[1] entity / household, [2] local, [3] regional, [4] continental, and [5] global. (Picture a "pyramid" of four flat platforms on the ground, narrowing towards the apex, each supporting the one below.)

For any given tier there should be as much definition and qualitative / quantitative formalization as possible over regular, routine inputs and outputs. But, at the same time, it would be crucial to initially eliminate any remaining issues of boundaries / turf / jurisdiction / responsibility, as much as possible. Once done any resulting overlap of "zones" of production or consumption at any given tier should be *allowed* and *not* fastidiously, abstractly "zoned away" in the formalistic, top-down manner we're usually used to seeing.

Any emergent overlap between any two zones could go by a slightly different processing method than the clear-cut, no-ambiguity areas covered by one single zone alone. (I'll return to this in a moment.)

A *single*-zone area would, by definition, indicate that the avenues of production outward and/or consumption inward, for major industrial production and/or well-established mass consumption, would be very clear-cut and apparent for anyone to see and verify.

Perhaps a particular area only does logging, for example, and is geographically well-situated for such. There might *not* be any overlap with any nearby adjacent area for the production of logging. Thus that area could be readily defined and categorized according to its geography (and productive output) as a specific *productive* zone at a specific tier.

Or, conversely, perhaps a certain area is decidedly urban in composition and so has a fixed population size with well-known routine patterns of consumption. It would be categorized as a single distinct zone for all considerations of *consumption*.

In the case where there's the least bit of ambiguity or possible overlap or interference from nearby well-defined zones, the ambiguous area should be categorized as an 'overlap zone' of those two adjacent neighboring zones. (In the context of the U.S. this could be illustrated as overlapping zip codes.)

[...]

[0zgurluk]

Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.


____________________________________

http://postimage.us/images/images.jpg

[ckaihatsu]

[T]he key point is that you are submitting your request to a planning authority. That is, the individual request has either gone to the Amsterdam Workers' Council (which has compiled a forecast for sending to the Chair Trust) or directly to the Chair Trust itself*. Either way, at some point the orders are prioritised and allocated in a planning exercise. If we take the former example, then you're essentially talking about a national plan for the Netherlands.

*Depending on whether the economic units are organised geographically or by sector.

It is in the absence of planning. The producer needs some way of prioritising conflicting orders. In capitalism this is largely accomplished via market mechanisms.


I think we can do better than this, ComradeOm -- it's this very kind of fixed 'planning authority' conception that tends to make people nervous, since it indicates a *separation* between the formal roles of any liberated-labor-based production, and that of a co-administration over combined production.

And, these days especially, there's no reason to *specialize* the role of a 'planning authority' when such could simply be *emergent* from the publicly viewable cumulative prioritized mass demands of a particular area or areas.

There would be a "synapse" between expressed mass demands -- the 'what' -- and the process of liberated labor self-coordination to address those mass-prioritized demands -- the 'how'.

Here are excerpts from a framework I developed:





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




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




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

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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[Tim Cornelis]

Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.


Yes, I think so. I suspect that 'what' will be decided at a macro-level and 'how' will be decided at a micro-level. Otherwise, I can't really see the difference with what we have now.


I don't know a whole lot about economics but I believe the Austrian School has something to do with wearing a bow-tie


I don't know a whole lot about economics but I believe the Austrian School has something to do with wearing a bow-tie


Its kinda like that quote by nixon."When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
In this case it's "When the government does it is not illegal."


Its kinda like that quote by nixon."When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
In this case it's "When the government does it is not illegal."


That's some odd plagiarism we've got here.

Are you sure you're not just inflating your post count so you can start "trolling" at some point? Because I can assure you no one gives a shit about 'trolling' and we get into flame wars regardless of trolls, so don't bother wasting your time.

The trick is to paraphrase posts and not just copy them, so it looks like you yourself have an opinion so you can front like a genuine revolutionary leftist.

[lokishelm]

I work in the electrical field and i have to say there isnt always work to be had. I cant say them same for carpenters or other trades, but to me it would make sense to ha e another trade. I currently only have the one trade because school = money but would love to branch out. Thats just my thought.