The problem of wages for a newcomer.

[Red Star Rising]

NOTE: I am a total newcomer here, so please forgive me if I seem ignorant, stupid or naive in the following post.

Greetings comrades, I (like everyone here) have come to identify myself as a Communist or Socialist or whatever people want to call it (many capitalists seem to think that the words are interchangeable). And one of the biggest questions that comes up in my mind is how reward for labour would work in an advanced Communist society - a question I am often asked is how people could regulate trade/reward in a society without money (this usually follows the typical "how can a doctor get the same payment as a janitor" argument). I normally just have to respond with "I don't really know" - I can't possibly understand how a very advanced society could organise itself after a major change in human behaviour arising decades or centuries (depending on who you ask) from now.

I'm not asking about the Communist stance on wages themselves, just on how a substitute would work in a moneyless system. I have seen lots of responses from Communists here and I thought I might as well share my thoughts to see what the more experienced and well-versed users have to say on the matter.

I've been thinking about this lately and have concluded (probably incorrectly but bear with me) that "wages" and trade for labour cannot be represented by anything with a physical form or it would just become a substitute for currency. This is why I'm not convinced by the "labour token" possibility. Perhaps if all "money" were digital and untradeable, and represented purely the value of your labour, then material things that you want/need can pooled in a big online "market" (please forgive my lack of appropriate terminology) and then exchanged for digital labour tokens which cease to exist after a transaction.

The internet allows humans to connect and organise themselves in a unique way unforeseeable by Marx, and I think that it could be a massive part of a Communist society. Also, it is not capable of thievery or corruption.

The problem of course arises that this requires everybody to have access to the internet, but I'm sure there's a solution - maybe free-to-use internet cafes which are connected only to the economic network?

If any users wiser than I have a better idea of how to organise the trade/distribution of material goods in a Communist system, please share your ideas. Thank you for reading :hammersickle:

[Decolonize The Left]

In short, communism involves the end to the divorce of the human animal from their labor. It is the return of labor to the human animal, a 'making-whole' of sorts, and this act in itself involves a transformative process to the entire economy as a result.

We, under capitalism, view the economy as goods and services being traded; i.e. commodity markets. This would cease to exist under communism. Under communism, "commodity" is a meaningless term. "Market" is a meaningless term. These terms are dependent upon the fundamental abstraction under capitalism: the commodification of human labor. This fundamental abstraction is the essence of capitalism, is the basis of the system's logic, and with its demise comes a new question: what does our labor mean? Only now, we, as the working class, get to answer that question.

Even shorter, we don't know what the economy would look like under communism. The point isn't 'what would it look like' (abstract, theoretical ball-scratching), the point is 'why this situation is totally fucked and what are we going to do about it' (real talk).

[ckaihatsu]

I've been thinking about this lately and have concluded (probably incorrectly but bear with me) that "wages" and trade for labour cannot be represented by anything with a physical form or it would just become a substitute for currency. This is why I'm not convinced by the "labour token" possibility. Perhaps if all "money" were digital and untradeable, and represented purely the value of your labour, then material things that you want/need can pooled in a big online "market" (please forgive my lack of appropriate terminology) and then exchanged for digital labour tokens which cease to exist after a transaction.


This same topic is also being discussed at this thread:


In communism does everyone can get anything for free without having to work?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/communism-does-everyone-t189639/index.html


I agree that the 'labor tokens' premise is unworkable, because any exchangeability for material items is effectively *commodification*.





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

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


On the other hand, 'tokens' or 'points', or anything similar, is basically the same as the conventional 'labor vouchers' model:





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/)

[exeexe]

Alexander Berkman wrote a short book called what is communist anarchism. It explains all there is to it.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism.pdf

Also the only thing the internet changes is that you can download things for free. You still have to transport physical items over distances and you still have to attend meetings physically. :)

[Red Star Rising]

Also the only thing the internet changes is that you can download things for free. You still have to transport physical items over distances and you still have to attend meetings physically. :)

Yes but purchases could arguably be made completely digitally and any labour token would cease to exist afterword, and they would be hardcoded to be untradable so could not be treated as a commodity in its own right like physical money. Some kind of delivery service would have to be in place, but that too would be paid digitally for physical work.

Of course the internet does not replace everything, it would just allow for more decentralization and a less commodity-based money system IMO.